Cheese Trouble

The parmesan gave me trouble.  It didn't make a nice curd in the normal time, it matted a lot during cooking, and then it didn't hold together well during pressing.  I finally looked up curd problems, thought back to what I had done, and realized I put in too much starter and too little rennet.  In the last pressing, it finally mushed together and it looks nice.  Today it sits in salt water (brine) and tomorrow it begins its 10 month aging.  Maybe next time I'll follow directions better.

We added a little milk to the whey (the left over liquid from the cheese) and made ricotta.  I think of this as the normal way to make ricotta — heat whey up to 200F, add a little vinegar, strain, and hang to drip (I slip in a cube of "fresh" starter for flavor).  My husband set up a hook on the pantry ceiling and it makes it so easy to hang things, with food buckets underneath to bring the bowl up higher.  This ricotta is creamy and rich.  I can just eat it straight.

I've had a busy morning — hung the fromage blanc that I started last night, boiled brine, got the parmesan in the brine, skimmed cream and poured milk for the day, made bread, made chocolate sauce for hot chocolate or chocolate milk, and churned butter.  When I tell this stuff to people they look at me like I'm crazy and must be about to collapse.  I keep expecting to feel overwhelmed, but instead it feels invigorating, like the afterglow of a good workout.

It's our third time making butter and we're finally remembering how to do it.  We were stopping the churn before it was in big clumps and it needed a lot of kneading.  This time, we went until the churn wouldn't move, the chunks were so big.  A few quick kneads, working some salt in, and we had a beautiful glob of butter.

A half-gallon of cream gave us this mass of butter that looks like about a pound to me.

This morning, after a fast milk filtering, we are declaring a preliminary victory over Christina's mastitis. It had been getting better, no clots and faster filtering, but it was still hanging on.  Yesterday we added an extra milking in the afternoon and it seems to have done the job.  We have milked that mastitis right out of our cow!

Having a cow takes lots of time — milking and all this time making dairy stuff.  Is it worth it?  I sat down and figured it out — whole Jersey milk is about 170 calories per cup (higher than Holstein milk because it has more butterfat and protein), we're getting about 3.5 gallons per day, and there are seven of us — Christina is giving each of us about 1300 calories every day.  That's more than half we need!  Add in the meat from the calves she has every year, and a cow has been the biggest step toward feeding ourselves that we've taken in this urban homesteading adventure.

Tonight at sundown Advent begins.  We start our four week journey in preparation for Christmas, the incarnation of God among us.  My advent discipline will the same as most years — working for presence, because that's where God is most fully, in the present moment, not in my memories of the past or my plans for the future.  I come back to this disciple each season because I still have so much to learn from it.  May your preparation for meeting God face-to-face make your ready for the fullness the joy has to offer.