A little late night Cheese Making...

Yes, it's true... while the cat's away, the mice will play BUT...
While the cat's asleep... the mice will make cheese!!!!

This weekend while Honeypie slept the night away...
my husband decided to play with his christmas gift... a cheese press!!!
It was our first time undertaking cheese making and we had so much fun!
I was  "assistant",  as  husband undertook the world of live cultures and its mathematical proportions...
not as complicated as it sounds ... just alot of temperature watching and babysitting milk...
It worked out fantastic and super easy.

We used the books...

-Making great cheese by Barbara Ciletti
-Cheese making made easy by Ricki Carrol

and the recipe for parmesan and ricotta we used, was from the book
-Making artisan cheese by Tim Smith

We unfortunally had to cross-reference all three books ... being that the "making artisan cheese" book was not too clear in its instructions...

The cheese press and supplies we bought
from The New England Cheese company.

We decided on making a parmesan cheese first which calls for only the curds of the milk.
What is left after heating and culture using, is a whole lot of milk whey... so we used the whey to make a fresh ricotta cheese.
And with what was left of the whey ... we froze to add to power smoothies!

Getting ready to start...

Cutting the curds after heating...

Reheating the curds...

Draining the curds into cheese cloth...

Pressing the cheese curds...

Unveiling!  Looks and smells wonderful!

And now for the aging... It will sit in a dark place for 10 months!

The left over whey gets heated for ricotta...

The curds after adding vinegar...

draining...

The wonderful results...

Honeypie cuts the curds...

She adds some walnuts and a drizzle of honey to the ricotta ...

delicious!!!

I add a little salt and a bit of fresh dill...

or...

some bananas, blueberries and a drizzle of honey!

next week?

Daddy takes on our dear Manchego and maybe a little aged Gouda...

mmmmmmm!