The Big Cheese

There has been talk of dairy goats around the homestead, and if one has dairy goats, one has goat milk (duh) that needs to be dealt with. The Big Guy, encouraged by his mad bread making skillz, decided that he needed to learn how to make cheese so that when the goats arrived, he'd be ready for them.

One day I discovered the refrigerator stuffed full of gallons of whole milk and half gallons of buttermilk. The smell of freshly cut wood wafted in from the garage. Strange little packages arrived containing exotic ingredients like rennet and mesophilic culture. His pored over his new cheese-making book, occasionally blurting out the name of a cheese he was eager to make.

I like cheese, so at first, I was encouraging and tolerant of not being able to put anything in the fridge. Then I learned his first project was to be "harzer kaese," or German sour milk cheese. Or, as I like to call it, "What the hell stinks?"

Here we see some milk being heated. I think this was for the stinky cheese, but I don't really know what's going on in the cheese biz, so it could've been for another type.

This shows the curd cut. I think that's what he called it. It's the part where the whey gets separated from the curd.

The Big Cheese. He looks so happy here because I told him, "Stick out your chin!" He's not a very cooperative subject, so instead he pursed his lips and kept his chin right where it was.

The curd is draining. Hungry yet?

The $20 homemade cheese press. The cheese-to-be is in that white cylinder. The milk jug is filled with water, and it holds down the press that squeezes the cheese. The liquid runs off the tin foil chute into the pie plate that's set inside the top drawer of the kitchen island. It's fancy.

Here he is painting the wax on a gouda. Gouda cheese I might eat.

Ready to age. I made the label.

Cheeses on the drying rack. I think it's bamboo. So much new stuff kept showing up, I lost track. The big round is Havarti, the smaller ones are stinkies. These get moved into a plastic tub in the garage where The Big Cheese monitors the temperature and humidity levels.

He says these are the last of the cheeses for now because soon the weather will be warmer, and he'll have no way to keep them as cool as they need to be. Also, we don't have goats yet.

From Brot to Brioche

It all began with The Big Guy's quest for good German rye bread. His folks would occasionally bring some from the German store, but he decided that it was something that needed to be more readily available. His eventual success with that is chronicled here. For Christmas, his mom gave him a River Cottage bread cookbook, and things escalated.

The bread maker at Sourdough Gap before he succumbed fully to Bread Fever.

Trips to the natural market became necessary for some ingredients.

A sourdough starter bubbling away. These have become a fixture on my kitchen counters. I still think of them as my counters, although that makes them my crumbs, so I'm learning to let go.

This kitschy terra cotta bread pan was spotted by one of his coworkers at a garage sale. I like the farm animals on it ('specially that chicken!)

Today was a particularly productive baking day for The Big Breadman Guy. Rye, pumpernickel, and sourdough. The rye was a bit too dense this time, so it's been cubed for chicken feed, although I'm now thinking croutons might be good.

He has begun to explore his more creative side with the textures and patterns.

Besides the increase in counter-crumbs, the only real downside for me is that I do not like the sorts of breads he favors. Or maybe that's an upside -- more for him, less of me.

Be that as it may, even when you don't care for a particular kind of bread, it all smells outrageous when it's baking, and after whiffing fresh-baked goodness week after week, the little glutton in me wanted some bread. Bread. Now.

And so I convinced him to make some brioche. Enough of this heavy, stodgy German bread, I said. Use those beautiful eggs our chickens gave you, and give the French their due, I insisted.

Merci.

Putting In A Good Curd

Question: What do you do when you have lots of fresh eggs and a bag of lemons that is going to go bad if you don't do something soon. Answer: Make lemon curd!

That's not the only answer possible, but trust me, it's the only one you need to know.

If you zoom in on this picture, you can read the recipe. You're welcome!

It is time-consuming to squeeze all those lemons. Then you have to stir it constantly for about 20 minutes, no cheating. At least it smells wonderful while you stand over the steamy pan.

Once it's cooled, it can rightfully be called curd. "Curd" doesn't sound like something very palatable does it? Do not be put off! This is the sweetest, most sour pudding-stuff you'll ever sample. You could eat it like pudding, too, but don't. There are more delicious ways to use it.

Fresh lemon-filled ginger scones, for example.

Ooooooo.

Or these tiny tarts.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Prunus domesticus

The Italian Prune. Of course, I know prunes don't grow on trees, plums do, but this tree -- our tree -- is an Italian Prune tree. I've seen it called the Italian Prune Plum, but that's even worse somehow, so picky-pants like me just have to learn to call these plums "prunes" and get on with life. Last year our tree didn't give us one fruit, but this year I pulled 17 lbs. of prunes off that baby. As a side note, it's not easy to maneuver the ladder around the prune tree while avoiding hitting the chickens and also not getting a stick in the eye. I am happy to report all the chickens and both my corneas are just fine.

Ever since I knew our prune harvest would be good, I have been waiting to can some plum sauce. Plum sauce is not called prune sauce no matter which variety of fruit you use. I don't know who makes these consarn rules.

Added to my excitement was the fact that our peppers were going crazy in the Hawthouse, and the recipe calls for peppers. It also calls for onions, and I could have used our own, but I needed to use up some from the pantry first. I have never had any luck with peppers before, so given the crummy outdoor season, these jalapenos have been fun to grow.

8 lbs. of the prunes went into the sauce for 20 half-pints. It didn't come out quite as thick as I thought it would, but it is very tasty, and it's going to be great on future pork roasts or chicken. Or anything, really. The other 9 lbs. were divvied up for freezing.

Three of those 9 lbs. didn't make it to the freezer. Instead they became Wonderful Plum Crunch.

Yes I Can, Can, Can

It has not been the best year in the garden, but we have tried to do the most with the least. There were more peaches this year than last, and we knew from experience to pick them just slightly under-ripe for canning.

Zuzu knew that hanging around the bucket would increase the chances of maybe getting a peach. My first year of canning last year made me a smarter canner this year, and I learned it's OK to do things in stages to avoid the insidious canner burnout. The peaches were blanched, peeled, sliced, and left to soak in the no-brown-em overnight. Believe me, that's a lot of work in itself. Zuzu watched the whole thing and can vouch for me.

Soaking peaches, fresh dill, prepared beets, and sliced cucumbers were all ready to take their turns in the canner the next day.

In succession, spicy dill pickle chips, dill pickle spears, pickled beets, and peaches.

It's a good thing I plant a short-season variety of corn because a short season is exactly what we got. It was evident that the corn was as good as it was going to get, so we pulled it all, and I prepared it for pressure canning. If I say next year that I am going to can corn, you'll know I'm very, very sick and need help. Blanching corn and stripping it from the cob is a special kind of kitchen torture. The only reason I subjected myself to it is because I was not, after all the work of growing the starts in the greenhouse and putting over 100 of them in the garden, going to just throw it all to the chickens. (although it is nice to know that nothing will ever go to waste.)

I combined it with some of our carrots and the bush beans to make some nice mixed veggie jars. I think canning must be like childbirth. Once you see the pretty jars all lined up, you forget the pain of it all. But I think I'm done having corn.

Landbrot, The Third

By Jove, I think he's got it!

Rye Brot, Take II

Yesterday, The Big Guy baked more German rye bread. This time he made the full recipe for the big loaf. This is how it turned out.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Nice form, good consistency. Now if only he hadn't doubled the amount of salt when he un-halved his recipe, it would taste pretty good, too! Cut him some slack, he's new here.