Move Along Folks... Nothing to See Here

You can't really see three of the four cheeses from Penny's fall freshening, but you can imagine the deliciousness underneath that red cheese wax. The hard cheeses are being born about a week apart it seems. There are two Farmhouse Cheddars, a Parmesan, and a Romano. I ended up feeding a Manchego to the pigs because I had messed up so much of its timing while it was being made that the curds just wouldn't stick together. That fiasco was a direct result of muscle relaxers. Normally cheese mess-ups work out fine, sometimes even to my advantage.

As you can see, each cheese gets a cat scan before its wax coating.

I use raw milk, so to be perfectly safe from bad microbes, we wait at least two months to eat any of the hard cheeses.

There's a particularly lopsided Parmesan this time. That happened because I put the cheese mold in a five-gallon bucket, a dinner plate on top, with weights to press it. The plate tipped overnight and this cheese will have a variety of tastes within the different edges when it's ripe.

Lopsided cheese will be a thing of the past, however, after I ordered my handy-dandy professional cheese press from New England Cheesemaking!
I also ordered black wax and pure beeswax so Penny's cheeses will have a little variety in their looks.

I wax all my hard cheeses whether the recipe calls for it or not. So far the Romano in this batch is the only one that isn't supposed to have a waxed rind, so I will be interested to taste the final result this winter.

Yes, I've hatched a plan that involves a few of those exceptionally hot peppers in the background being pressed into service to create some Habanero Jack and some Habanero Cheddar.

Butter Making

Katie makes butter every morning with the cream she hand skims from Penny's milk.

Each quart jar she shakes makes one ball of butter. We had three today. I'll wash it and put it in a one-pound butter mold, then I'll quarter and wrap the sticks of butter and freeze them so we won't have to buy butter all year.

I thought after we milked Penny last time, I would be prepared for the sheer abundance of milk and cream she produces. But alas. I'm still overwhelmed with just the two and a half gallons a day she gives to us after she's fed Felicity about the same amount.
It takes two gallons to make a two pound cheese, so I'm able to make a hard cheese every day of the week and still have plenty of milk for all of our other dairy needs.

The two gallons that Katie skimmed for this bowl of butter will become a lower fat Romano cheese. Not low-fat, mind you. Low-er. There's still a whole lot of cream left in the milk!

Every time I carry a full bucket back up to the house through the little red gate I holler, "Thanks for the milk, Penny!" and each time she calls back, "Moooo!"

Old is Good!

My best friend Elaine, at Heaven Scent Farms, gave this antique butter mold as a gift on the occasion of Penny's arrival at the farm.

Using a handcrafted tool given by my oldest friend made today's chore feel more meaningful.

Fun Food Preservation

Big Dan has had some extra time off of work lately, so he and I have gotten into the habit of going to a local farm to visit with the farmers (and their myriad cats and kittens!) and buying produce to put up.
Last time it was 8 quarts of green beans. Today it was cucumbers, more beans, and corn to eat fresh.
Next week, the girls and I will get 100 ears of corn to blanch and freeze. I'll try canning some too.

Here's the fruit of tonight's labors: 14 quarts of pickles, some dill spears and some secret recipe sweet dill chips, a 2 pound queso fresco cheese, and a pound of freshly washed butter!

This kind of counter cornucopia makes farm chores rewarding.

Eating Her Curds and Whey

Becky is a diligent milk maid who takes prodigious care of her good friend Penny.
Penny, in turn, gives Becky five gallons of unbelievably sweet and creamy milk every day.

Today I had two and a half gallons to work with so I made two quarts of yogurt, a quart of cultured buttermilk, and a gallon's worth of ricotta. I always skim the top of the bucket into a quart jar to get the most cream possible in one jar. That makes it easier to pour off cream for butter.

Ricotta is made by adding a teaspoon of citric acid, dissolved in a quarter cup of water, to the milk and bring it to 185 degrees until the curds separate from the whey. Do not allow to boil.
I absolutely knew it was safe to look away for a second to scrub some pots and pans because I'd have to be a complete idiot to allow the cheese to boil, right?
I allowed to boil.
But it tastes fantastic in spite of my forgetfulness.

I've lost my bottle of rennet so I have to wait for the New England Cheesemaking order to come before I can start making hard cheeses.

Milk and Eggs

Lots of milk.
Lots of eggs.

Quiche, bread pudding, and French toast are on the menu!

Got Milk?

Penny's a generous cow, giving us five gallons of creamy milk each day.
Five gallons a day was working out all right when we were feeding her calf two of them, but now that he's gone to his new home we're scrambling to use up the milk.
If any is left over a day after its milking, we feed it to the pigs.
Besides puddings and hot cocoa galore, we're making soft cheeses now, and hard cheeses by next week, I hope.

The bottom photo is the first cheese from last night. It's Fromage Blanc, which is just like cream cheese.
Since the milk happened to be exactly 86 degrees when Becky brought it from the barn, all I had to do was stir a packet of direct set starter into a gallon of milk, and stick it into the oven to incubate overnight. In the morning, I strained it through one of Danny's T-shirts.
Note to self: buy butter muslin from the cheese store.

The photo on top is called "Ricotta from Heaven" in my cheese making book. It's made by almost boiling the whey from the first batch of cheese, then straining the curds through the cloth (or shirt. whatever.) again.
This one is almost unbelievably yummy, with a luxurious texture.

Tonight, Becky and I plan to pressure can two gallons of milk in pint jars, to have in case of emergencies. If that works well, we'll try to put up many gallons for the few months that Penny's not fresh.

I hope to get a good store preserved into hard cheese to cut down on our grocery bill next year.
Thankfully, the pigs are always standing by in case of a spectacular cheese fail, so there's not much pressure for me as I learn Cheddar making.

Buttermilk Pancakes

I couldn't decide what to blog. I wanted the post to be boastful, yet yummy.
Here is just a small portion of breakfast by Becky this morning.
She made applesauce from a few of the apples that Danny bought at auction yesterday,
bacon,
and these buttermilk pancakes.
They were delicious!

First Butter

Becky skimmed off a little of the ridiculous amount of cream this morning, put it in a jar, and Katie shook it till...
The buttermilk was delicious. The butter is indescribable.
Go buy a Jersey.

Mechanical Milk Maid

Yesterday before the surprise Jersey cow was delivered, I saw an ad on Craigslist for a milk machine. Cheap!
So Laura and I drove up the road, bought the machine, and came home right before Penny stepped off of her trailer and into our hearts.
Penny hasn't been machine milked before, so we milked her by hand last night and this morning to settle her in more easily.
We would have given her more time with hand milking, but this morning she stepped into the stanchion and stood for milking like an old pro, so tonight we'll try the machine for the first time.
When I milked her last night, I was shocked to find her to be the easiest creature I had ever milked, so I felt like the machine had been a mistake. But Becky assured me that although it's nice to have an easy-to-milk cow in case of a power outage or other rare event, she was perfectly content to use the machine normally.
Machines keep the cow's supply up better by getting out every last drop. They make milking effortless (that's a pro and a con) and they keep the milk much cleaner than an open bucket, so it stays fresh much longer.

Dairy Heaven

We decided to milk Penny tonight to get her used to us (and so we had milk to go with our cookies.)
She put her head in the stanchion and proceeded to munch contentedly while we all took turns milking her.
I had never experienced a Jersey before, but now I don't wonder that they're so popular as family milk cows. What a dream to milk!
She gave a half gallon tonight. She's been giving a gallon and a half once a day. We'll milk her twice a day to keep her production up while she settles in, then switch back to just once.
She's expecting a purebred Jersey calf in January.
We'll milk till November then give her a break till the baby comes.
Seriously, buy a Jersey.

Udderly Delightful

Nutmeg is 7/8 Nigerian with 1/8 Oberhasli blood. She has all of the best qualities of her mom and grandma plus the same sweet temperament that they had.
Since she hasn't kidded yet, and as you can see, her udder would become uncomfortably full, we started milking her.
We've never had a goat who goes on ahead and produces milk before kids, but since we froze all of her colostrum, and were already planning to bottle feed her kids, it should be ok that she's in full blown milk now.
She's a dream to milk, with a butter soft udder that just pours out a half gallon a day. She takes no hand strength at all to milk.
When she raised her first set of twins last year, she got confused when we started milking, and tap danced around on the stand. Hopefully when we pull her kids this year, she'll settle right into a milking routine and we won't be crying over spilled milk.

Never Mind

I grabbed my trusty Yoplait container and fortunately a wash bucket for udders, and headed down to the barn right after the sun peeped out and the wind stopped making a spooky howling sound through my back door.
I hadn't milked goats for a really long time, which was evidenced by the way I squirted some on my jeans and up my arm.
The last goat we milked was Tillie, and Becky did all the milking with her.
Tuscany and Merope are historically my best milkers, but for some reason when Danny took their kids to wean them last night, I didn't expect much milk today.
I was wrong!
They gave over a quart between them, which isn't bad for Nigerians.
I also checked the coop and brought up seven more eggs.
So never mind all the whining about farming's no fun.