My first attempt at cheesemaking

I like to have a book to read while I’m eating breakfast. I eat alone so I’m not being rude to anyone, except for the dogs who are busy waiting for some of my food. I unpacked a book called “The Encyclopedia of Country Living”. It has tons of recipes in it. I flipped toward the back and began looking at the dairy stuff. I took one bite of my cereal and noticed that the milk was getting a little sour. I would finish my breakfast and pour the almost full gallon down the drain, I thought. I couldn’t eat another bowlful of that. But as I was reading, I came across for making cheese out of sour milk…not rotten milk, just sour. So I decided I would do that the next day, which would be a Saturday.

I followed the recipe and spent time helping Adam with some of the house project. I snitched a piece of cheese after I scooped the curds from the whey. Now that was some tangy cheese! The vinegar taste came through loud and clear! After draining it, I put it in a baggie in the fridge and didn’t touch it for a couple of days. I tasted it again. It wasn’t quite as tangy but it did have a unique flavor still. I wouldn’t say it was my favorite thing to eat plain but when I put it on my taco, and a couple of other things since then, I thought it was really good! And it kept fine in cheese form for a few weeks until I finally used it all up.

So if you ever find yourself with sour milk, now you know what you can do with it. :o) This is the recipe as it is printed. (I don’t know what a measurement “slug” is so I guessed on the amount. I used somewhere between ½ - 1 cup and I think it was a bit too much but don’t know for sure.)

SAVE-THE-SOUR-MILK VINEGAR-CLABBERED CHEESE

This is a Sloppy Carla’s quick-and-easy money-saver that works for city people, too. You have a container of milk and your kids say, “Yuk, it’s sour.” Do you throw it out? Not unless you have pigs or chickens who will love it. You can salvage it by pouring it into a microwaveable or oven proof bowl. Toss in a slug of white vinegar. Let set undisturbed until it clabbers – 30 minutes or so. Then heat in a microwave or oven until the curds are nice and firm and the whey is seriously separating out. Pour off the whey and – if you don’t eat the curds on the spot because they’re so delicious – use them in cooking any way you would melted cheese, such as in a lasagna. But only make this from just-recently-soured milk, which is still really good food – not truly rotten milk with 3 colors of mold on it!

The curds were small, somewhere between the size of ricotta curds and cottage cheese curds…but more the consistency of ricotta than cottage cheese (dry).




After draining it, on it's way to the fridge.