Making Mozarella

Several people have asked how I make mozarella cheese. It is actually quite simple. You can make a batch of cheese in about 30 minutes. This is a general overview--for the actual recipe, contact me. The ingredients for making cheese are available at some health food stores or from cheese making supply companies.

Place 1 gallon of milk in a pot (non-aluminum). The greater the fat content of your milk, the higher the yield of cheese. I had skimmed most of the cream off this batch for butter, so it is a lower fat content.

Stir in 2 tsp. citric acid. Heat to 88-90 degrees F.

This is liquid rennet. It is also available in tablet form.

Stir in 1/4 tsp. liquid rennet and continue heating to 100-105 degrees F.

The milk will form into curds. You can see how the liquid has changed color as the curds are removed. It is now whey. (You can use the whey to make ricotta cheese, feed it to your chickens, fertilize plants, or just toss it out!)

Place the curds in a microwave-safe bowl and heat for 1 minute. Stretch and knead the cheese with your hands or a spoon. Reheat again for 30 seconds.

The cheese begins to flow like taffy and you can stretch and knead it. Work in 1-2 tsp. salt if you like salted cheese. When the cheese is shiny and smooth, it is ready.

This batch made 12 oz. of beautiful cheese!
I wrap it in plastic wrap to store in the fridge or to freeze.

This is my butter stash from the freezer. We get a ball of butter like this about once a week. It depends on how much cream the cow gives.

Fishing for Fun!

Every year the local sportsman's club sponsers a fishing derby at a small lake/pond in our area. It is far too crowded to take the kids on derby day, but we like to fish during the days following the derby because the pond is still well stocked. Yesterday we loaded the kids and their gear up and had a picnic dinner while they fished. Fishing wasn't so good, but we had fun!

Having Fun

This spring has been cold and wet. We've had a lot of illness in the house as well. This week we are all well and very grateful. I've been extremely busy with lots of projects. Stay tuned for pictures of how we make mozarella cheese. I have to wait until Josh can take the pictures because I don't have 4 hands! Darlene and I also took on sewing 3 flower girl dresses for a wedding in May. We did a marathon two-day sewing spree this week and got the dresses pretty well fitted and well under way. My "little" project of sending some blankets to Haiti for the hospital has snowballed into a HUGE project. It looks like by the time we are done we will ship around 700 blankets over there! Hopefully this weekend will be the final pick-up and then I can work on shipping them. My dear in-laws are storing all these blankets in their basement. Do you have any idea how much space 200 blankets take--LOTS!

The kids have had a lot of fun lately. Here are some random pictures for your enjoyment.

Finally painted Juliana's doll cradle. A friend lent me her stencils--thanks, Allison! Juliana was so fascinated by the way you took off the stencil and it left a pretty pattern. I had a hard time keeping her from removing the stencil before I had finished the painting!

Trying out a new mask Daddy had around the house!

One afternoon I found Peter "relaxing". He informed me it was very comfortable! Okay, so I don't think I would feel relaxed after lounging in this position for 20 minutes!

The deck is finally dry enough to use it for school. Here the boys are practicing forming their numbers correctly. They love this exercise far more using sidewalk chalk than a pencil and paper! And it all washes off in the next rain storm!

How We Make Yogurt

Now that we have about 2 gallons of fresh milk every other day, we are busy making lots of things with milk! Our family loves yogurt, and Josh was sweet enough to get me an automatic yogurt maker. There are other ways to incubate yogurt, but this is the simplest. This is how we make fresh, plain yogurt.

First heat the milk to 180 degrees, stirring often. Then cool to 110-115 degrees.

To add the cultures to the milk, buy a plain yogurt that contains live cultures. You always save a small amount of yogurt to re-culture your next batch. Occassionally you must buy a new culture.

Add to the milk and stir well.

Ladle the cultured milk into yogurt jars.

Incubate for 7-10 hours (I usually let mine sit overnight)

Wake up to fresh, creamy yogurt!
Homemade plain yogurt is sweeter and tastier than store bought. One theory I have about this is because the cultures feed on the sugar in the milk, so the older the yogurt is the more of the sugar has been removed. I don't know. My kids eat it with a little sugar and homemade jam!

Stay tuned for more ways to use fresh milk!

Easter Eggs

Normally we dye Easter eggs outdoors on our deck, but it was raining heavily and very cold that day! So we combined efforts with family next door and had a great time. The kids did really well this year and enjoyed drawing designs on the eggs with crayons before dying them.

More Blankets for Haiti

This past week, some amazing circumstances allowed us to ship 300 brand new, hand made blankets to Haiti free of charge. Blankets are bulky and can get heavy, so this saved us a large expense. The blankets were donated by an organization known as Binky Patrol. http://binkypatrol.homestead.com/

Terrie, the coordinator for the Sacramento area, has been so amazing in helping us send blankets to the children in Haiti. We arrived at her house at 7 a.m. to pick up a load of blankets and then drove to a church in Sacramento to load them up for shipment.

First the blankets had to be boxed for shipment. Thank you to Circo Innovations for donating these large boxes which worked perfectly!

Josh is a master packer! He packed 40-60 blankets into each box. They are wrapped in plastic in case the pallets get caught in a downpour in transit.

The boxes were placed on pallets with buckets on them. Buckets of Hope, filled with food and other supplies for families in Haiti, are being coordinated by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. The buckets could not be stacked very high or the stacks collapsed, so we were able to put the boxes, which don't weigh very much, on top and ship them free of charge!

A pallet all ready to go!

The truck arrived in Sacramento at 9 a.m. and the blankets were packed and ready to load!

We hope to send one more shipment of blankets to the field hospital in Haiti for use with the babies. If you have any unused or very gently used baby size blankets you'd like to donate, please let me know.

New Calf on the Ranch

We had a new calf born in the ranch on April 2. We think it is a heifer!

Nathan really wanted to see the calf born. So, at 9:00 at night, he moved some comforts out to the barn to camp out so he wouldn't miss anything. He had blankets, pillow, a deck of cards, and snacks! Unfortunatley, he got too cold (it was 32 and raining outside that night) and went to bed about 30 minutes before the calf was born!

Josh saved the first milk today when he milked the cow. It takes a while for the strong colostrum flavor to get out. We will see how it is after it chills. Soon we will be drinking all the raw milk we want, as well as making mozzerella cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, ricotta, icecream, butter, and whatever else I can find to do with 2 gallons of milk every other day!

The Taming of the Chicks

Our chicks are now 4 weeks old. They are the main attraction and we some times have to give the chicks "rest times". Playing with them helps to tame them and makes for nicer adult chickens. We have had a lot of cold weather (snow on Easter) and as you can see, the kids have tried a few fun things with them!

Peter drove the chick all over the house in this tractor. She just nestled down and seemed to enjoy the ride!

I've had enough of the chicks in the house. They create a lot of dust, noise, and mess! They are almost completely feathered now, so I moved them out to the greenhouse where they should be warm at night. My house feels so roomy now without the big box!