Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Adventures in homemade cheese...

Saturdays are always eventful in our household but this Saturday was exceptionally exciting.

After reading and becoming extremely inspired by the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I decided to try my hand at homemade cheese making.

(This was also the inspiration behind filling our entire freezer with seasonal veggies and fruits that we will eat throughout the year, thank you Em!)

All I can say is, wow. The whole process was so exciting and equally rewarding as the end product was the creamiest and most delicious mozzarella I have had in ages.

(disclosure: this does NOT include buffalo mozzarella which certainly take the tomato!)

The best part is that we had made an entire ball of fresh mozzarella and bocconcini in under an hour. Plus, it was a delicious appetizer to serve to our friends and cost a fraction of the store bought equivalent.


If you are culinarily creative you should definitely visit the Cheese Queen. I highly recommend this adventure to anyone who appreciates the value of making food with your own two hands!

9 comments:

david mcmahon said...

Hi CGCL,

Wonderful to see so many updates. More power to you.

Have you claimed/ registered your blog on Technorati? Let me know either way.

Homemade cheese - yum. And great shots, too.

Keep smiling

David

Lindsay Blau Portnoy said...

Hi David!
I don't know how to 'claim' a blog on technorati! Any advice is welcome.
Thank you again for visiting.
Lindsay

Kristin said...

I love the picture of the cheese! :) Your food photos are excellent by the way.

Parisbreakfasts said...

This looks wonderful!
Are you going to post about freezing fruits and veggies too?
Saw your comment at David's

Amanda Jean said...

making your own cheese? impressive!!! did you order the kit that you linked to or did you pick up the ingredients somewhere local? I'd love to give it a try sometime...just for fun. Do you have a link to the recipe?

Anonymous said...

And you think Indian food is complicated?! You made your own cheese! Now I'm seriously intimidated, but also very intrigued. Those kits sounds like a ton of fun. I'm really enjoying reading your blog. I also made a move to the suburbs (from Boston) but we only lasted a year before moving back to the city. I sincerely hope you fare better. I still have dreams of moving to Burlington, Vermont though -- mostly due to watching the movie "Baby Boom" way too many times.

Enjoy your trip! England is so amazing.

Lindsay Blau Portnoy said...

Hi Erin!
Thanks for stopping by. And yes, I still think Indian food is more difficult than cheese. You should try for yourself and see :)
As for the move to the burbs, we'll see what happens. And if you have England advice please share!
I'll post along the way so stay tuned....
All the best,
Lindsay

Lindsay Blau Portnoy said...

Paris-
I must have posted my freezing veggies response to a different entry...but I did reply! Let me take a peek around and see if I can't figure this out!

Kristin-
You are too kind. Seriously, I appreciate your positive feedback. It makes me smile just thinking that someone out there likes the stuff I post about. So thank you!

Amanda-
The kit is easy as pie, or cheese! And if you have a nice farmers market nearby it's even easier. The trick is to use pasteurized milk but not the 'ultra' kind. When they over do it the whey and curds don't separate.

Thank you all for stopping by and please stay tuned. I promise to try my best to post photos of our magnificent European adventure!

Lindsay Blau Portnoy said...

Hey Paris!
The response to your freezing fresh food question (talk about alliteration) was posted here: http://countrygirlcityliving.blogspot.com/2007/08/moving-to-country-going-to-eat-lot-of.html
Good luck and keep me posted!