Cheese

Steve and I have been complaining about the ridiculous price of cheese in Alberta for a while now. Just recently, however, Steve suggested we do something about it. So, we learned how to make cheese! It's certainly not a way to avoid buying regular blocks of cheddar, mozzarella or marble but it could easily be a substitute for special cheeses like Havarti or Brie.

This is a soft cheese. It's made from milk and vinegar. It is amazingly simple and fun! I'll post the recipe so everyone can try it.

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Ingredients:

- 2 cups of milk (whole milk works the best) *2 cups of milk will produce about 1/3 of a cup of cheese. 1 L of milk will make about 1.5 cups of cheese*

- 4 teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juices

- salt (or other seasoning)

Steps:

1. Place two cups of milk in the saucepan, slowly bringing the milk to a boil while stirring constantly. It is very important to constantly stir the milk or it will burn.

2. Turn the burner off once the milk is boiling, but leave the saucepan on the element or gas grate.

3. Add 4 teaspoons vinegar to the boiling milk, at which point the milk should turn into curds and whey.

4. Stir well with spoon and let it sit on the element for 5-10 minutes.

5. Pass the curds and whey through cheesecloth or a handkerchief to separate the curds from the whey. (We used pantyhose... straight from the package ofcorse!)

6. Press the cheese using the cloth to get most of the moisture out.

7. Open the cloth and add about 1/2 tsp of salt or another type of flavouring. (we've tried salt, chilli flakes and Italian dressing so far)

8. Mix the cheese and salt (or other flavouring) and then press again to remove any extra moisture.

9. Put the cheese in a mold or just leave it in a ball type form.

10. Refrigerate for a while before eating.

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The Italian dressing was our favourite. We plan to try lots of other flavours soon though. I should mention that the whey can be used for lots of different things too. We saved the whey this time and plan to use it in some baking this week.

Here are some ideas for how to use the whey:

- add garlic and use as a substitute for water when cooking rice

- make ricotta cheese

- add a bit of sugar and slowly cook it into a delicious caramel-like syrup that's great on ice cream.

- it can be used in almost any recipe that calls for water

- feed it to your dog as a treat

- it can be mixed into animal feed (for chickens, cows etc)

- it's great in a bath for healthy skin

- season it and use it as a marinade (especially good for meats that have been frozen)

Another amazing recipe I found this week is for Fish Cakes. It's from the Kraft website.

http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/fish-cakes-87881.aspx

I made them on Thursday and have been craving them ever since!