What we do with homemade mozzarella

Admittedly, it is easier to just go to the grocery store and purchase mozzarella cheese.  There is something liberating, though, to be able to produce your own from your own cows living on your land.  You know the ingredients and you've observed firsthand the cleanliness of the "factory."

Yesterday we documented how we turn fresh raw milk into mozzarella cheese.  Today we'll show you what we do with it - we eat it!  I don't know about your family, but we love pizza.  Pizza Hut Super Supreme Pan Pizza used to be our favorite, but Tricia's homemade pizza now holds that designation.

First, we grate the freshly made mozzarella cheese:
 

Freshly made and grated mozzarella cheese

Then we make up some pizza dough and spread some tomato sauce that has basil and oregano in it.   Then we add some ground hamburger meat and begin to sprinkle the mozzarella on top.


Sprinkling the grated mozzarella

No sense being stingy!  Might as well liberally pour the cheese on top.



It's not easy being cheesy

We made a couple of pizzas as we've discovered one just won't do.  Here is another one made on the pizza stone that is fresh out of the oven.


Time to eat

This is another family favorite that we make often.  In the summer, when the tomatoes and basil are fresh, we'll make a Caprese Pizza.  Easy.  Fresh.  Delicious.

Editor's Note: I just wanted to take a brief moment to sincerely thank those of you who drop by and read our humble blog and take interest in what we're trying to do.  We're learning day by day and make plenty of mistakes, but we're having FUN!  Our family thanks you for reading and thanks you for your kind words. 

Making Mozzarella Cheese

We're back making cheese again.  After having made Neufchatel, ricotta, and basic cheese, we're going to try our hand at making mozzarella.  We're using an excellent on-line course "Cheese Making for Beginners" that you can view here: Dr. Fanhhauser's Cheese Course if you are interested.  The mozzarella that we're going to make is Fresh Mozzarella.  I apologize ahead of time for all the pictures, but there are a lot of steps.

The first thing we do is sterilize our pot that we're going to use by boiling some water in it.

A watched pot never boils

Warm slowly one gallon of raw milk to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Keep an eye on the temperature

Stir in a 1/4 cup of buttermilk and let it sit for 15 minutes to "activate".  

Adding fresh buttermilk

Add 8 drops of rennet into 1/4 cup water and then stir the rennet/water mixture into your inoculated milk.  Remember rennet causes the curds and whey to separate.


Adding animal rennet

Place undisturbed in a warm spot for 2-3 hours until the "break" takes place.  This is when the curds and whey separate.  Once the break has taken place, you'll know it.  The curds will be solidified, sort of the consistency of jello.  Now you'll cut the curds.  Use a knife to cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

Cutting the curds

Now you stir up the curds.  It's best to do this with your hands.  After cutting and stirring, let it sit for 15 minutes.  Pour off the whey.  You can save this for making ricotta.  Ricotta is great in lasagna.  You'll get about a quart of whey off of your gallon of milk.

Pouring off the whey

 You will now want to warm the curds to 97 degrees Fahrenheit with a constant hand stirring.  Then put the cover back on the pot and let sit overnight in a warm place.  We use a warming drawer on the proof setting which is about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 


Let sit in a warm spot

First thing in the morning, heat some water to 185 degrees Fahrenheit and drop a piece of curd into the water.  You are wanting to see if it 'spins' or stretches like taffy when you pull on it.  If it breaks when you pull it, let the curds continue to sit for a few hours and try again.

A curd in 185 degree water

Hey, check it out.  Stretchy!  This is perfect.  The curd 'spins."

Perfect spin

Once it spins, heat a 1/2 gallon of water to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.


Warming some more water!

While you are waiting, pour the remaining whey off of the curds.  Save a pint of whey for a step we'll go over in a minute.  Also save the rest for making ricotta.


Pouring more whey off

Break the curds up into small pieces with your hands once you've drained the whey off.


Breaking up the curds

Now pour the 185 degree water over the curd mass.


Pouring hot water over the curds

Stir this with a wooden spoon.

You want the curd to come together in a gummy mass.  Fold together with a couple of wooden spoons.


Gummy mass of soon to be mozzarella

Break off lemon sized pieces of the hot, gummy cheese substance and fold over onto itself to form smooth balls.  

Breaking and folding

Place back in the 185 degree F water to soften and then repeat folding to achieve smoothness.


Just about right

Drop the smoothed balls into ice water to firm them up.  It should yield 4 five ounce balls from your gallon of milk.

Dropping the mozzarella balls into ice water

Tricia got all fancy and braided one of the balls.  This really shows the consistency of the homemade mozzarella.

Braided mozzarella.  WOW!!

Now, we're almost done.  The next step is to prepare brine.  In a gallon jar, dissolve 1/4 cup salt,


Adding 1/4 cup salt

 Add 1 pint of whey that you saved from several steps above: 

Adding whey

Finally, add 1 pint of cool water:


Adding water

Drop the cooled mozzarella balls into the brine, cover and put in the refrigerator for 12 - 24 hours.


Adding mozzarella balls to the brine

After 12-24 hours has passed, remove from the brine and store refrigerated in a Ziploc bag or plastic container and use within a week:

Store until eaten (Fresher is better!)

Aside from eating just plain mozzarella, we'll show you tomorrow what we did with it.

Doggone Dog!

When I got home from work today, I went through the typical questions that I go through with Tricia each day to see how her day went:

• How was your day?  Tell me all about it.
• Who did you talk to?
• Did we get any good mail?
• How are the girls? (Daisy, Rosie and Maggie)

On that last question, she answered, "The (cow) girls are just fine, but we had quite an eventful afternoon with the hens!"

She went on to tell me that she looked out of the french doors to the pasture and saw the hens running for dear life.  When she went outside, she observed the neighbor's little red dog in our fenced in pasture chasing our chickens.  There were feathers flying everywhere.  She was able to chase the dog and he hopped up and was able to wiggle through one of the bigger holes in the hog wire. 


Hogwire - holes are big enough to let a small dog get through

She surveyed the area and couldn't find any injured or dead chickens this time, but the poor girls were so nervous, they probably won't lay for a few days.  I found chickens hiding everywhere - in the barn, in the burn pile, under the chicken tractors...  A chaotic, frazzled barnyard indeed. 

Someone lost some feathers



Someone else did, too.

This dog (or the neighbor's other little dog) was responsible for the death of 18 of our hens last year.  That is a bunch of dead chickens!  The average hen lays 265 eggs per year.  The dog, therefore, was responsible for the loss of 4,770 eggs.  That is 397.5 dozen eggs or $1,192.50 in lost sales!  Oh, my!


Feathers blanketing the pasture

To combat this and alleviate the carnage, I had purchased and put up 150 feet of 2X4 welded wire up against the existing hogwire that encircles the pasture and secured it with tie wire.  I put this up, however, just on the fencing facing the neighbor's property and about 50 feet on either side.  At a cost of about $30 for 50 feet of fence, I couldn't really afford to do more.  This worked for several months.  Now it appears the dog figured out that if he would walk 50 feet down, there is only hog wire and being a small dog, he can shimmy through and chase our chickens.  Now I can't afford to NOT put up more fence (Ding Dangit!)   

Feathers everywhere you look

There is a saying "Good fences make good neighbors."  Trouble is, I have a good fence and I try to be a good neighbor.  Now I have to spend extra money to put more fence up to keep the neighbor's dogs off of my property.  A box of 500 Winchester .22 Long Rifle Rimfire Ammo is $24.99.  If my math is right, that works up to a nickel a bullet.  That solution is a lot cheaper than buying fence and then installing it, but killing your neighbor's dog is expensive in ways not defined financially, I would assume.  (Think Hatfields and McCoys)

So last night as I worked on the chores, Tricia and Russ went to the hardware store and purchased an additional 100 feet of fence.  They returned and by the light of our trusty DeWalt lantern, me, Russ, and Benjamin installed the fence, in the dark, in the mud. 

 

Moon Lightin'

You've probably read, Old Yeller, Shiloh, and Where the Red Fern grows and have fond thoughts of dogs.  I like dogs as much as the next guy, but last night, I'll confess I was thinking unkind thoughts about my neighbor's carnivorous canines.  Hopefully, our efforts will deter the chicken-killer(s) and there can be peace once again in the barnyard.


Good Fences Make Good Neighbors!



Waxing Cheese

Tricia has been quite the cheese maker lately.  Daisy and Rosie have been producing a lot of milk that Tricia has learned to make into various type cheeses.  She's learning using the following book that she purchased from this website that has a wealth of information about Cheese making: Everything you want to know about making cheese at home



Cheese making book Tricia is reading & learning from



We've made a number of cheese wheels.  We're aging it in our refrigerator and have found that the longer the cheese ages, the better it tastes.  Which brings waxing cheese into the discussion.  Waxing your cheese is a very good way to protect your cheese while it ages and a good way to keep the cheese moisture right where you want it.  Have you ever left a block of store-bought cheese unsealed in the fridge?  After a few days, it becomes a dried-out inedible chunk of yellow stuff.  This is where cheese wax comes in:

 

A block of cheese wax

Tricia orders it from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, Inc.  Cheese Wax is made just for coating cheeses. It helps prevent unwanted mold growth while retaining moisture in the aging cheese. This wax is pliable and will not become brittle as will pure paraffin wax.  That is the product description from the website.

So you cut off a chunk of the cheese wax and melt it in a double-boiler.  Be sure to stay by the stove the entire time. 



Melting the cheese wax in a double boiler

Then, you simply brush it on your cheese wheel.  Several thin coats of wax are preferable to one thick coat. 

Brushing the wax onto the wheel of cheese

And here is the finished product - A nice wheel of waxed cheese! 


Waxed Cheese



 When you are ready to eat, simply peel the wax off of the cheese.  The neat thing about it is that you can save the wax, melt it and use it again and again. 

An Unwelcome Guest

We have two 5 gallon buckets full of pecans along with five 50 pound sacks full of pecans that we picked back around the late October - early November time frame.  They are stored in the garage right next to our John Deere lawn tractor.  I have been waiting for some nice weather on a weekend that we didn't already have something else planned.  The weekend that meets those criteria, if it ever comes, I was going to get our old fashioned pecan cracker out and crack pecans all day long. 

I posted about it back in September.  You can read it here: Shelling Pecans if you weren't following us back then.

Pecan Inventory

As I was taking care of some things on my to do list, I saw the following on my work bench in the garage:


Clue #1

Looks like someone has been eating pecans and not throwing the shells in the compost pile.  I'll have to check and see who's doing that and remind them.  Whoa, there's more:


Clue #2

As if on cue, I heard a noise up on the pegboard above my workbench and identified the perpetrator sitting on my circular saw with a guilty look on his face - Mr. Squirrel!  He's the culprit who has been snacking on our pecans stored in the garage.  This is how the pecan shells ended up on my workbench.  He would sit right where he is now and crack the pecans and drop them on the workbench.


"If you'd hand me some safety glasses, I can start cutting immediately."

He was a brave little guy and apparently didn't like the idea that I had caught him red-handed. 

"Are you accusing me?"

I want this fellow out of my garage, so I poked at him with a stick and he hopped down and began scolding me.  He probably feels like I took pecans from 'his' tree, so turnabout is fair play.


I zoomed in on the little guy:



You can really see his sharp claws.  I need to step back a bit!

So, I need to prioritize shelling the pecans and getting them out of my garage quickly as this guy may move all of his friends and family in and we'd get none.

2013 Louisiana State Livestock Show

After competing very well in the Parish and District Livestock Shows, Russ completed his high school livestock showing career in Gonzales this weekend at the 2013 Louisiana State Livestock Show.  This show used to be on LSU's campus in Baton Rouge, but the nightmare of parking and traffic on campus moved the show about 18 miles east to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center.  This facility is a very nice one, I might add.  Since school was out for the week for Mardi Gras, the boys didn't miss any school at all.  They left on Thursday morning and we returned Saturday afternoon.

There are many different barns and exhibit halls at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center.  We were housed in Barn 6 which had spacious stalls and plenty of room for milking and grooming the animals prior to the show.  Here is Russ and Maggie Mae enjoying a little down-time prior to the show.


Taking it easy

The weather was spectacular and the American Jersey Association had an informal Showmanship show outside one afternoon.


American Jersey Association Showmanship out on the grounds

Normally, these shows are inside an arena under lights and on sawdust/wood shavings.  Daisy was enamored with all the green grass around her and was somewhat distracted.


Russ and Daisy

In the official Showmanship competition Friday afternoon, which included all exhibitors from Parishes all over the State and with all breeds of Dairy cows, Russ and Daisy placed Fifth and got a nice yellow ribbon.  The Dairy group had a Jambalaya meal for all the exhibitors and their families after the Showmanship competition and it was enjoyed by all.


Russ & Daisy with his 5th Place ribbon

Saturday morning began the regular shows which began with registered Jersey heifers.  Maggie Moo was in a huge class of heifers.  Maggie was well-behaved during the show.  She's getting the hang of this. 

Russ and Magnolia in the show ring

Maggie ended up getting Third Place in her class and First Place Louisiana Bred Jersey heifer.


Third Place in Class - First Place Louisiana Bred

Of course, Maggie wanted to eat the ribbons!

Hungry for success

As Maggie and Russ continued showing Maggie won Reserve Junior Champion Yearling Louisiana Bred and got a really nice rosette ribbon.


Nice.

Russ and Maggie eventually won Overall Reserve Junior Champion Louisiana Bred Jersey heifer and got a really nifty ribbon with tassels hanging off of it.  Russ was happy and I think Maggie was proud of herself.

Overall Reserve Junior Champion Louisiana Bred Jersey Heifer

Rosie and Daisy both did well in their respective classes, placing third at State - which is great.  We later showed as a Parish Group.  The object is that each Parish shows a group of four animals and you want them to be a block of animals that are equivalent in size.  Our Parish, Jefferson Davis Parish, placed second.


Jefferson Davis Parish Jersey group

Here is a picture of Russ' winnings from the Louisiana State Livestock Show.  He did a nice job!  These will look nice hanging on Russ' wall.


Nice Ribbons

Here is a zoom in of his biggest one.  He went out in a blaze of glory, winning his biggest award in his very last show.


Reserve Champion Louisiana Bred

My Mom & Dad were able to watch all the shows on Friday and Saturday and Laura Lee drove in from LSU to cheer Russ on in his last show.  Benjamin expressed an interest and so he may be showing Daisy, Rosie and Maggie next year.  We'll see how that goes.  At the livestock show, Russ was able to meet and talk to an LSU Dairy Science professor as well as some students that he knows in the Agriculture Department.  They were able to tell him about the College of Agriculture and what he might expect this Fall when he enrolls.  (Wow, time marches on!)