LOL no weeds yet but i got wood to burn and move and a chicken coop to build would that help ? :)
Making Chevre
Anything you do vigorously will help. I think of it like feeding a horse. I was raised not to grain my horse until after I'd worked him. No work, no grain.
So on the days when I sit around and do little, I try not to indulge. On the days when I work like a madwoman, I eat anything I want.
At least, that's the theory... LOL
I took half the chevre down to S. at the feed store to express my appreciation for letting me have freight delivered there. BIG hit. S was already talking about 3 different things she wants to do with it. And gave it high marks for color, texture and smell... she's quite the gourmand, is S. =0) She said she could feel crackers in her future.
Crackers..... gotta go!
Did I say somewhere up above that I make a merlot jelly that's devine with chevre atop crackers...
OMG... I'm in a swoon, Darius! And it's still morning, hardly the time for merlot. LOL
How does one make a wine jelly? Actually, if you care to share, maybe a jelly thread would be a good idea?
Making another batch of chevre soon..
Yeah, maybe a thread for wine jellies... all the alcohol boils off, of course. I made a merlot, and another that was a dry white wine. The merlot was better.
Here's the wine jelly recipe link:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/967277/
OOOOoooooOOOOO... swooning back. ;-)
Ah, the timer just went off for my next batch of chevre, must go mix in the culture. Tah, loveys....
Waht is all that stuff? A secret cheese code!
Gonna report it to the admin...
the chevre is lovely again; this is just the easiest stuff in the world to make. The tough part is finding someone to get the milk from. =0)
Looks like it disappeared.
Big thanks to Admin for removing rude, stupid spamming soooo quickly! =0)
Is this a forum that can be accessed by nonsubscribers?
Yes. Here's a list of all forums: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/
the ones with an asterisk * are subscriber-only.
I was only a nonsubscriber for about a week after I found DG. I couldn't get enough! I have learned so much about so many different things on here. With all the subscribers from so many different backgrounds, this place has a wealth of knowledge on nearly anything you need. And lots of great company to boot. LOL
Me too! All the stuff I really wanted to talk about and ask questions about were subscriber and it's way cheaper than a mag and more fun 'cause of the great folks. Meaning you guys!
I luv ya, man...
LOL
Jay
Back atcha! LOL There really are the nicest, kindest and most generous group of folks here on DG. It's where I come to get away from the meaness of the world and renew my faith in people.
{{{grumble}}}
You were supposed to give me yer beer...
{{slump}}
Apparently there ain't none. We need a homebrewer on this here forum... a few yeastie beasties run amock...
For medicinal needs, of course.
=0)
If you are just making chevre you can use a couple of tablespoons of vinegar (I've used balsamic before to have some fun) or lemon juice instead of rennet.
Here's a recipe with lemon juice. It says it doesn't work with pasteurized milk but it always worked fine for me and we pasteurized everything we entered into the fair.
Also.... Knapweed makes a suitable vegetable rennet. Who knew it was actually good for something......
I also made a chevre once with honey and cranberries and it won at the fair!
Ginger
Guess it would have helped to put the link in for the recipe....
http://www.utterlydivine.com/Recipes.htm
Ginger
I was wondering if I had missed something. Turns out, something was missing. LOL
Chevre is made with a chevre culture. What you're making with vinegar is queso blanco made with goat milk. If you use lemon juice, it's called panir. Just because it's made with goat milk doesn't make it chevre, though it's still great cheese. =0) And simple!
The reason some recipes say not to use pastuerized milk is the store pastuerized milk often doesn't make good cheese, because it's been super heated in a process known as ultra-pasteurization (UP). That's why milk keeps for a month now if it's refrigerated. Sometimes milk from a regional dairy is not UP, but you can usually tell from the use by date... if it's weeks away, it's UP. If it's next week, it's not.
Home pasteurized milk is not a problem for cheese making. In fact, most of the recipes I have start with pastuerized milk, because that way the cheese culture has no competition with other bacteria that is present in raw milk and you'll get a more consistent product.
Ginger,
Does that recipe make cheese the consistency of cream cheese or riccota cheese? That seems so easy even I might be able to accomplish it.
It is a riccota style and really so very easy....
Ginger
Is chevre like ricotta or cream cheese?
It's more like ricotta; it depends on how long you let it drain. Adding a bit of milk or cream after draining can give it a substance more like neufchatel... low fat cream cheese.
I find the vinegar and lemon curdled cheeses to have a firmer, grainier texture than ricotta. They also don't melt well... the panir is what is in the east Indian dish Palaak Panir... cubes of cheese in creamed spinach that don't melt when you heat the dish. Very tasty. =0)
The vinegar and lemon curdled cheeses are very easy and where I started. Then chevre is often the next step in difficulty. Then there's a world of soft cheeses and the "college-level" hard cheeses... I don't ever 'spect to get that educated. LOL
I am really thinking of cheese making. I may have to get me a goat. One of those little pygmy goats.
How do you make yogurt? I love the stuff but have never had home made.
Yogurt is maybe even easier than vinegar cheese! And if you drain it, then you've got yogurt cheese... another yummy!
You'll need to start with a kind of store yogurt you like... not non-fat, because the pectin or gelatine or carageenan they put in it interferes with culturing it. Check the label of low fat yogurts, too.
You heat the milk to 180*, let it cool, and add a generous tablespoon full of your store yogurt, stirring it into the cooled milk well. Keep the milk warm (somewhere near 116*) for ~ 6hrs... a oven with a pilot light, an igloo filled with warm water, we use our dehydrator... until the mixture thickens to be like thick cream. Put it in the fridge and it sets up more.
I used to mix it up right before bed and put it in my warm oven overnight and by morning I had fresh yogurt.
With goat milk, a tiny bit of rennet (use one TBL of the following dilution: 1 drop rennet to 4 TBL cool, unchlorinated water) is used to help get a good set, otherwise it's runny, more like kefir. Or you can use pectin, gelatin, or dry milk (1/4 C per qt. milk).
I used to make yogurt with store-bought cow milk all the time, using the dry milk as a thickener and non-fat milk, but I haven't tried it since they started ultrapasteurizing milk, so I don't know if it makes a difference with the final product.
Just a heads up... the 'cheese cloth' they sell in the supermarket doesn't work very well for curd draining... a piece of lightweight muslin will do much better. =0)
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/6-Recipes.html
THis is my favorite cheesemaking supply place. They also have a lot of cheese recipes. The yogurt recipe doesn't make sense to me but maybe it will to you!
Ginger