I have been researching how to make your own cheese and have found and tried at least one recipe that is quite easy. It gives a farmers or crumbly type of cheese.
The recipe calls for:
- 4 cups of milk (I used store bought regular milk)
- 1 teaspoon of vinegar
- salt to taste
You will also need:
- a fine mesh tea towel ( cheese cloth if you have it but something about the consistency of a coffee filter or the cheese clumps will fall through)
- a strainer
- a larger bowl to catch the whey
Put milk in pot, bring it almost to boil.
Put in vinegar – turn off heat and stir. The cheese will start to clump.
Stir for about 3-5 minutes. Strain.
At this point you can add salt and mix.
You want to close the cloth over cheese and press out any extra liquid. You can either put a weight on top to compress the cheese even more or cool it as is and eat it once it’s chilled.
You don’t throw the *whey out. *(editor’s note: whey is the liquid that strains from the solids)
Various uses for the whey are: feeding it animals, feeding to plants, using it in soups or other recipes (I used it to make polenta and it was good).
Note: with regular grocery milk, 4 cups will only make 1 cup of the cheese and 3 cups of whey.
I’ve read on one website that it is because of the way grocery milk tends to be processed. He recommended using powdered milk which I’m going to try next.
Also plan on tryng it with half-and-half and seeing what happens there as well. If you like I will keep you posted.
Some websites call for using *Rennet to make harder cheeses and I just found it in my grocery store in the pudding secton for making ice cream so that is also on my list ( after the half’n'half and the powdered milk test).
*(editor’s note: Rennet is a natural enzyme produced by mammals to digest the mother’s milk, and is often used in the production of cheese.)
Love your website and the emails are great.
Bless,
Maria
My MIL makes this, she calls it “Mexican Cheese”. I think she said she gets the milk to 185*, and she also likes to add things like minced garlic, jalapenos, etc.
I found instructions for Paneer (an Indian cheese) which is made in a similar way, but uses lemon juice instead of vinegar. You can see it here:
http://foodmusings.typepad.com/food_musings/2005/04/how_to_make_pan.html
I make lots of cheese this is whole milk ricotta. Paneer cheese is made the same way except you hold the temp of then milk for 10 min, it is much more firm than ricotta. If you’d like to learn how to make cheese check out http://fiascofarm.com/ then check out http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html#table_of_contents these two sites can teach you a lot. I now make all of our own cheeses except the reg cheddar……mostly because i cant keep the kids out of it, lol.
when Grandma use to make cheese ,she would use cheese cloth or an old clean nylon and leave it drip in a pan.she would set pan of milk on back of coal stove….ya can make cottage cheese by fixing some whey in it….
I love this idea. I buy powdered milk in bulk and make yogurt and yogurt cheese and use it for baking, so this would fit right in. I also buy cheese in bulk and freeze it but it is still relatively expensive. Thank you for the links to learn more – I’m going to try it today!