Cheese again.

The weather outside is bloody horrible today! Apparently there is a Low grumbling around up in the gulf that will turn into a cyclone tonight. It is not likely to become more than a Cat 1- not a real cyclone- but it will dump a heap of water on us and probably knock over a few trees out of spite. The usual. In any case it is no day to be outside, so I am making cheese again.

Well here is the cheese I had in the press a few days ago. I am very pleased with the texture and I think the extra pressure is what I needed in the new press. So far so good. The cheese will now be waxed and stored in the cheese fridge at ten degrees for a couple of months. I try to make one cheese a week to keep a sufficient stock at hand. We eat a lot of cheese.

I am also making a batch of Quarg. It is simplicity itself, just add a small amount of the culture to fresh milk at room temperature or better still at cow heat and let it sit out for the day. By evening it will have thickened into a yoghourt consistency. You then hang it to drain until it is firm enough to your liking and stir in salt to taste. I like it at a firm cream cheese consistency. Cheese logs and dipping cheeses are made from Quarg. It is superb on fresh baked bread for breakfast.

Also making a batch of yoghourt today. The littlest cloud farmer likes his yoghourt. This is my home made yoghourt tub. It works as well as anything you can buy (but cost me nothing) and I can make up to ten litres in one go. We like a somewhat thick and tart variety of yoghourt. The child bride likes hers flavoured with vanilla pod and sweetened and I like mine straight as it comes. The littlest cloud farmer eats whatever is put in front of him and yells for more.
There is a real satisfaction to making so much of our day to day food, and good food too. Although it is a lot of work I get real satisfaction when I store away the finished product at the end of the day. However we are finding it a chore to use our rather small kitchen for production as well as trying to cook meals, often at the same time. So the plan (there is always a plan) is to build a second shed alongside the current shed outside. This second shed will be a little larger to accommodate my workshop as well as farm paraphernalia and the first shed will be refitted as a food processing area. Hopefully this will happen in the next year or so. We shall see.