Say Cheese

In the pursuit of almost any hobby or enthusiasm, it's possible to reach a point of wackiness, where one cuts one's ties with normality.

In case you're ever asked to testify at a hearing, you'll want to write down that I may have reached that point of wackiness this weekend and passed it with a whoosh.

If you follow me here or on Twitter, you know that since just before Thanksgiving, I've been cooking up a storm. I've learned a lot, and I've had a lot of fun. Somewhere along the line, I started getting interested in making homemade versions of some commonly purchased foods in order to pursue my own balance of taste and healthfulness. Perhaps, for example, I could produce a whole-grain pasta that didn't taste like a building material.

On Saturday morning, I made cheese.

Let me repeat, just for the convenience of the social services judge: I made cheese.

It was actually a pretty easy procedure (this is the one I followed). Heat the milk to almost boiling, turn off the heat, add vinegar, let it sit, drain it through cheesecloth. The result was something like a ricotta cheese. It was smooth, sweet, and delicious.

As is often the case when I make something for the first time, this was what I call a "proof of concept" effort, a sort of a trial run just to see if I can pull it off. This version certainly isn't low fat - I started with whole milk. Now that I know I can do it, I can start looking at low-fat and non-fat versions.

If you might be interested in trying this yourself, here are a couple of things I'd do differently next time. First, since the yield was around two cups, and that's a lot of cheese for a single person to eat in a week, I'd probably halve the recipe: this would also make the procedure a little more manageable. Also, I think I might add a little more salt, and stirring some fresh herbs in would probably work rather nicely.