Cottage Cheese

I don't know why or how, but we seem to have a never-ending supply of sour milk around here.  For years I've tried to figure out uses--like lots and lots of pancakes_-or freezing it in pancake sized bags...or waffles...or???  I always thought that cottage cheese from sour milk would be the best use, but I had trouble finding a recipe that worked well with sour milk.  Finally, a couple months ago, I ran across this one, which is amazing in its simplicity...

 Here are my copied from the internets notes:
The amounts are approximate, they seem to work with a little more or a little less.
Start with about 1/2 gallon of sour milk. (tonight we didn't have any sour milk, but we had 2 gallons of not sour...it works with not sour milk, too.  A couple weeks ago we had some sour cream (not sour cream, like you put on potatoes, but cream that was sour) and it worked, too...

Ok, back to the recipe--
put about 1/2 gallon of (sour) milk in a saucepan over medium heat.  Stir almost constantly.  At altitude this took about 15 minutes, give or take.  Heat milk until it is almost boiling (185 degrees by my candy thermometer, stuck through the hole on a wooden spoon, balanced in the pan)

 When the temperature reaches 185 degrees (ish), remove from heat.  Add about 3 Tablespoons of white vinegar and stir (I don't think you really have to stir, but it seems like you should, so I do).  It should start to separate into clumpy, cottage cheese like lumps, and weird watery stuff.  Don't taste it at this point...it will taste like vinegar.














 Put cheesecloth in a strainer, pour cheese blobbies and watery goop through--the cheese blobbies should stay in the cheese cloth--if you pour carefully and have left some cheesecloth hanging over the sides, then you can gather it all up in a ball of cheese in cheesecloth.  Run it under cold water until the water looks pretty clear (and un-vinegary).  Squeeze it as much as your cheesecloth allows--if you have cheesecloth with big holes, it will smooge through.  I sometimes wrap it all up and tie it to the sink faucet for a few minutes to finish any dripping








Open the cheesecloth into a bowl or onto a clean surface--it if is very dry, it will probably fall out in one big clump, but sometimes I gently shake the cheesecloth to get more out (it tends to stick in the holes).

The original recipe says to add salt and unspoiled cream at this point.  I usually wait to add the salt until I'm going to eat it (but I like this cheese room temperature, so sometimes that is at this point).  Add cream or a little milk and chop it up with a spoon or fork (kind of chop and stir).  Add more milk or cream to reach the texture you want (now you can taste, by the way, if you rinsed well, it won't taste bitter).

There you go--I look forward to hearing if anyone else tries this and how it goes!

Progress?

When we moved into the Ranch in 2007, there was very little built between our house and the interstate--about 3 miles of lovely prairie and rolling hills.  It was such a large area, that instead of mowing, horses were hired to keep the grass down.  In the almost 8 years since, we've watched neighborhoods and a few businesses move in.  The last piece of (fairly) uninterrupted prairie (other than the frequent and permanent open spaces) suddenly has orange fencing around it. The horses have moved on and the parking lots are creeping up.... I'm feeling more than a little sad about losing this.  I'm not sure that trading horses running is worth a Costco.  Sigh.

The world doesn't need another mommy blogger....

I jokingly said to my sister-in-law..."everyone has a blog...I should start a blog" and she said, "well, you should".  So even though the last thing the world needs is another mommy blog, I suppose I'll have one reader (right, Amy@ParkerHausRoles/?) so, well, here we go....
Why Suburban Ranch?  When we first moved to Colorado, we lived within Denver City limits.  Although not downtown, it was definitely more urban than suburban.  We had an apartment for a couple years then upgraded to a 1600 square foot townhouse.  We also seemed to have an never ending flow of visitors (which I actually miss!) who came to see us and see Denver. Sometimes the house was a little crowded and a lot like a zoo--but ranch sounds so much more pleasant :)  At its most crowded, there were 3 adults, and infant, 4 cats, and a dog living in the townhouse...and (because of the infant) we had house guests as well...a lot of fun, but lots of wildlife.  These days, we are happily settled in a house with a (tiny) yard, right across the street from a lovely park on one side and open space/hiking trails on the other.  Our zip code has changed from urban Denver to suburban, although our "little" town of nearly 50,000 claims a history dating back to the mid-1800's (stop sneering, East Coasters...that's pretty impressive in Colorado!). 
I started realizing a few years ago that I never can say everything I want to in our Christmas letters (yes, those of you who know me, know that Tigger cat really writes them...), so maybe this is my answer.  I used to write long, newsy letters to everyone I'd ever met, now we settle for facebook and email...so we'll see.  I'm going to start by backtracking to the beginning of the summer and then all of you who have missed our adventures can catch up :) Hope you enjoy....