Day 1: Cheese Sabbatical

My last day of work was Friday.

I spent all weekend playing in a dodgeball tournament and now I have a full week of doing nothing/anything/everything until I start my new job. I am excited. For my first day of nothing awesomeness, I slept until 11:15 while my body attempted to heal itself. Then I drank my morning coffee while heating up milk to make my first batch of cheese.

Yes, I am on a cheese sabbatical.

I'm starting with a queso blanco, a white cheese that I love and seemed pretty easy. I went to the library and picked a couple books on making cheese. I've read them over the past week and was excited to try things out. Especially since I found a goat milk dealer. But more on that later. The books recommended starting with a cottage cheese or a cream cheese, but the queso blanco interested me and also seemed pretty easy. Plus, I could save the whey to make a ricotta, which was also supposed to be pretty easy. Done.

I made two batches of the queso blanco* -- a plain version and one with roasted garlic and pancetta. They are both hanging in the basement fridge. I used the whey from the cheeses to make a ricotta.** Wow, tell me again why people buy it? An 8 year old can make ricotta. And would love doing it.

As the curds were draining, I made dinner and a big batch of egg nog for the holidays. Then cleaned up the mounds of pots and drank a glass of wine. The tuaca is doing great; we added the cinnamon stick and simple syrup last night. I drank a small glass tonight to make sure it wasn't poison. Hmmm, it just might be... I'll have to keep Ken away from it. In other news, Kinley really likes whey. The books said that pets love it. It is true, although he'd probably eat just about anything that I gave him so I don't quite have a negative control.

*Queso Blanco
1 gallon milk
1/4 cup cider vinegar
(1/4 cup roasted garlic and 1/4 cup cooked and diced pancetta)

Heat milk to 175-180 and hold it there for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add vinegar and stir briefly. Allow curds to form while milk acidifies. Strain through cheesecloth. Once most of the whey had drained, I opened the cheesecloth pouch and added the desired goodies and mixed it into the warm curd. Then closed up shop and hung the bagged cheese for a couple hours. Save whey for making ricotta**. Yield: 1 big mound of cheese.

**Ricotta
1.5 gallons whey from aforementioned cheese
2 cups whole milk (optional)
1/4 cup cider vinegar

Heat whey to 200 degrees, add milk when close to temperature. Add vinegar and watch albumin and curds form before your eyes. Strain through cheesecloth. Yield 1-2 cups ricotta.