Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Cheese that Wasn't

...The directions said that mozzarella isn't a cheese for beginners....but I wanted mozzarella for my recipe. - There's a sermon in there.


OK so the cheese didn't work out. A gal. of milk means something different these days that it comes from a cow whose name I know. The cheese never did get shiny and stringy and the more I worked it the more grainy it got. I squeezed the whey out and we're still going to eat it.

At least the rosemary focaccia bread worked out better. The rosemary was growing nicely in the garden.

I sliced that cheese and warmed it in the oven after the bread came out. The pesto and fried onions covered the sins of the mozzarella.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Verde: sometimes it takes a while to get the cheese thing going, and sometimes you just don't know what goes wrong. I've had the lumpy problem and I have solved it by trying to slightly reheat it. Either way, even my "failed" cheeses have been pretty edible so I keep trying! Just try, next time, to add a bit more of one thing (rennet, acid, etc.) and see if it works...

Lisa Zahn said...

How did the cheese taste? I bet it was good anyway!

Thanks for commenting on my post today. Can you tell I was on a bt of a rant? I had just received a second email trashing immigrants, both of which came from people I love, and I just can't stand it anymore! I'm really worried this is going to be a big problem in this "new" America. Ack! I could use all the support in this that I can get, so thanks.

Lisa in MN

Connie said...

Yea, I think its good to remember that unless you are Native American, you to too are an immigrant. You bring up and interesteing point that history does bear out: the newest immigrants have been blamed and beaten for economic woes.

Connie said...

Oh, yes. The cheese was quite edible. It needed more flavor however. I think I need to get some cheese cultures too.

I'm not discouraged - but I do think I'll go back to beginner cheeses.

zorra said...

And Barbara Kinsolver made mozzarella sound so easy! I bet you had fun trying, anyway.

Melissa said...

if it makes you feel any better, a friend had asked me to make rice krispie treats for our weekend away, so I made them today, and somehow managed to mess that up. and that's not even like a real recipe. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it!

Matriarchy said...

Keep trying!

I have only tried making cheese once - I made "ricotta" from raw milk. It turned out more like mozzarella. I had to grate it to use it in lasagna. But it tasted good!

Raw milk costs me almost $8/gal, so it is not cost efficient for me to make cheese, but I look at it as something I should try once in a while, just to know how to do it. Maybe one day I will have a more affordable source of milk.