Monday, September 06, 2010

Chevre

We have goats. Snickers and Teaspoon are mini-Nubians. Willow and Jellybean are Nubians. Through the magic of Artificial Insemination Willow and Jellybean were impregnated last February with the sperm of a prizewinning buck that died in 1996. Jellybean miscarried but Willow birthed two adorable kids in July: Tiki and Luna. Willow, Snickers, Tiki and Luna are in the pic, at the County Fair. Gigi showed Snickers and got a trophy for being the [only entrant for] Junior Dairy Showmanship. 4Hers in Oregon wear white shirts with black pants, instead of the white shirts/white pants/green hat/green scarf I grew up with in California.






















We have since sold Tiki and Luna and are milking Willow. We're getting only about 1/2 gallon/day, which is insufficient to meet the family's desire for cheese, milk, ice cream and soap. We get about a quart in the morning and one at night using the Henry Milker, which is a vaccuum-pump attached to a teat via a mason jar to extract milk. It's an ingenious devise that is easy to clean and use and saves my hands from hand-milking.
That's my kitchen counter. It's marmoleum flooring. I love it.


Using http://www.cheesemaking.com direct-set chevre culture, I followed the instructures to make this awesome cheese, just using milk, culture and salt. The other cheeses are (left to right): yogurt cheese in a half-pint jar, fromage on the princess plate made in the cup-shaped molds, chevre. The yogurt cheese was a happy accident. I had yogurt culture in warm milk but forgot to turn off the oven where I'd set it to culture overnight. So it cooked at 170 in a closed jar for 10 hours. I drained it for a day in cheesecloth and it was luscious mixed with salt and herbes de provence: like alouette from the store but nicer.


















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