Making Homemade Mozzarella

Finally was able to found a recipe that used up 2 gallons of my goat's milk to try my hand at making fresh Mozzarella.

I thawed all my frozen milk and then put into a pot and pasteurized the milk first.  I let the milk cool overnight and started my cheese the next morning.

First I measured out 2 1/2 tsp citric acid powder into 1/4 c cool water till dissolved.  I then added this to my pot of 2 gallons of cold milk and mixed well. I then warmed the milk and citric acid mixture to 88 degrees.

Then separately I added 1/2 tsp liquid rennet to 1/4 c cool water. Once the milk reaches 88 degrees I shut the stove off and added the rennet mixture and mixed slowly but well.  I covered it up and let it rest for 20 minutes.

 

Goat's milk curd formed for Mozzarella

Once your curds have set and it well cleanly break away from the side of the pot you need to cut it into 1 inches squares.

1 inch square cut curds

Then I let it rest for another 10 minutes to let the whey seep out of the cut curds.

Next you slowly warm the curds to 108 degrees.  The recipe said to stir slowly and often and keep the temp for 35 minutes.  I only did this step for 10 minutes as my cheese was fully formed after 10 minutes.

Cooked curds at 5 minutes

 

 

Cooked curds at 10 minutes.

This curds are very heavy at this point. Once cooked and formed I drained it in a colander.

Cooked Cheese curds draining. 

As you can see the cheese is one heavy piece now so its not really necessary to use cheese cloth to drain.

At this point I separated the cheese into 3 bunches.  I salted one at a time.  Next time I will be adding more salt as I don't think I added enough.  I took one salted bunch and placed in a plastic tupperware container and put in the microwave for 40 seconds.  Then I used the back of a large spoon to start the kneading as the cheese is very hot. Once it cools you can knead it will your hands like you would bread.  I didn't stretch the cheese this time but will next time.

Fresh Mozzarella

I was able to make two large pieces of fresh mozzarella and also a bowl full of small mozzarella pearls.

Two large pieces of Fresh Mozzarella

Mozzarella Pearls

The mozzarella melts really well.  Jamie made some stuffed jalapeno peppers with it.  He cut a jalapeno pepper in half and deveined and seeded.  Then he added a piece of folded up pepperoni and then topped with the fresh mozzarella and baked.  They were delicious.

Next we made a Fresh Mozzarella, Tomatoe and Cucumber salad with a great dressing.

Fresh Mozzarella, Tomatoe & Cucumber Salad

I still have the two large blocks left that I'm going to shred and make lasagna with this week.

Our New Friend

We have a new friend here at the house.  The kids actually call her part of the family.

This is Chelsea.

Chelsea

This kitty has been hanging around our house every now and then since we moved in.  Well for about the last month she is around all the time.  She must be living very close to the house since every time any of us comes out of the house she appears and proceeds to follow us around.

For a while I wasn't letting the kids touch her but one day Drew was helping with chores and Chelsea was following him around and every time he stopped she stopped and rolled onto her back.  Finally I told Drew she could pet her.  So he sat down and she climbed right onto his lap.  Drew named her right then and there.

Chelsea & Hailey

As you can see above, she is really friendly and loves to have people pet her.  We are not sure if she is a kitten or if she is and elderly cat.  She is on the smaller side.  A little skinny I think from being a stray. She also has a short tail.  It's only about 4 inches long.  I'm sure she must have been somebody's cat at some point because she is just really too friendly for a stray/feral cat.

Chelsea getting rubs from Hailey

Chelsea as made herself right at home here.  She likes to be around while I do morning chores.  I'll see her now and again during the day and then she shows up for evening chores too. 

Chelsea

The kids are thrilled to have her here.  She's a sweet kitty and hopefully she stays around.

Four Fruit Juice

In one of my earlier posts about the peaches I got from the orchard, I mentioned that we didn't get very many. 

All the peaches I got this year, the cicadas killed the rest

 So looking through my canning book I found a recipe for fruit juice that called for pureed peaches.

I had just enough so I pureed the peaches and froze them until I could get the other ingredients from the store to complete the recipe.

Peach Puree

This is the recipe I used.

Four Fruit Juice

4 cups of Peach puree, 4 cups orange juice, 4 cups of pineapple juice, 4 cups of grapefruit juice, 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of honey.

Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot.  Heat juice for 5 minutes at 190 degrees F. Do not boil.  Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot juice into hot jars, leave 1/4 in. head space. Add lids and bands.  Process pints and quarts 20 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Four Fruit Juice

The recipe ended up making 5 quarts and 1 pint.  I canned up the 5 quarts per directions for later use.  With the left over pint we all had a little taste.  To my surprise the juice was sour, not sweet at all.  I thought with the honey and the pineapple juice it would be sweet but its not. 

It has more of a mild grapefruit taste to it.  The kids loved it as they love sour food.  I added ice and a little extra cold water to mine and I like it much better.

I'm happy to have tried a new recipe, even happier that we all like it and it won't go to waste.  The labor to make it and the juice.



Hay

Spring through fall is hay season here.  Most people get 3 cuts from their hay fields.  When its cutting time all the fresh grass smells wonderful. 

Hay essentially is a field of grass or a certain type of grass that is cut, then left to dry in the sun and then gathered into bales or big rolls.

We need hay to feed the goats.  They do get hay now but most of the hay we purchased will be to feed the goats in the winter time when the pasture isn't so nutrients packed as it is now.

100 bales of hay kept out of the rain to stay dry.

We have to buy 2 types of different hay.  First we buy just regular grass hay for the boys.  It has plenty of nutrients for them and they love it.  I make sure to keep their hay feeder full at all times.  They do have access to pasture just not as much as I would like in my opinion.  Their area is considered very large to some people but no where what the girls have to pick from.

50 bales of grass hay.

We buy our grass hay from a local man, Paul who is wonderful and actually has delivered it to us both times to get the amount we want.  We have 50 bales of hay right now and that should be plenty to get just the 2 boys through the winter. 

Grass hay up close

Next we buy alfalfa hay for the girls.  We get this hay because its good for them but really for the milking.  Alfalfa hay gives the milk a sweeter more consist taste.  All the girls were raised on alfalfa hay at the breeders.  Since we have Priscilla in milk we continued to feed all the girls the alfalfa hay.  It would be way to difficult to try to give only Priscilla alfalfa and the other girls grass hay as all the girls are housed together.  After feeding the girls their grain portion in the morning I put in 2 flakes of alfalfa for them and then I do the same thing again at night.  We don't have to feed as much hay right now because we only have 1 doe and 4 doelings.

50 bales of alfalfa hay

We buy our alfalfa hay from someone about an hour away from us.  One of our main reasons for getting a hitch and trailer for our minivan was to be able to pick up hay for the goats.  We have done two separate trips, getting 25 bales each time.  We are hoping to have this last us through the winter with the 4 girls still being little.  Thankfully our alfalfa hay guy, Tim said that he usually has some stored in his barn all winter and if we need more to just give him a call. 

Alfalfa Hay up close

As you can see the difference in the up close pictures.  Grass hay is just grass, grown long and cut and bales.  Alfalfa hay is more of a plant.  It has thicker stocks and is very leafy.

One of the biggest differences in the hay besides the type is the price.  Grass hay is very common therefore it is fairly inexpensive.  Alfalfa hay is not grown very much here in TN so the price is double of what we pay for our grass hay.  The money spent for the alfalfa hay is well worth it in my mind.  It gives a better tasting milk to make all the wonderful cheeses I am learning to make.

The girls love the alfalfa more than anything and every once in a while I will give some to the boys for a treat.

Girls eating the Alfalfa Hay

As you can see in the above picture the girls love the alfalfa hay, even Matilda likes to chew on it.  Not sure if that's because she is still a puppy or if she thinks she's a goat.

We got a Rooster and a new Hen.

Barred Rock Rooster & Easter Egger Hen

When we ordered our Meat Chickens, we got a mystery bird along with them for free.  Now that it is old enough we know that it's a hen (girl).  So I've been on the look out for a Rooster.  I found an ad on Craigslist.  She had 2 roosters she was giving away for free and had 2 hens that were laying that she was selling for $5 each. I gave her a call and it ended up that she lived not even 5 minutes from me.

I went on over on Friday and picked out the Barred Rock Rooster and one of the Easter Egger hens.

I want to have a rooster with the hopes that one day if one of my hens wants to go broody, meaning she wants to sit on and hatch her eggs, we will have our own chicks.  You need a rooster to have fertilized eggs which could be baby chicks one day.

He seems pretty friendly and let me pick him up.  Also this morning, Sunday he was trying to crow for the first time.  I'm sure within a weeks time he will have it down.

Barred Rock Rooster, handsome.

I decided to get the hen because we are still waiting for our 6 hens to start laying.  They will be 5 months old next week and are suppose to start laying soon. When I went to look at the roosters and hens I wasn't sure if I would get a hen or not but I couldn't pass up on of the them as she was really pretty, looked completely different then anything I already have AND she was already laying.

Easter Egger Hen

Both the rooster and hen are housed together in temporary housing for 30 days.  We need to make sure that they aren't bringing in any diseases that may kill my flock.  Once we have hit the 30 day mark we will introduce them to my other hens and hopefully they will live all nicely together.

Temporary Housing

We have an extra large dog crate in there to lock them up in at night.  I'm worried about something getting at them through the fence so it's just for extra precaution.  It's also the place the hen has chosen to lay her eggs.

Our first egg from the Easter Egger Hen

She finally laid her first egg here.  I think she was a little stressed about the move and such so she didn't lay her egg until 5:15 at night.  I was doing chores when I noticed her sitting in the crate.  I just left her alone and noticed later on that she was out and walking around again.  Of course I went and checked and low and behold there was the egg!!!

I, of course knew Hailey wanted to get the first egg so I went back up to the house to get her.

Hailey with the egg.

Easter Egger hens lay color tinted eggs.  Our eggs are a very pastel green color.  Yes they taste like a regular egg even being a different color.

Our first egg from the Easter Egger Hen

Hopefully she will keep laying her egg everyday and we'll continue to get at least one fresh egg a day until my other hens decide to start laying.

First Day of School

Drew & Hailey on their 1st day back to school

The kids went back to school.  Thursday was their first day and all went well.  Hailey is now in 3rd grade and her teachers name is Miss Donna.  They call any woman teachers with Miss and then their name.  Men teachers are just called Mr. and their last name.  It's a southern thing I guess.  This will be Hailey's last year in the Elementary school as 4th grade here is in the middle school.

Drew is now in 6th grade and loves that he gets to switch classes for each subject and also that the they have different kids in each of his classes too.

Drew's 1st day of 6th grade

Hailey's 1st day of 3rd grade.

Hopefully both kids will do great through out the year and get good grades as they have in the past

Ready for Winter

We have a fireplace in the living room, wood burning.  It doesn't give off much heat but it sure is pretty to look at.  We also have a wood burning stove in the dining room.  This stove gives off some serious heat and once we have a good fire going in it we can heat the whole house, even the upstairs.  When we moved in one of our goals was to harvest enough wood to heat the house for the winter.  We do not have a log splitter yet so Jamie spent time here and there cutting down trees and cutting the wood into chunks.  He then stacked the pieces near our wood shed and covered it with a tarp so it wouldn't get wet. 

Last weekend we decided we had enough wood and went and rented a log splitter.  We had it Saturday afternoon to Monday morning.  We immediately went to work splitting and stacking.  We actually got finished Saturday and didn't want it to go to waste just sitting there on Sunday so Jamie dropped two more trees. Jamie & Drew split and stacked it while Hailey and I canned up some pasta sauce and pickle, also for the winter time.

Jamie says we have approximately 3 cords of wood.  We are hoping this will get us through the winter.  It will be nice to go from paying over $1500 a season for heating to just $100, which is the cost of renting the splitter and buying gas to run it.  Not to mention the house will be nice and toasty warm.

Drew with the first stack of wood

Hailey running the log splitter

Drew with the 4th stack of wood

This above picture shows Drew with our 4th stack of wood, what you can't see is the stack to right is actually our 3rd stack of wood.  All to the right has 3 stacks of wood deep and is at least over 5 feet high, since it was taller than me.  The 4th stack of wood is along the back and a small 1/2 stack is to the left, which is made up of smaller sticks and logs for overnight heating.

This was the last picture I took of all the wood but when Jamie and Drew did the last two trees on Sunday, this stack of wood reached the ceiling and then another full stack and half was added in front of it.

Jamie working with the log splitter

Kids all finished stacking wood.

You would of thought they would of been smiling in the above picture since we were finally done for the day.  They both worked very hard and each one had some scrapes and scratches on them.  We all slept well that night and was a little sore the next day.  I'm sure I can speak for all of us that we are happy to have this chore done.  Well at least until next year when we will have to start all over again.