Where Was I This Morning?

The Animal Whisperer took the boys to school…I was in a can’t-stand-to-hear-myself-talk-anymore-and-have-them-not-listen state of mind.  So, I went on a walk.  A beautiful walk!  Can you guess where I was?

Click on the Where Was I This Morning? link on the right side of the Home page (scroll down if you don’t see it) and put your guess in the “Comment” section at the end of the post (I still haven’t figured out how to get it directly under THIS post…I’ll take suggestions though!)

Thanks for playing, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

Something like an Olympian?

We went skiing a couple of weeks ago, and after finishing 4 or 5 green runs (the easiest hills) with my husband and two boys, sister and brother-in-law, we went in for lunch.

Before I proceed, I’d like to point some things out:

1.  My sister is an awesome skier.

2.  My brother-in-law is a smooth riding snowboarder.

3.  My husband and the boys are emerging from the beginner category.

4.  And, I, in the olden days, used to be pretty good.  Now, I just try to copy my sister.

Having said the previous, I’ll move on to the following delusion that overcame me.

Every time I go skiing, I wear the same thing.  Hand-me-downs and gifts that I’ve received over the years.  A purple and white jacket (gift), the warmest ski/boxing gloves ever (hand-me-down), helmet (rental), ski boots (rentals), ski socks (stolen from my husband years ago and now are close to reaching the holes in the heels stage), 15-year-old white and grey wool sweater with two of the original seven buttons (kind of like an old robe you’ll never get rid of), a black thermal shirt (gift) and navy blue, sort of shiny, ski pants (hand-me-down.)

It is the ski pants that caused a stir.

They ARE FROM THE OLYMPICS.  In 2002.

So, it was as I emerged from my bathroom stall after lunch, clomping to the sink in my ski boots (have you EVER done that?  Going to the bathroom while in your ski clothes is quite possibly the WORST thing about the whole outing.), that a thought briefly crossed my mind.

Feeling safe that none of the people in the bathroom had actually seen me ski, and knowing that “USA 2002″ was emblazoned across my left thigh, and visible for all in the bathroom to see, I thought slyly…maybe they think I was actually in the Olympics!

WHOA!  Then reality came screaming at me from the mirror.

No, there is actually NO way that ANYONE would think I might have ever skied in the Olympics.

It is possible that they thought I did some successful post Olympic 2002 dumpster diving though.

What’s your opinion?  Be honest.  If you really might have been convinced, even for a brief second, that I was an Olympian, please let me know.  And, if not, it won’t hurt my feelings any more than looking at myself in the mirror did.

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

P.S.  No laughing, please.

Mozzarella, mozzarella, why dost thou fail me? Part 2

Watch out high school science teachers…here I come!

My Hypothesis:  The higher the pasteurization temperature of grocery store purchased cow’s milk of four different available 1/2 gallon varieties with similar expiration dates will negatively affect the outcome of homemade mozzarella.

The four milks I used for the mozzarella making experiment, and their details, are as follows:

Meadow Gold:  1-800-395-7004, www.meadowgold.com,  I spoke to Derick.  He says the milk is pasteurized at 161 degrees for 15 seconds.  My Colorado Springs milk comes from Meadow Gold Plant in Englewood Co.  All milk is purchased directly from farmers who are local to my region or my state.  If they can’t get enough milk from Colorado, they might get it from Utah, Wyoming or New Mexico.  The milk has a 16 day shelf life.  Just the ingredients on the panel are added to it.  The milk container is food grade plastic.  He didn’t know how quickly the milk arrives to the plant after being milked.  Once it arrives at the plant, the maximum hold time it stays there is 48 hours, then it is shipped to the store within 24 hours after pasteurization.  Effective July 1, 2008, they do not use milk from cows treated with rbst.  Antibiotics can be used but the affected cow would be removed from the herd.  Milk is not tested for antibiotics.

He also mentioned that each milk company has its own proprietary information as far as processing.  When I asked him what could be proprietory about milk processing, he couldn’t tell me/wouldn’t tell me.  He did say that bacteria levels, airborne bacteria, handling at the store, and temperature would all be factors.

King Soopers Milk:  1-800-697-2448, I spoke to Dianne.  She told me they pasteurize their milk at 170 degrees for 16 seconds.  (“If it says ultra pasteurized it is heated to 178 for 16 seconds”).  The processing plant is in North Hendren, Wisconsin, she said I couldn’t call the plant directly.  The shelf life is 7-10 days.  She had no information regarding how quickly the milk gets to the plant after being milked, or how soon it is pasteurized.  She had no information regarding the source of the milk, how long after it is milked it arrives at the plant, nor how long after it is pasteurized does it arrive to the store.  The paper carton contains a  paraffin coating to prevent leakage, there no glue involved.

Horizon Organic:  1-888-494-3020, www.horizondairy.com,  I spoke to David. They heat the milk to 161.6 degrees for 15 seconds for pasteurization (he called it “htst” which means high temperature short time.)   Vitamin D is added.  The milk comes from “family farms in the United States”, my Colorado Springs purchased milk would come from my state or surrounding states… “We’re not going to send milk from California to New York.”  The container is “paperboard lined with polyethylene which is a food grade plastic.”  The milk has a shelf life of 17 days from the date it’s pasteurized.  The milk has to arrive at the plant at a certain temperature (if it’s too hot it will be thrown out), usually it’s within the same day it was milked (but Dave was unable to verify this.)  (As a side note, he says ultrapasteurized temp is 280 for 2 seconds, 65 to 68 day shelf life.)

Sinton’s: 719-633-3821, www.sintondairy.com, I spoke to Michael.  He says they heat the milk to 170 degrees for 3 seconds.  170 degrees kills a certain pathogen that he couldn’t remember the name of.  The milk has a 19 day shelf life.  They don’t process on weekends, but do take deliveries on weekends.  Milk received Sunday may not be processed until Tuesday (worst case scenario), but most likely on Monday.  Milk is received either the day it is milked or the day after it is milked.  At the expiration date, milk could be as old as 24 days old, according to my math.  Vitamin D is added to the whole milk, nothing else.  All milk comes from Colorado via the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative.

And, now on to the exciting stuff…

I boiled a couple of inches of water in each of my four stainless steel cheesemaking pots to ensure they were sterilized.

Then set up the project.

Next I poured the entire half-gallon of each milk into its corresponding pot.

I dissolved 3/4 tsp citric acid into 1/4 cup non-chlorinated water (per milk pot) and gently stirred it into each pot of milk for 20 seconds.

Next I heated each milk to 98-99 degrees then slowly stirred (into each batch) 1/8 teaspoon vegetarian Mad Millie brand rennet that had been dissolved into 1/4 cup non-chlorinated water.

It rested for 5 minutes, then I cut the curd into 1/2 inch squares.  Here is Pot #1, Meadow Gold.

Pot #2, King Soopers.  (Not cut yet, just testing the curd.)

Pot #3, Horizon Organic.

Pot #4, Sinton’s.

I let the curds heal for 3 minutes, drained them of whey and formed them into “snowballs.”  In the case of #1 and #2, snowballs would not form.  The curd would not hold together.

Next, I cut the curd into 1/2 inch pieces, poured hot sea-salted water over them and stretched…or attempted to.  Pot #1, Meadowgold, is above.  That is definite NON-stretch.

Pot #2, King Soopers.

Pot #3, Horizon Organic.

Pot #4, Sinton’s.  Best Stretch.

Throughout the study, I checked the acidity at various points as indicated on the paper in front of each milk.  If you are ready to delve into acidity in cheese making, zoom in on those numbers.  Otherwise, forget about them.

And here are the results!  Sinton’s won first place, Horizon Organic was second, King Sooper’s third and Meadow Gold fourth.

Here are some of my observations:

1.  None of the cheeses tasted as good as raw goat mozzarella, or what I imagine raw cow mozzarella would taste like.  Overall, they tasted more like velveeta cheese.  (Yuck.)  There was no complexity of flavor and they tasted like I should have just peeled celophane off of them.  When I put #2, #3 and #4 on burritos, they didn’t really melt, just turned into something more like paste.

2.  Michael at Sinton’s Dairy was the closest to the operation…he didn’t have to use a computer to access his knowledge, he just knew it, he works at the plant and has specific knowledge about what goes on there.  Sinton’s was the only plant I spoke to directly.

3.  Horizon Organic, Meadow Gold and King Soopers all had call center people I spoke to, who accessed their information from a computer.  The Meadow Gold and King Soopers people I spoke to weren’t even in the same state as the processing plant from whence my milk came.

4.  The only milk I was assured to have come from my own state (Colorado) was Sinton’s.

5.  King Soopers and Horizon Organic have different (WAY different) definitions of ultra pasteurized, according to their call center representatives.

6.  How can milk processing have any propietary information?  Heat it up, cool it down and package it, right?

7.  My hypothesis that the higher the heat in pasteurization would produce worse mozzarella was wrong.  Sinton’s is pasteurized at 170 and Meadow Gold at 162.

NOW, after slogging through this experiment with me, since it doesn’t seem to have to do with pasteurization, do you have any observations that might help us solve the question of Mozzarella, mozzarella, why dost thou fail me?

I look forward to reading your replies…and until I can figure out how allow you to comment right below this post, you’ll have to go to the right side bar and click on this post there.  That will open it up with the ability to comment at the bottom.  Thanks again for your help!

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

Mozzarella, Mozzarella, Why Dost Thou Fail Me? Part 1

I have, to date, taught over 500 people to make mozzarella in The Goat Cheese Making Class. (See Annie below stretching raw goat mozarella).  In EVERY SINGLE CLASS, I tell students that you can make mozzarella with any kind of milk, as long as it is not ULTRA pasteurized.  Among cheese makers, it is common knowledge that you cannot use ultra pasteurized milk for anything except watering your bushes outside.  It is a useless shadow of what was once milk, but has been heated to such high temperatures that everything in it is dead.  Everything.  And as if dead weren’t enough, the high heat restructures the molecules formerly known as milk so they won’t EVER form cheese.

The only kinds of milk you can use for cheese making are raw (best) and pasteurized (second best).  If you don’t have access to raw, you will buy pasteurized!  And based on what I teach, what every other cheesemaking teacher teaches and what you’ll read in every book and find on every website, chat room, board and blog, is that pasteurized milk will work!

But below is the ***disclaimer*** which caused me to carry out a study to determine which of 4 locally available pasteurized cows milks works to make mozzarella.  (Details coming up in Part 2)

***Disclaimer:  All milk that is labeled pasteurized will not work.***

In my study, I picked 4 locally available brands of pasteurized cows milk, both organic and non-organic, with sell-by dates around the same time.  One didn’t work at all.  Another one hardly worked.  The other two worked fine.

WHAT?????  If they’re labeled Pasteurized, WHY WON’T THEY ALL WORK???

Yes.  Good Question.  Why won’t they all work?

For now, I’m going to ask for your guesses.  I have hypothesized the answer, but am in the process of researching the milk companies to determine if my answer is correct.  So, I’m not telling you yet.

I want to hear from YOU.  Why do you think, if every cheese making piece of information everywhere says you can use pasteurized milk, WHY WON’T IT WORK in some cases?(OK, that’s an over exaggeration.  I haven’t read every piece of cheesemaking information everywhere.)

Comment below with your guesses.  Even if you’re not sure, still guess.  I’ll tell you more of the details in Part 2.

Thanks for playing!!

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

Book Review: The Joy of Cheesemaking

As I pore through cheesemaking books during the low milk season (1/2 gallon per day…high milk season is 5-6 gallons per day) and have not enough to make cheese, I am filling my brain with cheesemaking information.  One can (and must) always continue to learn.

So, in the Book Reviews that will follow over the next couple of months, I strive not to be an expert at reviewing books, but only on sharing my opinion with you.

And, I will start by saying:  To write a book must be a HUGE undertaking, and I admire all of the authors who have done it, regardless of what I might say in the review.  Thanks for reading that little disclaimer, and now, I shall proceed.

The Joy of Cheesemaking, The Ultimate Guide To Understanding, Making, And Eating Fine Cheese, by Jody M. Farnham and Marc Druart.

I enjoyed the book and learned from it.  It provides great detail in some of the more chemical and biological aspects of cheesemaking (ie. molds and cultures), but lacks detail in some of the other chemical and biological aspects (ie. uses the term “flocculation” but I never found an explanation of what it means.).

The recipes it provides for actual cheesemaking are for larger scale cheesemaking than the home cheesemaker would undertake.  However, it does do an exceptional job of describing in great mathematic detail how to break down the larger measurements into smaller home-scale quantities.  When I decide to sit down and tackle the formulas it provides, I know they will be very helpful.

The authors provide delicious sounding and looking (nice pictures) recipes to accompany the cheeses they write about.  The fact that an odd thing (in my mind) like tomato jam (above) would be “so delicious you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner” makes me want to make it and see.

Overall, my opinion is that parts of the book are very well written and detailed, while other parts are not.  It seemed that in some areas of the book, the authors got tired and were less detail oriented.  And, there were many spelling errors.  At one point, they point out that you will get white fizz on your cheese as it ages.  Really, what you’ll get is white fuzz.

I will purchase this book for my library (this one is on loan from the Pikes Peak Library) to consult when I need to use the formulas.  It also has good suggestions for setting up a cheese board.  However, for goat milk specific cheese recipes, I will refer to other books with smaller recipe sizes to avoid going through the math.

Let me know what you think if you’ve read it!

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

P.S.  If you are new to the term “flocculation” in cheesemaking, it means the time at which the milk begins to coagulate/gel and become curd after you add the rennet. To test for flocculation, put a toothpick on top of the milk/rennet mixture right after you mix in the rennet.  Bump the toothpick every few minutes.  It moves, right?  Until it doesn’t.  Flocculation is the time at which you gently bump the toothpick and it doesn’t move.

Lessons Learned: Part 3

The pictures contained herein are potentially vomit-causing if you are faint hearted or light of stomach.  Proceed with your eyes open or with your eyes closed, whichever you choose.  I am not too faint of either organ, so I find the pictures really rather amazing. 

 

 

Day 3:  Back at home.  Shiny stuff is antibiotic ointment my nurse sister-in-law gave me.

Day 4

Day 6:  That little drip there is from a tiny pin-prick sized hole in the blister.  The hole happened by itself.  I made sure to take exceptional care that no infection entered so that it would continue to heal well.

Day 6

Day 6:  Now, that really looks nice.  Doesn’t it?

Day 9:  All the liquid was finally out of the blister.

Day 10:  Once the whole blister drained, I gently trimmed away all the dead skin.

Day 15

Lesson Learned #1:  Buy your donuts.  Don’t make them.

Lesson Learned #2:  Water and hot oil DO NOT MIX.  They cause explosions.  If you DO decide to make your own donuts despite the warning in Lesson Learned #1, use dough that is dry, i.e. you JUST made it.  You DIDN’T put it in a lidded container overnight in the refrigerator to collect condensation (water.)

Lesson Learned #3:  When you get the donuts out of the hot oil, use LONG TONGS.  Not a short fork.  This will allow more time for your hand to escape if there is an explosion.

Lesson Learned #4:  DO NOT…I REPEAT…DO NOT USE BUTTER OR MARGERINE OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF FATTY SUBSTANCE TO ATTEMPT TO SOOTHE THE BURN.

Lesson Learned #5:  DO put your burned part straight into a pot of ICE WATER.

Lesson Learned #6:  If ice is not available, cut a bunch of tomatoes in half and squish up the insides a little and put them on the burn.  You’ll need a lot of tomatoes.

Lesson Learned #7:  Crack an egg.  Smear the white all over your burn.  Apparently this helps with reducing scarring.  Peel the thin white layer out from the inside of the shell and put that on there too.  (Lots of people told me about this after the fact.)

Lesson Learned #8:  DO NOT POP THE BLISTER.  It is your body’s protection against infection in the burn.  It will be hard to keep it unpopped, but it is worth it.  Once it does pop, you have to keep VERY sure it doesn’t get infected.

Lesson Learned #9:  Accept help.  The school secretary (Lesa) told me about a parent (TJ) who I had never met.  TJ is a wound care nurse.  I called TJ, explained who I was, who told me to call her, and why I was calling.  She didn’t know me from Adam (as my mom would say…who is Adam, anyway?), but she drove to my house right away, on her way to taking her kids to school and going to work.  She looked at my hand from her car window with me in my pajamas and slippers standing in the driveway.  She gave me Silvadene (burn medicine) and adaptic (non-stick gauze) and told me what to do.  I did it, and no scarring is the result.  Now, TJ is my friend for life.

Isn’t it amazing???

I’d love to hear your burn stories and your burn cures…

-  The Goat Cheese Lady

Lessons Learned: Part 2

…the blasted thing EXPLODED!  (My sister-in-law, who had been standing behind me, said it looked like a mushroom cloud of oil came UP and OUT OF the pot.)

I heard a loud noise, saw the oil sink down around the donut, closed my eyes, shrieked and jumped back.  I felt something slime my hand, sensed it was oil, and thought, Wow!  This actually doesn’t really hurt!  Maybe it won’t be so bad! 

Duh.

Here is what ensued:

I sprinted to the backyard pila (water retention sink) with my left eye squeezed shut where I could scoop water into a big bowl and submerge my (now burning) hand.  I shouted for someone to GET ME BUTTER!  My husband’s Aunt shouted for someone to GET HER TOMATOES!  I shouted NO!  GET ME BUTTER!!  She shouted GET HER TOMATOES!

My five year old saw the derelict donut and groaned.  “Great!  Now we can’t EAT that one!  It’s on the FLOOR!”

I began rapid breathing.  Gasping breathing.  Now it hurt like H.E.double-sticks.  Someone got me margarine.  Surely that would cool the burn.  I had learned that somewhere in my past and slathered it like diaper rash cream on a baby’s bottom.

SH$%!!!!  That was WORSE!!!!!!!!  I would have been better off letting my hand sizzle on a hot griddle.

In my mind: GET THE BUTTER OFF!  GET THE BUTTER OFF!  (rapid breathing) He eh hoo uh, he eh hoo uh, he eh hoo uh, he eh hoo uh.

Out loud:  GET ME TOMATOES!!!  (What for?  I have no idea.  But Aunt Carmen seemed to think it would do something.)

My brother-in-law ran in with a baggie full of tomatoes.  The whole flotilla of the Aparicio family was in action.  Carmen sliced them, squished up the insides and slopped them onto my hand while I (still standing over the sink and beginning to reminisce that this was exactly like the unescapable pain of childbirth) moaned to her to put them on my face.  My sister-in-law and mother-in-law helped with whatever they could.  Pain was leaping out in scattered spots on my face, neck and arm.  Semi-tolerable.  The hand, I would have preferred to cut off.

The tomatoes turned out to be the ONLY thing that soothed the pain.  Nothing like an epidural, but they cooled the burn.  The thing was, after about two or three minutes of me rubbing them on my hand and her rubbing them on my face, the soothing goodness would wear out.  Someone would slice more, squish them up and slap them on.

I continued moaning, standing, bouncing, tensing, thinking to myself that I should pretend I’m in yoga and slow down my breathing.  I sat down.  Crouched over, tight, folded, surely cutting off blood flow to my brain, attempting la maz, pressing tomatoes to my hand, seething in pain.  She suggested I lie down.  Maybe that would help me relax, for, Relaxed I was Not.

Ahhh.  I uncurled onto a pillow on the caned couch.  At least my organs were not compromised of circulation any more.  My other sister-in-law, a nurse, had been called at her job a couple towns away.  At her request, some special cream arrived from her house down the street that Aunt Carmen began slathering on in frosting-like layers.  Someone brought a fan at which I directly aimed my hand.

Within about 30 minutes or 7 hours, life began to come back into control, although very slowly.  And, our niece’s fifteenth birthday party (similar in style to a wedding, but she wore a purple dress and married no one) was in about an hour.

And, I still looked like that.  (see tomato picture above)  But needed to look like that.  (see right hand hiding behind birthday girl below).

That was the beginning of me learning to do things one handed…left handed…and I’m right handed.  I showered left handed with my right hand held high in the air.  I washed my long hair left handed…that would have been a nice time to have short hair.  I put on makeup left handed.  Have you ever put on mascara with the wrong hand?  (Men, that is not something you should try. Ever.  Women, good luck, and try not to poke out an eye.)

And, that was also the beginning of wondering why there was almost no outward sign I had been burned!  Save for a little redness here and there, I had nothing to show for it!  Seriously???  I have gone through pain second only to going through labor and there’s nothing to see???

Ahhh…I judged to soon.  You’ll see in Part 3.  And I’ll finally tell you all of the lessons I learned.

Until then…

-  The Goat Cheese Lady