1st cheddar out of the press!

longer post later, just couldn't wait to get this post up!

Congrats to all who guessed a.....

......cheese press! This beauty is on loan from a friend and I could not be more thrilled at being able to give a go to making a hard or pressed cheese! I've got two gallons of milk heating slowly on the stove and the camera nearby for pictures. Farmhouse cheddar is the project of the day! It's got to cure for 8 weeks before we can try it, then the aged cheddar will be curing for 6 months.... I should have started years ago! lol That's a LONG time for a terribly impatient person to have to wait for the fruits of labor...

made fresh!

Chive and garlic chevre, all made here fresh on the farm! Making more today! Yum!

Cheddar Dill Scones

two words: Yum-O!

P.S. Hopefully the dill I plant next year won't drown like this years did! And when I make these again I'll have my own dill and cheddar! Delish!

Say Cheese!

What do you do with all that milk? It's a frequently asked question when the doe you're milking is producing a gallon a day and you have to decline an invitation to the movie because you have to be home to milk, again. Well, here at the farm we try to be good stewards of what we've been blessed with and that includes every drop of milk. To start off we skimmed the cream off the top of the milk to make butter. Since goats milk is naturally homogenized it takes a while before you get enough to make butter, but if you're patient and collect the cream daily it will happen. After that I think the obvious natural progression is cheese. I've made mozzarella, cherve and marinated mozzarella balls. I'm working on ice cream this weekend and will let you know how it turns out. Before I had a fresh source of milk I'd dabbled in soap making, now that I've got fresh milk daily I can (and do) make soap more frequently. Let me tell you there is nothing better on the market than homemade goat's milk soap. Try it you won't be sorry.

marinated mozzarella balls - our milk, dehydrated tomato, basil, thyme, chive and garlic. That's right folks all of that was grown or produced on our farm!

garlic & chive cherve - again, our milk, garlic and chives all produced here! (Crackers were from the store, I haven't made them, yet, it's on my list of things to try...)

fresh mozzarella - the milk was inside our goats udder this afternoon, does it get any fresher than that?