Covid Chronicles, Week 24

 Our hot summer is continuing!

Meanwhile, the cheese saga continues.....

On Saturday, I decided to try again.

I had a bottle of whole milk, no organic or grass fed this time.

Plain old regularly pasteurized whole milk. 

No ultra-pasteurization.

I was encouraged when I saw initial curdling 

as I heated the milk and citric acid to 90 degrees.

I added my rennet solution.

I stirred gently, covered it, and set it aside for five minutes.

No luck.

I covered it again for five minutes more, as directed.

No luck.

In an attempt to salvage my investment of time and money, 

I gently heated the milk mixture to 190 

(the temperature at which I have made ricotta), 

then poured it (using a ladle) through cheesecloth.  

I collected much less curd than I do when making ricotta, 

only enough to fill a 6-oz custard cup.

When I tasted it, I discovered that the texture is GRAINY 

and not appealing at all.  

At this point, I am giving up mozzarella cheese making.

I wrote to the company that makes rennet, 

and suggested that if they think the rennet is at fault, 

they might send me more.

However, I told them, 

otherwise I am limiting my cheese-making to ricotta.  

That has always come out pretty good!

They responded that this problem happens 

if the milk was pasteurized above 168 degrees.....Sigh.  

That's it for me!

That's okay, the regular ricotta recipe hasn't failed me yet!

I used to make ricotta with citric acid, 

then I discovered that the vinegar method worked fine.  

Here's a basic recipe, similar to what I've done in the past.  

Some other recipes call for heavy cream to be added for a creamier ricotta.  

How To Make Homemade Ricotta Cheese

How To Make Homemade Ricotta Cheese Milk, lemon juice, and about a half-hour of your time — that's all you need to make a batch of fresh, creamy hom...

Covid Chronicles, Week 23

 Last weekend was fun.....well, mostly.

Peter's 65th birthday was Saturday.  Kind of a monumental Medicare day, right?  

Like, now you're officially a "senior citizen."  

I made a card for him (as I'm not going shopping in a brick and mortar store if I can help it), 

and had a book I thought he'd like as a gift.  

I pretended I was just making a nice dinner for him for his birthday.....

but in reality I invited the kids over, and told them it's a surprise.  

They were expected at 3 pm.  

Hmmm....we usually watch Mass online at 4 pm, 

so he should have been mostly finished with whatever he was doing by 3.

However, there was no way I could tell him to come in at 2:30 for a shower.  

That's too early to be ready for a 4 pm online Mass!

John arrived as Peter was driving away with the truck to park the trailer, 

which he was still using to pick up brush after storm Isaias. 

Peter arrived home soon after that, 

and wasn't really surprised that John happened to drop by on his birthday to say hello.  

However......then came Katie with her two dogs!

Surprise! 

After Peter's quick shower, we had a steak dinner outside, just the four of us.  

Nice and socially distant, which is why we are not all together in a photo, 

which I put on Facebook afterwards.  

(Unfortunately, Andy could not join us as he was working.)

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The next day, we finally got some much-needed rain!

Looking good, right?

I decided it was a good day to make mozzarella.

I have a friend who has been making cheese throughout Covid, 

and she told me how easy it is to make mozzarella.

I had a "30 minute" recipe, with step-by-step illustrated directions. 

I had already learned to successfully make ricotta, so mozzarella was intriguing.

I had secured a glass bottle of whole milk from a local farm stand.  

The milk was actually from a farm in Enfield.  

Farm fresh whole milk!  Should be awesome!

Unfortunately, nothing happened.  

Yes, I mean nothing!  

$6.50 + $2.00 bottle deposit and nothing happened!

No curds AT ALL.  

My friend thought that perhaps the milk had been ultra-pasteurized.  

(That's using extra high heat for pasteurization to increase shelf life.)  

This is not supposed to be used for cheese making.

I contacted the company.....really, this information should be on the bottle!

They responded.  They said this milk is actually great for cheese making, 

but they never told me the temperature at which they pasteurize......

so perhaps this was an accidental high temperature batch.  I don't know.  

(They, of course, suggested that I give their milk another try.)  

Well, no one was about to consume this liquid after I had thrown in:

    Citric Acid, water, and rennet (for the Mozzarella),

    then vinegar (in a last ditch attempt to make ricotta),

    and even salt (in case the ricotta attempt was successful).

Still, nothing happened.  No curds whatsoever.  

Live and learn.  Down the drain it went. 

May your week be filled with great cheese.....unless you have dairy issues!

Covid Chronicles, Week 22

 In the afternoon of Tuesday of last week, storm Isaias hit Connecticut.  

Interestingly, hardly any weather forecasters seemed to know how to say the name of this storm. 

They kept saying, "Ee-sah-EE-sis," like it's a process, not a name.  

I finally looked it up, and it appears that there are many ways to say this name.  

Notably, in Spanish it's "Ee-sah-EE-ahs," but in other countries it's "Ee-SAI-ahs." 

Americans would probably say, "Ai-ZAY-as."  

Why they chose a name with such a complex pronunciation is a quandry.  

So anyway, Isaias rolled on through that afternoon, with a path to our west.

Not good.

To the west of Isaias, they got rain, which we certainly could have used.

We didn't get much rain at all.

On our side of Isaias, we got wind.  

It wasn't a hurricane, but there were "microbursts" and shearing winds that twisted branches.

You know where this is going.....

Luckily, our power flickered but did not go out.

Most of our town, however, lost power.

The next day, when we lost power for three hours, 

we also lost internet for almost five days.

Our best connection to the outside world was 

our old-fashioned newspaper, and the radio. 

The cell phones worked for talking, 

but with delays in texting, inconsistent emails, and nonexistent web pages.

All the way until Sunday afternoon.  

We found out about its return when we got back from one of many trips to bulky waste.  

So there you have it.  A mess.  

The power company is getting its due now, for sure.  

So is our cable company.  

Our town had trucks all the way from Canada to get our power back!

I had a friend come by to charge her phone, and I also lent her a charging brick.

I offered more charging services to other friends, as well as water for those with wells, 

but they did ok I guess.

Ironically, our son, living on a street notorious for losing power, did fine!

He just lost power for a few hours on Sunday after a transformer blew.  

We were armed and ready to help him with a small generator and water so he can flush,

but miraculously, it wasn't necessary yet again!

Now is the time to re-assess the trees in our yard, 

because you never know when another storm might hit.  

Wishing everyone well!

Covid Chronicles, Week 21

I know that last week I posted a video of how masks work, but this one is 100 times more entertaining!

Watch this one for a laugh!

Do Masks Work Or Not Proving Whether Masks Stop Covid 19 Transmission with Uncle Rob

Do Masks Work Or Not Proving Whether Masks Stop Covid 19 Transmission ...

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Last week we finally harvested some of our Shishito peppers, 

which are growing on our back porch in pots.  

 

Approximately one of ten of these peppers pack a punch, the rest are sweet.

They are served blistered in olive oil from a frying pan, with a simple sprinkling of salt.

Take a pepper by the stem and eat it!

The fun is not knowing when you'll get a hot one!

This time we charred the peppers in a vegetable basket on the grill.

Then they were tossed with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt.

Delicious!!!  And much better than splattering oil all over the stove!

We didn't get any that were actually hot, just a few that were a bit spicier than others.