Soft Cheeses

Since the garden is coming up and the CSA boxes started coming, I have been more than happy with soft cheeses. They are so fresh and perfect on salads. This week I made three soft cheeses: Bondon, Fromage Blanc, and Neufchatel. All of these are spreadable cheeses with varying consistencies that could go sweet or savory. Additionally, all could easily replace cream cheese. I am not a huge fan of cream cheese (and have put off making it because the recipe is insanely complicated) so I don’t really understand how cream cheese won out against all of these other delicious and way easier to make cheeses.

BONDON: This cheese only uses a quart of milk, and the yield is about 6 oz. It is unusual in that it is a soft cheese that is lightly pressed. Additionally, the milk never gets warmer than 65 degrees so it ripens and coagulates at about room temperature (in my house at least). I made this in a mason jar and could not believe how easy, convenient, and tidy it was. The taste is a little yogurty.

FROMAGE BLANC: According to Ricki Carroll this cheese has a fraction of the calories of cream cheese. She also says it can be used as a substitute for either cream cheese or ricotta. If I had read her directions all the way through I would have seen she recommends making it at night so it can drain overnight. Instead, dripping whey made the sink inaccessible all day. It also has an insanely high yield: one gallon of milk makes two lbs of cheese. Is that even possible? Finally, it only has two ingredients: milk and fromage blanc starter.

NEUFCHATEL: “Originally from the town of Neufchatel in Normandy, France, this cheese is made from whole milk enriched with cream. Americans tend to eat it fresh, the French prefer it ripened with a white surface mold.” -Ricki Carroll. She also suggests seasoning it with savory things, or chopped pineapple.  I am constantly amazed by the power of rennet. This recipe calls for 3 drops of rennet to be diluted in 1/3 cup of water. Then, only one teaspoon of that is used. The flavor is comparable to that of Bondon.

 Clockwise from the top: Neufchatel, Fromage blanc, and bondon with radishes, salt, and pepper.

Poor John, I make him eat such weird food that he was SHOCKED by the idea that you could combine pineapple and cheese. He just kept saying, cheese and PINEAPPLE? Together? Really? I’m pretty sure FAGE invented that combination like 10 years ago, but I have just been cooking him lentils and  keeping him in the dark. Imagine how it will be when I explain to him the idea of cottage doubles!

Hey Kid Get off My…

Garden! Because I don’t have a front lawn any more.

You may remember we planned this out in the fall, but it is now a reality.

John rented a rototiller for the weekend, picked up some concrete from craigslist and now, two weekends later it is mostly done! On my dad’s advice we planted some creeping plants (phlox, thyme, etc) for soil retention. John also plans to set up an irrigation system like the backyard so it can be easily watered.

I’m planning on planting mostly vegetables based on the excellent plans of The Edible Front Yard and will do so this week.

I was so surprised how many people stopped to compliment John while he was working on this. Who knew the best way to befriend neighbors is to rip out your front yard! One of us is also SO excited not to have to mow anymore. I’ll let you guess who.

No More Hot Dog

Watch out world. He’s in your cars, he’s dropping you dirty winks, and he’s faster than ever with his summer cut.

Queens on the Loose

So this is what is looks like when you have 35 packages of bees mailed to you.

Today my dad and I went to the bee yard to make sure my queen had been released from her cage. The bees had eaten the candy plug and freed the queen but unfortunately she was nowhere to be found. I’m sure she is in there getting down to business, but there was no evidence of eggs or larvae yet. I will visit again next Sunday (if I can wait that long!)

As with everything in beekeeping, there are several schools of thought on making sure your queen gets out. Commercial beekeepers just drop the queen in, cage free, and hope for the best. This could be great because it saves a lot of time coming back to check. However, if it goes badly and the bees do not accept her the colony will be queenless.

Others prefer to add the queen in a cage but not interrupt the hive thereafter for 7-10 days. In the future I may be this kind of beekeeper. If the queen is out, disruption may cause the hive to reject and kill her. However, if she doesn’t get out of the candy cage within 7-10 days the workers who came with her will be very old by the time she is laying eggs and the colony will have substantial population collapse.

I choose a third option, or rather had no choice because I was way to excited to come back and check. She was free from the cage when I visited. My friend was able to find her queen but I was not. Beekeeper jealously! Classic. I was hoping to at least see evidence of egg laying activity but she may have just been freed very recently.

Now I am going to give you the gift of this ridiculous photo of myself:

When John saw it he asked if I was drawing a weapon. Bee duel! However, I was in fact just reaching for my hive tool apparently with significant urgency.

MTV Cribs: Coops Edition

As you may have seen in that final picture of Snuffy, the chick[ens] have moved from their basement home to a transitional home in the garage.

The heat lamp keeps their temperature around 75 degrees currently. We have been decreasing the heat gradually until they are fully feathered. Then, once their temperature and the outdoor temperature equalizes they will move to their new home in the coop.

 Thanks to a friendly neighbor who saw we were struggling moving the coop and who actually stopped running to OPT IN to this mess of John, Eva, and myself trying to lift approximately 1 ton.

The chicks also had their first outside adventure. Some friends stopped by and gave them an impromptu lesson in how to scratch like a chicken, flap, the whole nine yards complete with sounds and acting it out. The chickens don’t know what they would have done otherwise and are so grateful (as are all of us that got to watch it!).

They are getting SO BIG. John and I hear the first clucks instead of peeps the other day and couldn’t believe our ears. My dad was trying to teach them a few weeks ago. Apparently something about being around chickens makes people want to act like a chicken? Who knows. But they are top of the class cluckers now

We bought them a new waterer from the famous Anna Hess in preparation for Memorial day when we plan to go out of town for the first time without them. That makes it sound like we have actually taken them with us on vacation before but the truth is, not yet. I was so starstruck to get a package the Walden Effect!

Yard Chandeliers

I really had the very best intentions not to do much more to the yard because its getting pretty busy. But then Snuffy broke another yard decoration (subtract one, add three?) and Eva unequivocally said go for it and now here we are. Yard Chandeliers.

I had one of these, and I picked up the other two at the restore for $23 each. I cleaned them (with Snuffy’s help), spray painted them, and installed those cheap solar yard lights. The shaft of the lights was too long so I used a hacksaw to cut them to length.

The only hard part was getting the cylindrical par to fit over the fixture. I used a pliers to crush the fixture, then the wires inside were sufficient to slip inside the shaft and keep the lights firmly attached. Some had a horizontal screw that was too wide but I was able to use the pliers to twist that screw vertical.

The teal one came with a surprise package of hundreds of dangly jewels inside. Could the Restore get any better???

Since we were having a bonfire last night John graciously got out his extension ladder at 10 pm to hang them up. Now they are shining brightly after a day of charging. They just have to be brought in for the winter.

The costs for three total broke down like this:

Chandeliers: $46 for two, one free

Spray Paint: $3.98 times 3

Lights: $2.97 times 15

Total: $102.49. When I got home though I realized I already had most of these colors in my spray paint collection so this could have been done for cheaper. If I had only done the one I had it would have cost less than $15.

P.S. A very happy birthday to my two year old Snuffleupagus. Were celebrating with a haircut and a trip to the dog park.

 (source).

Bee Day!

I was a little nervous to install my bee package and it took me an hour and a half to get to the bee yard after work. I felt really rushed setting up my hive and weirdly worried everyone else would get all the “good” bees? Unclear, I may have told Chelsea that I was really jealous of the stay at home bee moms who could be there really early. I just want to have it all! So I asked one of the teachers to check my hive and make sure it was set up right. An older guy, and an expert swarm catcher, he approved my hive and then went and picked up the first package. All my worries were moot, I still got the “best” bees and the “best” location. He helped me through the whole thing. There are five regular teachers and they are rather long winded during the classroom component (like, I have experienced a five hour bee class. It is really shocking that children can go to school for so long). However, they were all so in their element in the bee yard. The teachers also are SO CAREFUL not to step on each others toes even though they want to make sure to expose the students to different schools of thought. The classes will be like:

Teacher 1: I like to do things way A but theres no right way and wrong way each has advantages and disadvantages so they’re YOUR BEES. And teacher two likes to do it this way B!

Teacher 2: Well, teacher ones way is not WRONG I just prefer way B for reasons X, Y, Z.

All the teachers will go around. It is how the classes get so long. The benefit of all of those choices was really evidence in the bee yard though.

Since I had one teacher helping me I subscribed wholesale to his school of though meaning I:

-did not dust my bees with powdered sugar for mite protection (although I plan to do this when I return)

-used rubber bands to affix my queen trap with the candy exit facing up (as opposed to using a thumb tack or tape, or facing the exit so gravity could help her get out)

-stuffed all the exits to my hive with grass which my teacher says the BEES WILL REMOVE THEMSELVES WHEN THEY’RE READY.

I found this idea to be so crazy. They will just all be in the hive getting used to it and each other and when they’re little bee honeymoon is over they’ll know because the grass will have wilted, so they’ll remove it and get down to work. They’re not just idle in there though, they are drawing comb, eating sugar water, fanning the hive, spreading pheromone, and hopefully eating the candy cork to the queen cage so the queen can get out! People think bees are busy, and they are, but really bees only do real “work” six hours a day. The rest of the time they just walk around looking busy.

 (not my hive, see all the bees in the air?)

The installation was really easy (since the teacher did it haha). To be fair, he told me what to do a lot and I did some of it. I am a little sad I didn’t do it myself but really, if its done right the first time I might not have to install bees again for a long time!

I was only a little freaked out when all the bees flew out and for a second the air was thick with bees! Since mine was the first everyone was crowded around to see too. It was quite noisy for a minute there. Then I started to see some bees on the top of the hive sticking their rear ends in the air and fanning their wings.

 (source) 

This means they have accepted the hive as their home and are spreading the info to the others to get in the box. I set them up with a little 1:1 sugar water (my massive container broke unfortunately) and the syrup that they traveled with. Since I have to return tomorrow to see if they have moved the grass I will just bring them more food tomorrow. In the spring they can eat quite a bit if the nectar isn’t flowing yes (which it is, but they’re transplants) like, up to several gallons of sugar water. Different proportions of sugar to water can stimulate different behaviors. This mix is supposed to stimulate wax production. Ideally, the younger bees just produce wax from a gland in their abdomen it is sort of gross looking but also is so mindblowing:

 (source) That is all wax coming out!

Then, all of my bees were in the hive and it was time to close them up and leave. Everyone was really sad about the fact that the bees that were still on the outside of the hive, flying around, or refused to leave the package would be lost to the hive. The teachers were, um, less sympathetic. The guy who helped me may have referred to them as welfare bees. Really though, a lot of people were upset by this, it was very upsetting. Then, when I got out of the car at home one bee flew out of the trunk. I never realized that a solitary bee was such a sad thing but she was doomed because I had driven her 22 miles from her hive.

I will return to the bee yard tomorrow to feed, then Sunday to make sure the queen is out/accepted. In the mean time I will have to occupy myself with my other new habit:

 

Buying Joan Rivers entire line of bee pins online. Why does Joan Rivers sell bee pins on QVC? Unclear, but the one on the left is called Joan of the Jungle! Lol. In the words of my friend “Nice…odd, but nice…”

VI-Bee arrival!

Tomorrow the bee packages arrive and I will officially be a beekeeper! I will have details on the installation here after. So excited!

Henrietta Flies the Coop!

The past few weeks I started a lot of posts with things like

Did you know that if a Witness is being impeached based on their character for truthfulness or untruthfulness, if on cross examination they lie and deny specific instances of conduct, extrinsic evidence is not admissible to rebut?

Then, after I finished crying about my finals life I decided to wait until I had something actually interesting to blog about. So, hears what I’ve been up to when not studying hearsay exceptions.

I made some Montasio cheese.

Things I did not do: paint my nails!

The cheese I am holding above represents two gallons of milk, so I think I did something wrong which resulted in the curds leaking milk fat back into the whey. It is very firm despite only being pressed at 5 lbs. Ricki Carroll says about this cheese: “Traditionally  made in monasteries, montasio is a hard cheese tha is used as a table chese when aged for 3 months and as a grating cheese when aged for 1 year or longer. Usually the grating cheese is made with skimmed milk.” Basically all my recipes are made with “skimmed” milk since I remove the cream to use for butter prior to cheese making. However, the milk fat content is still (based on taste at l east) much higher than store bought skim milk. It tastes at least like 3% and probably more. So, I don’t know whether this will be aged for 3 months or a year, but I am leaning towards a year. Based on its heft I think it will be a lot like parmesan since it is also brined and aged unwaxed.

I also became the kind of person who has more than one fake artichoke, so that happened. Apparently I am a collector of fake artichokes now. Target only had one of these ceramic artichokes but you better believe I would have bought them out and spray painted them all bright colors if they had more. And this is why I should not go to Target when I have not left the house otherwise for 10 days.

The chicks grew up. If the weather in Michigan would every get above like 40 degrees and rainy this spring they are for sure ready to move to their garage home. However, it SNOWED TODAY so we will apparently be waiting a while.

Henrietta (far right) had a big adventure yesterday where she flew over the side and onto the floor below, about a three foot drop. We had anticipated this possibility and provided for a cushy landing, but she was still pretty cold by the time the doodle alerted us to her predicament. She is fine, if a bit gun shy today.

We also cracked into the Monterey Jack cheese from February. It suffered from a bit from the wine flavor problem described previously. It must have been something I had been doing at that time because the other cheeses don’t have that problem. Maybe another fermenting agent was introduced, or possibly I am just struggling with the nature of such moist cheeses.

I have been trying really hard to come with hearsay jokes for you guys but I am totally at a loss…so if you hear some, tell me! (Get it?)

The Groaning Cheese

Tags

#cheesemaking, #chickens, #Skepticaldogisskeptical, #urbanhomestead

I seriously think they look bigger today even than this photo I took yesterday! 

I ran a little behind this weekend so I only made one cheese: Lactic Cheese. This is an extremely easy cheese if you have starter laying around. Most beginners don’t so the best cheese to start with is lemon cheese. It also has a very high yield. Slightly less than a gallon made more than 3 cups of cheese. Per Ricki Carroll’s suggestion I plan to mix some of this with cracked peppercorns and paprika for a savory spread, and some with sugar to make sweetened crepe filling (which I will probably eat with a spoon, lets get real). You can make it dryer by letting it drain longer, and tangier by letting it sit out to coagulate more. I couldn’t believe that this whole recipe only called for 3 drops of  rennet but that was enough for the curd to form.

 Some was consumed right away with a chia seed version of the Fitnessista’s jalapeno crackers. Today I made Haloumi. I am really scraping the bottom of the barrel for hard cheeses that I am not too intimidated to try!

A native of Cyprus this cheese is made in a very unique way. The whey is retained, the cheese is pressed, then the whey is heated and the pressed cheese soaked in the hot whey. This has the result that it stores well in hot weather. Another Carroll background note: “The groaning cheese: This was a large cheese so called from its being in old days supplied by the husband against the time of his wife’s delivery. At the birth of the child, it was cut in the center in such a way that by degrees a ring was formed through which the child was ceremoniously passed on the day of christening” There sure seems to be a lot of cheese lore about birth! Haloumi is brined and can be eaten at any time within 60 days. This seems like an excess of cheese to have available at any given time. I still made the poor decision of opening up the Colby. Colby is a cheddar like cheese that retains more moisture. This tasted very colby like. However, with more moisture retention its easier to have kind of funky or off flavors to the cheese. As you may remember I had some moisture issues when I was making this cheese, and it aged near the ill-fated camembert. As such, it has some of that wine flavor but is still very good. I plan to use up a lot of this this weekend freezing quiches for the bar prep period.

P.S. We received some bad news on the inspection today that our neighbor’s garage counts as a residential building. No big deal, we just need to move the coop and have it reinspected. Snuffy for one is very skeptical as to why a garage is a residential building: 

Just kidding. I accidentally trimmed his face crooked and now he looks constantly skeptical.