Cheesey

Nellie and I have come to an understanding about milking. As long as her feed doesn't run out I can  milk; so long as I don't dawdle. Nellie doesn't like anyone fooling around with her under carriage  for more than about 5 minutes. (I can't really blame her.) More than that and she becomes a tap dancing goat. Wisdom of the Radish has some very good (very funny) advice on goat milking. Even if you're never going to have a goat or milk anything or ever been in the general vicinity of a milk animal go read it.

Anyway, milking Nellie has improved so much  that I had a good stock pile of milk in the refrigerator. So time to cheese. (I've been reading cheese making books before I ever started on the goat bunker.) Paneer aka Farmer's Cheese is billed as the most basic of cheeses i.e. good for newbies . They didn't lie, it is basic. Boil the milk; add vinegar; drain the curds. Easy.

After the vinegar is added the solids (curds) separate out. I freaked out a little at this point. After years of trying not to get cheese sauces to break, the sight of the curds clumping up was alarming. It took me a minute to remember that was the whole point.

Steaming curds have now been strained through the cheese cloth. A very small pile of curds I might add. I started with 8 cups of goat milk and that's it.

Ta Da! After two hours in the cheese mold here's my hockey puck of cheese. It's kind of bland and innocuous,  rather like a jack cheese.  But it's edible; so success! 

With part of the 7 cups of whey left over I made a batch of bread. 

 The recipe I used is from Culture. A very good magazine on all thing cheesey.