You can see that it wanted to be Camembert.
It tried, and it tried, but it didn’t quite make it.
Yes, I tried one of my cheeses today.
Just a few minutes ago, in fact.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to see what was going on inside those furry little blobs.
Not only is there mold migrating across the rinds…there is aroma! I took this picture earlier today and then I took a healthy sniff of the air inside my little cheese cave…and it smelled like Camembert! I was screechingly happy. Yes. Screechingly.
White mold, people.
Say it with me…WHITE…MOLD!
A week or so ago I took a peek at the undersides of the cheeses and discovered that the mold was MUCH more developed under there. The instructions for making camembert hadn’t said anything about flipping the cheese over, and maybe turning it was a given, but I hadn’t been doing it.
Until now.
Slowly but surely, that precious white mold is growing on my little cheeses!
Here’s where it began.
Two gallons of fresh-from-the-Jersey-cow milk.
See the cream line? That kind of milk. The kind where the cream rises to the top.
From this, I am making camembert.
Tuesday is becoming our “Make Your Own Salad” night. We all look forward to it, and we all participate in the preparation. I look on it as a little kitchen class for the kids. They get to use sharp knives – great fun!
Anyway, here’s a look at last night’s culinary adventures…
I made dinner the other night. Yes, I’ve been feeling progressively horribler and horribler (sick people get to make up words as they go), but earlier this week I managed to throw a meal together using leftovers from the weekend.
And it was comfort food, after all. Chicken Tetrazzini. Creamy, starchy, warm and comforting.
So I picked all the chicken off the carcass from last Friday’s roast chicken, saving the skin and bones for stock, of course, and I cooked the spaghetti, and I made a bechamel which became the base for the sauce.
But I had no Parmesan. It’s one of the ingredients, though, and what was I going to do? (This is where being sick leads to insanity in the kitchen when things aren’t going the way they should. There’s no room for creativity. Bad Things will happen if you don’t use the Exact Ingredients Called For. Or, at least, that’s how it seems.)
And because I so wanted this to taste right (despite the fact that my taste buds were already working improperly), I caved. Yes, I did.
I’ve been making cheese for a few years now, but not as frequently as I’d like, and certainly not as many varieties as I’d like. I’m hoping to kick myself into a higher gear as this summer flies by, and maintain that gear through the rest of the year.
Yesterday I made a batch of goats’ milk mozzarella!
I also made a batch of the 30-minute mozzarella with cows’ milk, for comparison purposes.
Unfortunately I only have about fifteen minutes to type today, so the whole process post with lots of pictures will be delayed a day or so.
I took these Saturday morning.
I’m posting them now just so you have something pretty to peruse, and to let you know I’m going to be making mozzarella from goats’ milk today.