@ Brad: Doing great. Had an awesome DL with 25lbs plates session this morning. Hope you're keeping up the PR's on the squat
man.
@cottage cheese
Here's a recipe to make your own cottage cheese that was posted up on another board:
1 to 1-1/2 gallons milk
1/2 cup buttermilk, or a prepared cheese culture (opt.)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup fresh cream
1 Tbsp. sugar (opt.)
Cottage cheese is usually made from low fat milk. If
you are using your own milk, or any non-homogenized
milk, let it set overnight and skim the cream off the
top before proceeding.
If you use pasteurized milk you will need to add a
culture to your milk to get it to thicken. You can
use 1 cup of commercial buttermilk per one to one and a
half gallons of warm (72 degree f.) milk for your
culture, or you can buy a specially prepared cheese
culture. Once you have made thickened sour milk once,
you can keep some in the refrigerator to use for your
next batch of cheese. It is also good to be used in
the place of buttermilk in any recipe. Try it in
pancakes or biscuits!
If you are using non-pasteurized milk, let warm skimmed
milk set on the counter for 16 to 24 hours, until it
has thickened. It is preferable that it not separate,
but if it has, just be sure it smells sour, but not
rotten. You can place your finger into the thickened
milk and bring it up like a hook to
see if it is thick
enough. The curds should break like jelly.
Very slowly warm the milk, at the rate of one degree
fahrenheit per minute (5 degrees per 5 minutes) until
it reaches 104 to 120 degrees. Hold it at that
temperature until the curds are firm. When you squeeze
the curds they should not stick together, and they
should look firm inside when broken apart. (Yes, this
means you will be putting your hand into the warming
milk.)
Drain and rinse your curds. This may take several
hours for them to fully drain. The whey can be used in
bread or fed to your hogs. Add salt to taste (approx.
1 tsp. per pound of curds), sweet cream if you want it
creamy (1/2 cup should be plenty!), and 1 Tbsp. of
sugar, if desired.
Makes about 3 1/2 cups.
EDIT: Whey is also used to make ricotta.
Cottage cheese
