Hands-on Workshops at Little City Farm: Kimchi making & cheese making

We've had some delicious workshops here recently...

and here at Little City Farm we try to keep everything as hands-on as possible.  Our homesteading classes focus on "reskilling", teaching valuable skills related to organic gardening, food preservation, baking, soap making, herbal healing, natural building, and other topics that will be useful for enhancing your own home.  We believe in learning by doing, not just following notes or watching a youtube video - but instead walking you through step-by-step with an experienced facilitator to learn the process together and take home your results.

Here are some snapshots of the wonderful hands working here during our kimchi making and mozzarella cheese making classes.  Look for more of these topics to come this fall.

Making Mozzarella

It was another rainy day outside.  Perfect for cozy indoor kitchen project, and today we made a batch of mozzarella. We love making mozzarella, though don't do it often since we usually turn our gallon of milk into yogurt instead.  However, today there was a request for making cheese, and it was a treat! We like to use supplies from the New England Cheese Making Supply (which are available locally at Vincenzo's).  The 30-minute mozzarella works beautifully - all you need is a gallon of good non-pasteurized (or at least not ultra-high pasteurized) milk.  It's always a fun project to do with kids, since they can help with every step of the way, and the cheese is delicious and ready to eat in only half an hour.  For variety, we like to mold it into shapes, add herbs and spices, or just eat it plain, or with freshly ground pepper and fresh tomatoes & basil when the garden is in full swing.  I'm already dreaming of ripe juicy tomatoes warm off the vine...(while our greenhouse walls and cold frames are currently still covered with snow!)  To make your own cheese, just follow these steps below:

Easy Mozzarella at Home Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 litres (1 gallon) whole milk 
• 1/4 rennet tablet + 1/4 cup cool (chlorine-free) water
• 2 tsp citric acid + 1 cup cool (chlorine-free) water
• 1/2 tsp cheese salt (or finely chopped herbs or sea salt)

1) Dissolve rennet table in 1/4 cup cool water (in glass jar or cup).
2) Dissolve citric acid in 1 cup cool water (in glass jar or cup).
3) Pour milk into large stainless steel pot and add citric acid solution.
4) Heat on low, stirring constantly until it reaches 90F (or 88F if using raw milk).
5) Remove from heat, then stir in the rennet solution carefully.
6) Cover with lid, and let sit on counter for 5 minutes (10 minutes if using raw milk).
7) Now check for curd - press back of hands carefully down on curd and you should see whey liquid clearly separating from the curd.
8) Cut curd into cubes using a long stainless steel knife (cut while curd is still in the pot).
9) Now reheat pot and bring to about 110F, continuously stirring while it heats.
10) Take off heat, continue stirring for a few minutes.
11) Then transfer the curd into a colander lined with cheesecloth, and let whey drip down into a stainless steel bowl or pot.  Gently press with a wooden spoon to press out all the whey.
12) Now heat whey in pot, or hot water in a new pot, until it reaches approx. 185F.
13) Remove from heat, put on rubber gloves (to help protect your hands from the heat) and dip your curd into the hot whey/water bath.  You can use a slotted stainless steel spoon for this as well. 
14) Allow curd to become soft, then stretch and fold it gently and repeatedly. 
15) Add cheese salt (add more or less to taste). 
16) Keep dipping and stretching curd, folding and pulling it until it becomes smooth and shiny. 
17) When you have it at desired consistency put curd into an ice water bath and it will hold it's shape.
18) Eat and enjoy!

Cheese Making!

We hosted one of our favourite workshops today - cheese making.  We have hosted several cheese making classes each year for quite a few years now, and still, each time the workshops fill up and new cheese makers are born.  During the workshop all participants get to make their own ball of fresh raw milk mozzarella from scratch, plus yogurt cheese, and we go over making live cultured yogurt, and all the great things to do with leftover whey.  Participants have gone on from here to make hard cheese, goat chevre, sheep mozzarella and more...this workshop is just the start to inspire confidence in the cheese making arts. 

Next on our personal cheese making to do list: try to make farmhouse cheddar and goat mozzarella.  The latest issue of Taproot Magazine also has some great recipes for making ghee, and kefir cream.  Yum!  We want to try it all.

Homesteading - easy mozzarella

We are so excited about cheese making around here - we have two cheese making workshops coming up at Little City Farm in the next month, both filled to capacity and with waiting lists of additional people who are interested in learning.  Although we are not leading the cheesemaking workshops ourselves (we are bringing in a local cheesemaking "expert"!), we have been experimenting with various cheeses just for our own family and are getting better at it with each try.   Farmhouse cheddar, cream cheese, ricotta, feta, chevre and mozzarella, are wonderful diverse cheeses that are all very easy to make.  Cheese is best made with organic raw milk (if you can get it), organic milk (not ultra-high pasteurized) from the store, as well as organic goats milk.  We add herbs and have been coming up with some delicious flavours.  One of the best sources for cheese making supplies is the New England Cheese Supply Company but we have recently also found some of their cheese making "kits" at a local shop here in town (Vincenzos).   You can also skip the "kits" and simply buy bulk quantities of citric acid, cheese salt, and rennet tablets (depending on what kind of cheese you want to make).  A little of each of these supplies goes a long way.  Here is a simply recipe for mozzarella - this is a super project to do with kids!  We had a hard time not devouring the fresh cheese right away.

Simple Mozzarella

1 gallon organic milk (non ultra-high pasteurized)
1/4 rennet tablet (vegetarian rennet) dissolved in 1/4 cup cool filtered water
1 1/2 tsp citric acid dissolved in 1 cup cool filtered water
1-2 tsp cheese salt

1) Pour the dissolved citric acid in 1 cup cool water into a large stainless steel pot.  Add milk and heat milk on low, stirring until milk is at 90F.  Only use a wooden spoon or stainless steel spoon (not aluminum).  Take off burner.
2) Slowly stir in rennet solution and stir 30 seconds.  Then cover with lid and let stand 5-10 minutes.
3) During this time the milk will have formed a curd - cut curd with a long sharp knife into small cubes.
4) Reheat curd/milk on stove to about 105F while slowly stirring.  Then remove from heat and keep stirring 5 minutes more.
5) Pour off the liquid whey and reserve this for baking, adding to smoothies, soups, etc.  Or use the whey for making Ricotta with this recipe here.  Ladle the curds into a colander and gently drain.
6) Heat pot of fresh water to 185F.  Dip your curds (in the colander) into the hot water.  They will start to become stretchy and look more like soft mozzarella, then start to fold with a spoon.
7) When completely stretchy you can remove curd from hot water and pull into long strands.  Shape into logs, balls, cheese strings, braids, etc.  Add 1-2 tsp cheese salt and/or herbs at this time and blend in while you stretch and shape the cheese.
8) Dip into ice water to cool for about 5 minutes - this will harden the cheese and it will hold it's shape.
9) You are done!  Enjoy! 

Make your own live-cultured cream cheese

We've posted our workshop series for this season, and have several topics back by popular demand!  One of these is cheese making.  We are excited to be offering this workshop again, where we'll be making mozzerella, cream cheese, talking about other cheeses and also how to make yogurt.  Here at home we make our own mozzarella, cream cheese and yogurt on a regular basis, and I want to start making feta and soft goat cheese as well.  The winter is such a good time for these kinds of kitchen experiments. 

On the weekend we baked our own homemade bagels, made live-cultured cream cheese to go with them, and opened a precious jar of blueberry jam from our pantry!

Live Cultured Cream Cheese

You will need:
2 cups live cultured yogurt
several layers of cheesecloth and one elastic band
wooden stick (e.g. a chopstick)
large pitcher or measuring cup

1) Pour the yogurt through the cheesecloth, into the large pitcher/measuring cup.  Secure the cheesecloth with the elastic band to hold it in place while the whey from the yogurt continues to drip through. 
2) After about 2 hours (or when the yogurt stops dripping), wrap the cheesecloth tightly around the "ball" of yogurt and secure with elastic.  Hang this from the chopstick over top of the pitcher. 
3) After 24 hours you will have nice firm live cultured cream cheese that you can scrape out of the cheesecloth, plus about a cup of whey in your pitcher.  Use the whey in smoothies, baking, etc. 

Saturday's activities - cheese making part two

We held our second cheese making workshop here at Little City Farm - back by popular demand - making cream cheese, mozzarella, and ricotta (ricotta was made out of the left over whey - which didn't work quite so well, but participants got the idea of how the ricotta process would go using whole milk)!  We were so pleased to have our facilitator Bianca here again, as she has loads of cheese making knowledge from her own kitchen experimenting, and makes the process feel so relaxed and manageable.  Really, cheese making is in fact that easy after you have tried the recipes once and been walked through the process.  Participants were excited about continuing their cheese making at home, and supplies can be found through the New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. or the more local Ontario based Glen Garry Cheese Making Supply Co.   I, for one, want to start making goat chevre, which seems incredibly simple as there are only 3 steps (as opposed to the 20 steps it takes to make mozzarella) - 1) heat the goats milk, 2) add culture, citric acid/lemon juice and cheese salt (available through New England Cheesemaking Supply) and let this stand 12 hours, 3) then strain curds through colander again letting it stand for 12 hours.  Voila!  Fresh goat chevre, with options to add herbs, spices, nuts, sundried tomatoes, etc.  Mmmm.

Cheesemaking Workshop!

This weekend we held the long-awaited first ever cheesemaking workshop here at Little City Farm.  This fantastic workshop was worth waiting for - it has by far been the most popular, and the registration filled up within only a few days of announcing it.  Inspired by 100-mile diet, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and New England Cheese Making Company's Ricki Carrol the "cheese queen", not to mention scores of artisan cheesemakers around the globe and homesteaders who have gone before us...we all made cheese.  And, it was surprisingly easy! 

Our enthusiastic facilitator walked us through the many many steps of making mozzarella, which though the list is long, really are not difficult.  The hardest part is being patient while the milk heats to the proper temperature, adding the correct amounts of rennet (we used a vegetable rennet), sea salt, and citric acid, and then stretching it and shaping into cheese balls.  Delicious!  We used raw milk from cows milked the day before (!), so it was incredibly fresh.  The milk also seemed to have a higher fat content than some other raw milk the facilitator had used before, and we guessed it was due to the cow's heavier winter diet of hay (as opposed to grazing).  Well, this helped the mozzarella practically form itself!  Since there are so many steps to making mozzarella I suggest going to the New England Cheese Company website for directions, or using a book like Home Cheesemaking.  Remember, never throw out the whey - it is a complete protein, excellent source of vitamin B12, minerals such as magnesium, zinc, calcium, phosphorus.  Use it in smoothies, baking, soaking grains/beands, as a healthy lemonade, even on your compost if necessary.

We also made cream cheese by straining organic live-cultured yogurt through a cheesecloth which then sits and drains for 8 hours - again, very easy.  And with the left-over whey from the mozzarella I made ricotta - again, easy.

Here's how to make Simple Ricotta, instructions courtesy of the workshop facilitator.  You will need:
4 litres of whole milk (not ultra-high pasteurized!) or whey drained from the other cheesemaking process
1 1/2 tsp citric acid (lemon juice could probably do in a pinch)
1 tsp sea salt (or "cheese salt" if you have it)
large stainless steel pot
cooking thermometre
colander lined with cheese cloth
string
long wooden spoon, stick, knitting needle, etc
large bowl

1. Pour milk/whey into pot, then stir in citric acid and salt til dissolved.
2. Heat the whey/milk to 195F stirring constantly so it doesn't burn.
3. Turn off the heat, and let stand for 5 min.
4. Ladle the curds into a colander lined with cheesecloth.
5. Pull up the sides of the cloth to make a bag, tie onto middle of the wooden spoon, hang spoon over a bowl and let drain at least 30 min (or overnight, depending on how slowly it's draining) until desired consistency.
Serve on bagels, with crackers, mixed with fresh fruit, etc etc...mmmm

Raw Milk and easy homemade yogurt

We were gifted with a surprise 2 litres of raw milk from a friend on a nearby farm (thank you Rosemary!) I was surprised to realize I had never tasted raw milk before in my life. The cream that rises to the top certainly is divine. It's currently illegal to sell raw milk in Ontario it's not that easy to come by (unless you find a farm family who will gift or barter it to you).

Many Ontarians will have heard about Michael Schmidt, the farmer from Grey County who tried numerous times to offer raw milk to his long list of customers who clamour for it. He set up a dairy co-op (Cow Share), with members "owning" their cow, while Schmidt housed, fed and milked them. Members would then be able to pick up their raw milk as necessary - a great arrangement, until the government caught up with him and shut that project down. He has been battling this out in the courts for years, even doing a hunger strike at one point to raise awareness about his cause and legalizing the sale of raw milk. When recently interviewed on CBC radio, he made a good point - we can purchase almost anything else in a raw state in the store (raw fruit, vegetables, meat, sushi, etc), not to mention cigarettes and alcohol (which have obvious health impacts), yet consumers aren't given the right to buy raw milk if they so choose. (see www.glencoltonfarms.com)

So we felt blessed by this unexpected gift of the precious raw milk. There are many theories about the health benefits of raw milk as well as other traditional foods (see, for example, www.raw-milk-facts.com). As we are not in the habit of drinking cow's milk, but do love to make homemade yogurt, I decided to make up a batch of yogurt last night. This morning, we had the richest, creamiest dense yogurt we've ever tasted! With canned peaches from last summer and homemade granola it was quite a breakfast treat, more like dessert really!

Here's the recipe (plus a few tips from my mom, who grew up on a largely self-sufficient farm in the 1950's). I'm going to attempt to make mozzarella with the remaining milk, something which is difficult to do with regular store-purchased milk as the high pasteurizing results in problems with cheesemaking (at least in the reading I've done, and the one dismall attempt at making mozzarella last year which resulted in something more like cottage cheese crumbs!). With the left-over cream I'm going to make butter.

Easy Dependable Yogurt (from Simply in Season)

4 cups (1 litre) raw or store-bought fresh milk
1/8 cup yogurt starter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (optional)
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
fresh fruit (optional)

1) Put milk in saucepan and scald by heating until tiny bubbles form on edges of the milk, but do not bring to a boil. Pour into another container to cool. Insert cooking thermometre to measure temperature.

2) Fill canning jar or thermos with hot water. Set in hot water bath (in a baking pan). Wait for milk to cool to 105-110F / 40-45C.

3) Once milk reaches the desired temperature, stir in yogurt starter (we use 1/8 cup natural yogurt left-over from last batch, or live-culture natural plain yogurt from the store). Empty canning jar or thermos, pour in milk mixture and screw on the lid. Do not move this canning jar or thermos during incubation period.

4) After 4-6 hours, check yogurt for desired consistency. The canning jar/thermos should stay at aroun 105-110F / 40-45C for the full length of incubation. Tips on keeping the jar warm: - keep in warm water bath, and continue to top up the warm water during incubation time
- wrap jar in towel to keep insulated
- keep jar in oven with pilot light on (or lowest setting)
- keep jar in cooler/ice chest that's filled with hot water
- set jar in pan of warm water on the stove and occasionally turn the stove on briefly
- set jar under a tea cozy

5) Do not stir finished yogurt too much. Fold in sweetener and fruit. If you forget about the yogurt and leave it too long, pour off water (whey) that forms on top and add additonal sweetened if necessary.