Farmers Cheese

My Grandmother used to make Farmers Cheese. I have a vivid memory of her hanging the ball of cheese tied with a string, in the kitchen window. I have no real idea how long it hung or why, but hang it did.

Last week I decided that in keeping with the aforementioned family tradition (only because I decided to make it one) I would try my hand at cheese making. I perused recipes on cheese making and decided that Farmer Cheese would be the easiest to start with, as it did not use unusual ingredients nor did I need a thermometer. As well, there was the newly minted family tradition.

I looked at recipes for Buffalo Mozzarella but my local supermarket had no buffalo milk available. I looked at exotic cheeses but clearly Farmers Cheese was a good start. I put several recipes together and came up with the following:

Ingredients:

2 liter container of whole milk (about ½ a gallon)

½ teaspoon salt

Juice of ½ a lemon

1/8 teaspoon white vinegar

(not much to buy here)

Directions:

Put the milk into a large pot and add salt.

Turn heat on to medium to medium-high and cook until it is almost boiled. Stir every now and then to make sure the bottom of the pot doesn’t stick and the milk doesn’t boil.

When it’s almost boiling and little bubbles appear at the edges, take the pot off of the heat.

Stir in vinegar and lemon juice which will curdle the milk. Let sit for 15 minutes.

Put cheese cloth in a colander and put the colander into a large pan so the cheese will drip through the cheese cloth and the colander.

After a while (when it’s cool enough to handle) squeeze the cheese (the curds will be in the cheese cloth and the whey will be in the pan) as dry as you can do easily, wrap up the cheese in the cheese cloth and place on a plate in the refrigerator for several hours.

Serve with salt and pepper on top and you can add some spices or chives as the occasion occurs. However, if you want to use it with raisin toast, no salt, pepper etc. will do.

Farmers Cheese is much like a cross between Cottage Cheese and Cream Cheese. I had it this morning on a toasted bagel!