Making cheese at home. Because this is Wisconsin.

For Christmas, I got The Homemade Pantry, which is a pretty wonderful collection of recipes for basic things (like yogurt, ricotta, mozzarella, crackers, pasta, etc., you get it).  So! This weekend, we packed up the baby and headed to Get Culture, a cheesemaking supply store right in this lovely little city, to buy cultures and rennets and such.  The lady there was super-friendly and helpful (according to Matthew, I stayed in the car whilst the little bird slept) and told Matthew some things the book didn't about cheesemaking (it is a very simple book, which is nice, unless you are Matthew, who also likes to do things the best way, even if it isn't the simplest way).  Anyway!  We made mozzarella and creme fraiche!  Both were delicious.

Curdling

Separating curds from whey

Kneading

Ready to eat!

We ate it on a freshly-baked loaf of bread with olive oil, and it was crazy-good.  

We also took a road trip to Goose Pond to see if we could find the Snowy Owl who's been hanging around, but, of course, we didn't see it. We did see a Rough Legged Hawk, which made the drive a little rewarding.

 

Phoebe's sleeping schedule has become a bit more predictable, so we actually have time to do things again!  Hooray!