Eleanor breezes through
Storm Eleanor howled her way through overnight. I was pleased that her only visible impact was a displaced dustbin. It took me a while to locate the lid.
We are used to wind here on The Fens and have learned what needs tying down. A winter storm is much less likely to bring down any trees.
Thursday 4th January 2018
Sue is trying her hand at cheese-making again. She was lucky enough to be given some unpasteurised milk direct from a dairy farm. It's a lot easier to make a basic cheese than you would think. I don't know the exact details, but they are easy enough to find on YouTube.
I did see her heating the milk, taking the temperature and adding some rennet. She then strained the whole lot which separated the curds from the whey. The curds are basically soft cheese. Pressing them in a cheese mould turns them into a basic semi-hard cheese.
I looked up what to do with the whey, which basically looks like thin skimmed milk, and was surprised that you can add a little whole milk and basically repeat the process, using cider vinegar instead of rennet, to make ricotta.
Hopefully we'll be able to secure a larger supply of unpasteurised milk in future. Either that or we get a cow!
There is now a Cheesemaking group within the Fenland Smallhollders Club an Sue has joined. Some of the cheeses on their Facebook page look amazing. I can see a cheesy future for us!
Sue also received a Kilner butter churn for Christmas. Unfortunately at the moment we have to purchase the cream to use for butter-making which makes it not cheap, but with butter prices almost doubling over the last year it becomes more viable and the butter produced is super creamy. We also get the bonus of a bowl of buttermilk for baking soda bread or scones, which of course we can have with our own butter and our own jam.
