The Cheese Chronicles, Part Three: It didn't translate well.

When last we spoke, I had turned four litres of milk in to some kind of weird yogurt thing, and I was still hopeful it would turn in to cheese.

Hmph.

"Weird yogurt" was as good as it ever got, I ended up throwing the whole thing out. Still, I am not discouraged, I will try something slightly different tomorrow with this crazy liquid rennet. (I will ALSO be getting some tablet rennet, which is what the recipes call for, within a few weeks.)

This afternoon I realized that I was out of flour, and so I asked Hubandly One to picksome up at the grocery store. He brought home whole wheat flour, which he bought by mistake but I was glad to get, I have been looking forward to "sneaking" a bit of whole wheat in to my breads. But because all I HAD was whole wheat flour, I needed a new recipe. I picked the first one I found, and am now (gasp!) using my bread machine for the first time in years.

When I was a young, stay-at-home mother, I used my bread machine almost daily....just dump stuff in and bread pops out a few hours later. Since then, though, I have discovered how much I enjoy making my bread by hand, the old fashioned way. We'll see how this loaf turns out, maybe there's still life in that machine after all...

Oh, I almost forgot....on Friday, I mentioned to Supervisor how much I would love to keep chickens, but both my zoning laws and Husbandly One are keeping me from it. (Hey, the worms were a hard sell for him, I think adding chickens to the mix would mean "divorce".) Now, by chickens I meant layers, but she told me that some years she and her husband raise meat birds on their small farm. She is willing to grow some meat birds for me! She and her husband practice organic gardening / farming, so I am pumped. She ALSO promised me some sheep manure (they don't raise sheep, they just get truckloads of it from thier neighrbour.) We also discussed trading herbs: she will give me some of her dill for some of my garlic, etc.

This just shows the power of expressing your interests to people: in the last two weeks, I have struck a deal with one friend for free apples and cherries, and struck another deal for meat chickens, manure, and herbs. Things are going well...