M is for MOZZARELLA! Fresh, home made, delectable, creamy, easy,mozzarella.

It's time to make cheese. Pure, clean flavor of homemade mozzarella is a revelation, as is the cheese’s tender, almost flaky, pull-apart texture. Time, patience, detail and cleanliness are the keys.

Creamy, soft, and hand made. You can't buy better

The Recipe:
1 gallon whole milk...it's OK to replace a cup of milk with a cup of cream. Yummy! Just make sure you don't get Hyper- homogenized cream. Same with the milk. It will cause problems with curd formation.
1 1/8 teaspoon citric acid divided. 1/2 is dissolved in water and the other one is sprinkled directly into the milk. (The citric acid is what gives the cheese it's stretch
1/4 tablet rennet, crushed (where do you get this? Try a health food store. Online is easy)
1/4 cup warm water

EQUIPMENT: cheesecloth; kitchen string
Heat milk and citric acid to 88°F in a 7- to 8-qt heavy pot over low heat, stirring occasionally, then maintain a temperature of 88 to 91°F on an instant-read thermometer, returning to and removing from heat as necessary, for 1 hour. (Mixture will begin to curdle.)

Dissolve rennet in warm water, then stir into milk mixture. Let stand, uncovered, maintaining 88 to 91°F, until the consistency of soft pudding, 15 to 20 minutes.

Using a long knife, make cuts across stiffened milk mixture at 1/2-inch intervals, reaching down to bottom of pot, then make similar cuts in stiffened milk mixture to form a crosshatch pattern (small squares) on top. Let stand, undisturbed, 5 minutes. Keeping temperature between 88 and 91°F (reheat when necessary over very low heat), gently stir curds every 10 minutes for 30 minutes, then let curds stand, uncovered and undisturbed, maintaining temperature, 30 minutes more.

Line a large sieve with cheesecloth and set over a bowl. Using a ladle or slotted spoon, transfer curds to center of cheesecloth. Don't just dump the curds into the sieve. Pull sides up over curds to form a sack and tie sides together with a long piece of string as close to curds as possible but without squeezing curds. Suspend sack from a knob or cupboard handle, using string, at least 4 inches from bottom of bowl (sack should not sit in any whey that accumulates; if necessary, discard whey as it accumulates). Let hang 3 hours at room temperature.

Heat a large pot of heavily salted water (1/3 cup salt for 5 qt water) to 170°F. Place one fourth of the curds in a shallow bowl, then ladle about 6 cups hot water over curds and let stand until curds start to meld together, about 2 minutes. Gather curds together with a slotted spoon and remove from water. Working over the bowl of hot water, gently fold the mass of curds over itself in your hands, stretching as you fold. Reheat in hot water as necessary (3 to 5 times) to maintain temperature, folding and stretching until curds become a smooth and elastic disk. I wear a pair of food service gloves for this step. The water is pretty hot.

Form into a ball by tucking outside into center, then pinch edges together. Place mozzarella in cool water to cool completely before eating. Make the rest of the cheese the same way, reusing hot salted water for subsequent batches.
NOTES:
Curds can be made and drained in cheesecloth (3 hours) 1 day ahead, then chilled in a sealable bag.
Mozzarella is best the day it is made but can be kept, covered with water, in refrigerator up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature before serving. Just a side note...cheese is ALWAYS BETTER AT ROOM TEMP.

Don't throw the whey out! Use it to make bread. It really WILL be awesome bread.

The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company has a starter kit. Which I bought and love. You only need to buy the kit once. It’s great and makes more +/- 40 pounds of cheese, and you get everything in the kit but your milk. The kit tells you all the different kinds of milk you can use. The kit is called: 30 Minute Mozzarella & Ricotta Kit.

ENJOY!

Slow food....S-L-O-W. But REALLY good food!

OK, I guess I have to admit it....I'm part of the slow food movement. Not intentionally though.

It's not like I went out and said, "Think I'll do slow food". I think it started when we finally bought a really good stove/range about 24 months ago. It's got an induction top and a convection oven and I totally love it. It induced us (get it?) to remodel our 20 year old, Formica counter top, old wood cabinets (really blahhhhh) into something a joy to cook in. It's colorful, open, easy to clean, with lots of counter space and I can spend the whole day cooking or baking or making cheese or pasta or yogurt or stew or soup or bread or etc, etc. We did it all ourselves and it's like living inside an art gallery and it's our art on the walls. I simply do not understand why people farm out the design and then the work to have something that's really NOT their vision. I know time is limited, but come on....it's your HOUSE and your KITCHEN. No one else can do that for you. I don't think anyone works more than we do and we did it. Of course, we had to live with it during the transformation. OK, that's part of the discovery process. The estimate for the kitchen re-do was $25,000. Seriously! What did we spend? Less than $4,000. Did we know how to do all of this when we started? NO. Did we learn? YES.

Back to the slow food: While raising 3 boys, we DID occasionally go out for fast food - between games for instance - come on...we were normal. But we never did go out to eat that much. With a family of 5, it was way way too costly. So I learned to cook good, nutritious food that was easy to make and satisfy 3 growing, always hungry boys.

Now that the pressure of just putting FOOD ON THE TABLE (yes, in caps.....3 hungry teenagers is a scary thing to face), is over...I can concentrate on enjoying the cooking process and boy, have I done it....in spades.

yogurt - the REAL stuff

I started making cheese about 4 years ago and haven't done much since until recently. Cheese is all about slow. It's like bread...only slower. Unless you're talking yogurt (and not that sickly sweet stuff you get at the store) or cottage or mozzarella....that's pretty fast.

Mozzarella

Citric acid...also found in lemons

adding rennet to milk

Home made mozzarella is a wonder to behold. Get this....you can add cream.....soooooo goood! Of course you need a few extra ingredients that most people don't have at home. Some of them are citric acid and rennet. The good news...it's all available on line. One of the best sites for cheese making supplies is The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.
They've been around a long time and have a bunch of recipes on line and all the supplies your little heart desires. They even have a mozzarella kit with every thing you need to make 30 batches! What a deal! I can tell you, once you've made your own...you'll never buy it from a store again.

Cheese making, like wine making is like magic! I often feel like Dr. Frankenstein in the movies when he's just brought the monster to life and yells....."It's ALIVE!" Cheese, bread, wine, beer is ALIVE and you can witness it yourself in your own kitchen. Amazing!