Homemade Farmers Cheese

As I have mentioned several times before, my husband and I use to homestead. I wish I would have tried making cheese back then. The one thing my husband and I tried to make was homemade butter. We used heavy cream and had to shake it in a mason jar for a long time. It really did not taste bad, I just did not realize I needed to allow it to drain through cheese-cloth like this cheese.

The Idea about making this cheese came to me the other day. I am the worst trying to figure out what to eat during the hot summer months. I just know I want it simple and easy without having to use the stove a lot. I caught the tail end of a cooking show on Food Network and the cook was making cheese. So I went online to try and find a recipe.

After reading several of them, I sort of came up with this one. Basically it is still a work in progress, but it far enough a long to share what I have learned so far.

Why is it called Farmers Cheese though? It is made from whole milk or goats milk, it is a sweeter cheese and it is soft. So my guess is since most farmers have cows and/or goats and milk is plentiful, it goes without saying that cheese is most likely something they make a good bit.

Cheese-cloth, Cooking Thermometer, Kitchen Strainer, Wooden Spoon and 4 quart stainless steel pot.

Ingredients for Basic Cheese:

1/2 gallon whole milk

1/4 cup of lemon juice

Pinch of sea salt

Black Pepper

Lemon Zest

Zest two lemon and place the zest aside. Squeeze the two lemons and that should give you 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice.

Pour your milk into the pot and add the pinch of salt. Turn your stove to medium heat and begin to gently stir. I personally stir mine continuously so the milk does not scorch the bottom of my pot. Besides, this is a good way to place "good energy" into a food you are making. After cooking the milk for a few minutes, I added black pepper and my lemon zest. Every so often place your thermometer in the pot, the goal is to reach between 175-185 degrees. I say between 175-185 degrees because my first batch of cheese I cooked to 175 degrees and the second batch (which I have setting now) I cooked to 185 degrees. From my understanding the hotter the milk the faster it will curdle but I am not sure I seen that.

Once you reached the correct temperature, take off of the stove and add the lemon juice. I stirred mine for a few seconds, than let it set for 10 minutes. Place your cheese-cloth into a strainer and once the ten minutes are up, pour through the cheese-cloth. The whey which is the left over liquid can either be used for others things or you can throw it down the drain. Once your cheese looks like the liquid has done draining try squeezing it a little more to get even more of liquid out.

Place the cheese-cloth wrapped cheese onto a cookie rack and set a plate on top of it and place a large can on top of the plate. You are weighing down the cheese to have any extra liquid drain from it. Let is set like this for about one hour.

After an hour, unwrap cheese-cloth and put into an air tight container and place in the fridge. It will stay good for about a week, but I seriously doubt it will last that long, trust me it is YUMMY!

Tomato and Basil Cheese

I used chopped sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil. I did not measure I just guessed really. However, if you can try and soak the sun-dried tomatoes before you chop them I did not do that and wish I would have.

The objective of making this cheese is this: USE YOUR IMAGINATION Spice it up, tone it down, make it savory, make it sweet, it is totally up to you. This is the basic cheese instructions, the rest is your's to play with. Enjoy!!