Mold-ripened cheese success

If you've been around for awhile, you might remember some of my failures in mold-ripened cheese ... like this one ... and this one. They didn't all turn out so badly. One was actually good enough to take to a party, although it didn't look like any mold-ripened cheese that anyone had ever seen. It was at least tasty, and it didn't look like a total wreck.

In October, I attended Jim Wallace's cheesemaking class in Massachusetts, and one of the cheeses on the agenda was Camembert. When I got home, I could hardly wait to try out the ideas I'd learned. And here is the lovely, delicious result!

What was the difference? Well, I had always failed in the affinage -- or aging. I had read somewhere that you could not age a mold-ripened cheese in the same cave with non-mold-ripened cheeses, and unfortunately I believed it. So, I had tried all sorts of crazy ideas ... like aging in my refrigerator (which was obviously too cold, and I knew that, but there was a book that said it would work, so I tried) and aging in a picnic cooler with ice, which meant I had to remember to replenish ice twice daily. I also tried aging in another frig without the proper thermostat control, thinking I could remember to keep turning the refrigerator on and off to keep the proper temperature. Geez! I really can't believe I tried all those things!

Jim ages his mold-ripened cheeses in his regular cheese cave, but he puts them in plastic food storage containers with a cheese mat in the container for drainage and air circulation under the cheese. It is so ridiculously simple that I'm kicking myself for not figuring that out sooner! But as they say, better late than never. And I'm thrilled to be able to make delicious homemade mold-ripened cheese now!

Attending a cheese class

Last month Mike and I headed out to Massachusetts to attend a cheesemaking class taught by Jim Wallace, the technical advisor for New England Cheesemaking. Jim has traveled all over the world attending workshops and visiting with traditional cheesemakers. And people come from all over the world to attend Jim's classes. The gentleman in the light blue sweatshirt pictured above is a chef from Colombia. No, not Columbia, Missouri or Columbia, South Carolina. He's from the country of Colombia in South America! Mike and I flying out from Illinois was not a big deal, as there were several people there who had flown in from other states, as well as a few lucky souls who lived close enough to drive over to Jim's house for the class!

Obviously there is no way I can share with you everything that we learned in those two days, but I will tell you that half an hour into the first day, I knew it was worth the $375 that we each paid to attend. I've been making cheese for about ten years, and Mike has been making cheese for six. We've read books and followed recipes and tried to figure out why sometimes one thing worked and other times it didn't. We had so many questions about the science behind the curds and whey, and from one minute to the next in Jim's classes, there was one light bulb after another that kept going off in my head as I started to connect the jumble of dots that had been building in my head for ten years! My only regret is that I did not attend this class at least five years ago.

Mike took pages of notes. I took more than a hundred photographs. And by the end of the second day, my brain was so overfilled with information that it was as leaky as the Camembert that was draining! Here are a few highlights --

Most recipes tell you to cut the curds to a certain size -- like 1/4 inch or 1/8 inch -- and cutting curds diagonally is one of those chores that would just drive perfectionists crazy! But for both the cheddar and the toscano, Jim cut the curds into one-inch pieces, but instead of doing those crazy diagonal cuts, he then went to work with this gizmo that he fashioned from a whisk to look like the curd cutters that traditional cheesemakers use in Europe.

I tried using one of our whisks at home to cut the curds for a batch of feta, but some of the curds got too small, too fast, so I think I need a whisk with less metal thingies. And I should probably change the shape of the metal thingies the way Jim did with this one.

From the traditional cheddar class

Jim uses Jersey milk from a local farmer, which is why the curds look yellow. Don't they look divine!

Cheddaring is kind of like French milled soap. You let the curds set up, then you rip them apart and start over again putting the curds in the mold.

After cheddaring, class members helped to rip up the curds to prepare them for putting into the cheese press. That's Mike on the right. Chef Mario on the left has a little video recorder strapped to his head to capture every moment of the class for watching again later!

I have never seen a book that describe cheddaring very well, nor have I seen any that actually have pictures, so this was very helpful!

This is what the cheddar looked like the morning of the second class!

Since getting home, Mike has made two batches of traditional cheddar using tips he learned from Jim's classes. Previously, he had made farmhouse cheddar, which ironically omits the cheddaring step.

Over the weekend, we also made Camembert, a mold-ripened cheese, and Vacha Toscano, a tomme. Pictured here is one of the Camemberts after a few hours of draining. Mold-ripened cheeses had really been a challenge for me. In the past they turned out okay sometimes but not so great at other times. I learned in Jim's class that your success or failure with so many cheeses really lies in the aging -- or affinage -- which I had always assumed was my problem, but I had no idea what to do about it. I got some great ideas from Jim's class though, and I now have some Camembert aging beautifully.

Of the 17 different cheeses we have made in the past, we never made a tomme, but I am really looking forward to making one very soon. Jim's was delicious! Lucky for us, we still have a few goats in milk. Mike and I were saying that we should have taken this class in the spring when we are drowning in milk. We could have come home and started making cheese like crazy!

And this is Jim's cheese cave where he ages his creations. It is in a corner of his basement that stays naturally cool year round. He keeps mold-ripened cheeses in plastic containers to keep the humidity at the higher level that they need for proper affinage.

In addition to being blown away by Jim's class, I also fell in love with Shelburne Falls, MA. It is the most lovely little New England village. In fact, I'm writing a whole separate post about it!

And if you're a cheesemaker anywhere in the world, I highly recommend Jim's classes. He already has them scheduled for next spring. Click here to learn more.

Chevre experiment

When I teach cheesemaking classes, I always say that you have to use pasteurized milk for chevre, and someone usually asks why, and I always have to say that I don't know. Well, I know now! We still have an abundance of milk, and we have so much cheese already in storage that I decided to try chevre with raw milk yesterday.

When I took it out of the mold today, I immediately knew there was a problem, because it looked like this.

It should be much smoother. I'm not saying it should be smooth as glass, but there shouldn't be hundreds of tiny holes. It also felt wrong. It felt spongy, rather than firm. So, I pulled it apart, and I saw this.

The inside should look smooth like cream cheese. We've seen tiny bubbles in cheddar before, and it means that the starter culture has failed. I imagine that's what happened here. Whatever bacteria is in the culture wasn't strong enough to overcome the natural bacteria in the milk. It doesn't necessarily smell bad, so it's going to the pigs.

For the record, I am using the chevre direct set culture from New England Cheesemaking. I suspect that if I were making chevre with a mesophilic culture and rennet, it would probably work. But that's an experiment for another day.

Continuing adventures in mold-ripened cheese

I told you I'd try again, and I did! There was no problem with humidity being too low this time. We definitely wound up with more edible cheese, although there are still a couple wrinkles. That liquid between the rind and the curd is quite pungent -- more pungent than we enjoy. I read that geotrichum candidum is supposed to keep the rind from separating, so I think I'll put a pinch in my next batch. Maybe that will help? Any other suggestions? Other than the liquid part, this cheese is deliciously addictive!

Mold-ripened cheese failure

A couple weeks ago, I started a St. Maure cheese. It's a mold-ripened cheese, similar to brie or Camembert, but it didn't have the same dire warning as the latter two about being difficult to age. Also, the directions said you could mix the penicillium candidum with the milk to make St. Maure. You have to mist the finished cheese with the mold for brie and Camembert, and I don't have an atomizer. The St. Maure seemed simpler. I thought there would be less room for error. Well, maybe not ...

As you can see, the mold is sporadic. It's here and there, but definitely NOT everywhere as it should be.


The mold did, however, migrate to cover the bottom of the drying rack. Yes, I know this is not an official cheese mat, but it seemed like it would work. Wrong again! The mold wrapped around the rack, and I could turn it upside down without any cheese coming off. I wound up chipping off the cheese.


And you can see how it turned out. It is definitely not a smooth, creamy style cheese, which I think it should be. Yes, I did taste it. It was delicious -- the taste reminded me of something between Camembert and cream cheese, except it's harder and drier than cheddar.


Although there were no warnings about keeping temperature and humidity just right during aging of St. Maure, it is obvious that the cheese got too dry. I will try this again, as the flavor was heavenly. We just need to work on the texture.

Pizza night

Most nights, we sit down around the dinner table and have a proper dinner, but every Friday night, we make homemade pizza and eat it while watching a movie. Everyone in the family knows how to make pizza, so anyone can jump in and start the dough or roll it out or whatever needs to be done to keep pizza night on track. In fact, the kids usually make the pizza without even being reminded.

The dough recipe is taped inside the cabinet above the Kitchen Aid, so it's easy to get everything started on time. To make enough dough for two pizzas, put the follow ingredients into the mixing bowl:

1 1/2 c. water
1 T. yeast
1 T. sugar
1 t. salt
2 T. olive oil
4 to 5 c. flour

If you're using a Kitchen Aid, use your dough hook and mix until the dough forms a ball and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. You don't have to let it rise, but if it does rise for 30 minutes or an hour, it will be easier to stretch and roll out on the pizza pan.

Mike is the family mozzarella guru, and we haven't purchased mozzarella in a couple years. When we're really drowning in the milk in the spring and summer, we make extra mozz and freeze it for winter when we might not have the gallon of milk needed to make a batch.

Jonathan is especially good at rolling out the dough and preparing the pizza. Rub olive oil all over your hands to make it easier to handle the dough. (Olive oil is also very good for your skin, so don't wash it off!) Pour sauce to taste on each pizza crust. Newman's pasta sauces make great pizza, if you don't want to make your own sauce. Sprinkle chopped veggies and other toppings on the pizza. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees F. Or when doing two pizzas, bake for 11 minutes, rotate pizzas on racks, and bake for an additional 11 minutes.

Pick a movie that the whole family will enjoy, sit back, and enjoy your pizza!

Check out more blogs on meatless meals here!

Chocolate truffles

Katherine has been using our chevre (goat cheese) to make a lot of chocolate truffles lately. You won't believe how easy they are to make!

Simply mix together the following ingredients:

8 oz. goat cheese
8 oz. melted semi-sweet baker's chocolate
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Put it in the frig for a couple hours to firm.

Use a little scooper to make little truffle balls. If you want to dip them in chocolate, you need to stick them back in the frig to firm up some more, then dip them in melted chocolate. Katherine also drizzled melted white chocolate over the truffle in the photo.

Warning: Side effects may include moaning, gasping, eyes rolling back in the head, and/or declaration of undying love for the maker of the truffles. These side effects are only temporary.

Mike's first cheddar

Mike started making cheddar a couple months ago, which means the first batch is aged enough to eat. Last week, we decided that whenever we ran out of store-bought cheddar, we'd break into his first round. Although we actually finished off the commercial cheddar on Wednesday, the kids and I decided that Mike should get the honor of opening his first cheddar, so we waited until he was home today to break into it.

He coated it with red wax for aging. The red wax did not thrill me, but at the time, I couldn't find any wax that wasn't colored. I have since found some uncolored wax from The Dairy Connection and purchased it, so we'll be using it as soon as we use up the red wax. However, you can re-use wax, so we'll have some red wax around the homestead for a while.

But enough about the technicalities. The cheese is delicious! It really does taste like cheddar. Our only complaint is that it is on the dry side, which Mike expected. For some reason that he no longer remembers, he didn't get it waxed until three weeks, which gave it too much time to dry.

After tasting the cheese by itself, we decided to see how it melted, so we made a plate of nachos. They were also delicious. It didn't melt extremely well, but again, that's due to it being too dry. We expect future batches to be much better in that department.

It is so exciting to have our very own cheddar, since it's the cheese we eat the most. We easily go through a couple pounds a week, so we are saving a lot of money by making our own cheddar, especially since our milk isn't filled with icky hormones and antibiotics and other things that are found in non-organic, store-bought cheese.

Tonight, in addition to making two Italian pizzas with Mike's mozzarella, we are also making a Mexican pizza with the cheddar. I am practically drooling just thinking about it!

What went wrong?

People frequently ask me if I'm worried about doing something wrong when making cheese, mayonnaise, or other foods that modern people don't make. Usually I just say that it's pretty obvious when something goes wrong. You'll know it's bad when you see it -- or smell it. So, for those of you who have never made yogurt before, how many of you would eat this?

Yes, this was supposed to be yogurt. I woke up this morning and knew something was wrong when I saw foam oozing out from under the lid of my yogurt maker. "Oh, this is not good," I said to Mike. He lifted the lid, and this is what we saw.

Then I took a spoon and tried to move aside the frothy-looking substance and realized that the milk had separated into curds and whey -- and not yummy curds and whey. They had separated into wrinkle-your-nose curds and whey. So, somewhere along the line, some unwelcome bacteria must have gotten into this batch of yogurt. I should have known something was wrong last night. That's when it was supposed to be "yogurt," but it was still just liquid milk. It didn't look or taste like yogurt, so I said, "Just let it stay overnight." Bad idea.

See, this isn't so hard. One bad batch of yogurt in seven years is a pretty good record. And it's so obviously bad that any novice yogurt maker could have figured it out. Actually, I think most four year olds could tell you that this isn't yogurt.

More classes added

In response to a number of requests, I've added a couple class times, so here is the schedule for April and May:

April 11
10 a.m. -- Soapmaking

April 25
9 a.m. -- Morning in the Life of a Dairymaid (cheesemaking)
1 p.m. -- Soapmaking

Sunday, May 31
2 p.m. -- Morning in the Life of a Dairymaid (cheesemaking)

The addition of the soapmaking class on April 25 is in response to people who wanted to take both classes. If you only want to take one of the classes on April 25, that's fine too. We'll have a potluck picnic lunch between the two classes for those people taking both classes. If you're only taking one class, you can come early or stay late if you'd like to join us for the lunch.

Once you decide to sign up for the class you can mail a check to Antiquity Oaks, P. O. Box 181, Cornell, IL 61319 or send payment via Paypal to deborah at antiquity oaks dot com. (Yes, that's an email address, which I wrote out in a probably-futile attempt to hide from spammers.) The soapmaking class is $24; cheesemaking is $15; and there's a discount if you take both classes at $35.

Classes scheduled on the farm

If you're anywhere near us in Illinois (or want a vacation), I've scheduled a couple of classes in April. I've been making cheese and soap for seven years, and although I've made a lot of mistakes, I do have a bit of wisdom to share. I certainly don't know it all, and every batch of cheese teaches me something new, but I figured that novices might find these classes helpful. I regularly get emails from people who are interested in becoming self sufficient or learning certain skills, so I'm also planning on starting classes in goat breeding, chicken keeping, and canning. I still need to get the details crystallized on those classes, but for now, these two classes are available. I've been teaching soapmaking and cheesemaking for several years already. I just never thought about mentioning them on my blog. And I'm still thinking about the idea of a homesteading internship.

Soapmaking Class
We'll have a soapmaking class at Antiquity Oaks from 10 a.m. to noon, Saturday, April 11. You'll learn the history of soapmaking, how modern soapmaking is different, and how to create your own soap recipes. Each participant will receive handouts, including a list of references for future use, and you'll go home with a small loaf of soap (retail value $28) that you can slice a day or two later after saponification is complete. Fee: $24 per person, and reservations are required. Class is limited to four people, so everyone will receive personalized, hands-on instruction.

Morning in the Life of a Dairymaid (Cheesemaking)
Saturday, April 25, we'll start in the barn at 9 a.m. with instructions in goat milking, and we'll talk about how it's different than milking a cow or a sheep (and how their milk is different). Then we'll head into the kitchen to talk about the history of dairy in this country and demonstrate how to make a variety of dairy products, such as cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, and ice cream. Fee: $15 per person, and reservations are required. Class is limited to six people, so there will be ample opportunity for discussion.

Spring break!

I am so excited to have an entire week with no school obligations. Okay, I do have a bit of grading to catch up on, but I don't have to go anywhere for a whole week, and neither does Mike, which means we should get a lot done around here. That's good because we are so far behind!

My order from Heirloom Seeds just arrived this week. I ordered in January. At that time, they said it would be a month because they had so many orders. I'd say business is booming for them because it does not normally take that long to get orders. Sounds like people are perhaps tired of the GMOs and/or wanting to grow more of their own food for health and/or economic reasons. "All of the above" sounds good to me!

Just a few things we have to get done in the next week:

• get garden cleaned up (yank out all the old, dead plants from last year)
• put up the greenhouse we bought on clearance last fall
  
• plant cold-hardy things like onions, spinach, and peas
• start seeds indoors for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and other sensitive stuff that can't go outside until early May
• make soap
• clean out the barns
• move mama goats from kidding barn to milking barn
• make cheese, buttermilk, and yogurt
• butcher a few chickens and turkeys
  

Mike got started today by putting up shelves and lights for starting our seeds in the basement, while I sorted out the seeds and put them into piles of "when to plant." We went shopping and bought the seed-starting mix, as well as the flats and little pots. I gave Joy a bath this afternoon. Tomorrow morning, we'll attack the barns, then after lunch I'm taking Porter to a intro-to-herding class. I imagine tomorrow night's post will be rather interesting, if not entertaining.

Wish list for my goats

Just when I start to feel content, a few catalogs arrive in the mail, and I remember all the things I want! And this is after ordering $80 of seeds for the vegetable garden this year. So, what do I need . . . um, want?

a milking machine for two goats at one time -- $1,749
a cream separator (since goat milk doesn't separate for days) -- $495
butter churn -- $129 for a hand-cranked version or $289.95 for an electric one
a milking stand with a wire mesh bottom (so I won't be crying over spilled milk) -- $280 to 341.95
a goat driving harness for Hercules -- $175
goat packing equipment -- $189.95 to $367.50
goat cart -- $255 to $400

And it all adds up to $3,400. The biggest chunk is obviously the milking machine, which I can live without until my baby goes off to college in two years. The rest of it only adds up to $1,650, if I get the cheapest of everything. Only $1,650. I guess we could live without the butter-making equipment for another year or two, and I can live with my wooden milk stand. We really do need the driving harness if we're going to use Hercules to help out around the farm, so I guess we'll need to get that . . . and maybe we can figure out how to make a cart for him.

How many goats does a homesteader need?

Every time I think about our children leaving home, I assume I need to sell the vast majority of my goat herd. After all, I've said many times over the past six years, I only wanted a couple of goats for cheese, and it was my daughters who dragged us into showing and increased our herd to as many as 30 or more goats. So, I've been assuming that I would just have six does, and freshen two every four months, so that we could have a year-round supply of milk.

But that "couple of goats for cheese" plan was made by a woman who was a clueless city slicker six years ago. I didn't even know I could make anything other than chevre with goat milk. Today, we buy very little dairy. We make all of our own mozzarella, chevre, buttermilk, and yogurt. We haven't bought milk in three or four years. We also make ice cream, and after succeeding with parmesan, we'll be making that again. I have made gouda a couple of times, although it wasn't the greatest. I really should try again. And when I tried to make cheddar, it was completely consumed by mold during aging, but I should try that one again too. I think I'm going to need more than six does.

How much cheese do we use in one year?

• 50 batches of mozzarella (one per week for homemade pizza, eggplant parmesan, and lasagna) = 50 gallons of milk
• 10 batches of ricotta (for lasagna and manicotti) = 10 gallons
• 6 batches of parmesan (for Italian foods) = 12 gallons
• 10 batches of chevre (for snacking with crackers, making cheesecake, quiche, & cheese blintzes for breakfast) = 10 gallons
• cheddar?
  
• gouda?
  

What about cream soups?
A pot of cream soup takes a quart of milk, so having cream of broccoli, asparagus, or mushroom soup once a week adds up to 13 gallons of milk a year.

What about other cooking and baking and our morning coffee?
Add another 26 gallons a year (1/2 gallon a week).

And what about goat milk soap?
That takes 26 ounces per batch, which is six batches per gallon, so . . .

Have I ever told you that I really don't like math? Perhaps I should go about this differently. From spring to autumn, we've been milking about 10 goats, and that number falls as we head into winter, but we're always milking at least one or two goats. Remember, we have Nigerian dwarves, so they don't produce as much as the big goats, although their high butterfat is perfect for the home dairy. There are currently five adults living here, and we're consuming all these dairy products, plus the butter and cheddar that we buy at the store. If there are only two or three adults here, we might need to cut in half the number that we're milking. But if we want to start making our own butter and cheddar, maybe not!

So, after six months of worrying about having too many goats, I've just realized that we might have exactly what we need.

Our first parmesan!

Saturday night, I remembered that Mike had made parmesan cheese 18 months ago and put it in our cheese cave, the four-foot by four-foot area under our kitchen porch. There is access through the basement, so it's not quite as primitive as it sounds. When we built this house, I specifically told the man pouring the concrete that we needed the space under the kitchen porch for a cheese cave. (He was going to fill it in with gravel!) Mike had become discouraged the last time he looked at the cheese more than a year ago, because the mold had seriously taken over. Well, as you can see, the mold thrived in the dark, moist environment of our cheese cave.

I told Mike that the books say you should scrub the cheese with a vinegar-soaked cheesecloth, which he dissed because, first, it would undoubtedly ruin the cheesecloth, and second, he questioned the need for vinegar. I have no idea why you're supposed to do those things -- I just repeat what the books say. So, I left him and his cheese in the kitchen. When I returned, the cheese had an interesting brown, speckled look to it, but the fuzz was gone, so it seemed promising. First, Mike tried to cut off the skinniest bit of rind, but it was very hard -- literally, hard! Then he decided that it might be better if he just cut a huge chunk off. He reasoned that perhaps it was softer once you moved away from the edge, since it probably would not have dried out as much. That appeared to work.

Then he proceeded to cut the parmesan into more useable sizes and cut off the hard rind from the edges. We gave a piece to Porter, and he survived, although considering what dogs can survive, I don't think that it's a good judge of whether a food is safe or not. After all, they eat raw meat that is seriously deteriorating, and they're perfectly fine -- like the coyotes that ate the six-month-dead beaver that had been decomposing in a tree for Katherine's skeleton collection. But I digress . . .

I had been in another room when Mike was cutting up the cheese, and I told him that was a bad idea, because now all those edges could start to grow mold. Then he got an idea -- why don't we use that fancy vaccuum sealer thingie that I bought on sale last week? So, that's what we did! The cheese is quite sealed, so I hope it lasts!

Last night we melted some of the grated parmesan on garlic toast, and it was delicious! Goat milk parmesan does have a different taste than the stuff you buy in the store, but then everything homemade tastes different. Like most homemade things, it has a stronger, fresher taste with no strange aftertaste at all. At the risk of sounding like an alien (since everyone eats and thinks they know all about food), once you're accustomed to eating all made-from-scratch foods, you start tasting every little nuance, and you recognize it. Yeah, that's kind of scary. As I was eating the garlic toast, I was thinking, "Yeah, it's parmesan! But what's that taste? Ah, it's the goat milk!" It's way better than eating some packaged food with 18 ingredients and wondering, "What is that weird aftertaste? Ah, it's monoturbophenomenabarbaracidal-stuff!" Yeah, now that's really scary!

Mother Nature's sense of humor

I have at least a half dozen unwritten blog posts in my head. I've been so busy that I fall into bed every night thinking about what I wish I would have shared on here. Every day is filled with caring for the animals, gardening, and cheesemaking, as well as cooking meals from scratch and making desserts. Yesterday, I stewed an old rooster that Mike butchered. He made mozarella. I made butterscotch pudding. Katherine made pasta primavera for lunch using our homegrown peas and goat milk. In the afternoon, Katherine and I canned seven half-pints of raspberry jam. Then Katherine made a raspberry crisp for dinner's dessert. I pointed out to the kids that very few people would be able to enjoy a raspberry crisp because the cost of raspberries is prohibitively expensive. Who could afford six cups of fresh raspberries? Yesterday, Mike and the kids picked six quarts of fresh black raspberries.

No, the raspberry bounty is not due to any great gardening expertise on our part. That's what makes this funny. We planted raspberries twice since we moved here. They all died. We've also planted raspberries in the yards of two other houses when we lived in the Chicago burbs. They died. A couple years ago, Mike was walking in our woods and found a small raspberry patch. Today, our woods are home to several patches of black raspberries. Maybe we were planting a type of raspberry that doesn't like our soil or climate. Maybe they didn't like the full sun where we planted them. Maybe they don't like to be fussed over. Or maybe Mother Nature has a sense of humor. Seeing raspberries thrive so close to where we tried to grow them makes me feel like I am missing the punch line of a joke, something so obvious that I shouldn't even have to think about it. But I'm not complaining. I'm too busy enjoying all the raspberries!

Food from the farm

I love, love, love this time of year. We eat like royalty and lose weight! Almost everything we're eating now is from our own land and labor. It's fresh, delicious, easy on the environment, and inexpensive. Last night we had salad and pork shoulder steaks with chocolate pudding for dessert. Breakfast today was mulberry muffins. We're having salad, quiche, and ice cream for lunch. Dessert for tonight's dinner is in the oven as I type -- creme brulee pie. About the only thing we need to buy are the staples -- flour, sugar, vanilla, cocoa. And, YES, cocoa is an absolutely essential staple!

My quiche is crustless, which makes it super fast to whip up in the blender. I pour 1 1/2 cups of fresh goat milk into the blender, add 3 fresh eggs, 1/2 cup of flour, a pinch of salt, and blend. Today I substituted 5 egg whites for the whole eggs, since I had egg whites left over from making the ice cream, which uses only egg yolks.

Spray a pie plate or quiche dish with non-stick cooking spray, or butter it, and arrange fresh spinach evenly in the pan. Add a block of goat cheese in little pieces. If you slice the goat cheese, it'll break up into pieces, which are just about perfect. My goat cheese blocks are about 5-6 ounces each. Snip some fresh green onions on the top, and pour the blender mix into the pan to cover the spinach and cheese.

Stick it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean -- and the slice you made does not look like there is raw egg and milk floating around. Today I'm doing it at 350 for 50 minutes because I put it in the oven at the same time as the creme brulee pie.

The best part of this is that we're so busy that I can eat like this with dessert at every meal and an afternoon snack of cheesecake or pie or pudding, and I'm losing weight! Ye-e-e-es! I love summer!

Centuries collide

Today would have been a great day if I didn't live in the 21st century and if my only obligations were on this farm. I made cheese yesterday, which of course, migrated into today, because it has to drain overnight. Then this morning, I blanched and froze nine pounds of tomatoes. It was when I started making soap that the day turned to ...

My first batch of soap seized, and it was totally my fault. For the non-soapmakers out there, seizing is like winding up with mashed potatoes when you want pudding. Imagine trying to get thick mashed potatoes into a mold. Doesn't work. You need a pudding consistency to pour into molds. Mashed potatoes don't pour. So, how did I wind up in self-deprecating pity and angst? I was trying to teach my youngest how to make soap, and I should have been paying closer attention. She got the oils so hot that we should not have been using them to make soap. But after an hour, the oils were still 120 degrees, and I was impatient. Using the fragrance oil that I was using, I knew that I should not start mixing until the oils were down to 100 degrees, but the day was wearing on, and I started mixing. As predicted, I had mashed potatoes in no time. I was freaking out. Katherine asked me what to do, and I said that I had never had this happen so badly before. The soap was hardening in the pot! I had read about rebatching, but I've never done it -- and it's probably been three or four years since I read about it. But I added a cup of water to the pot and put it on stove. In no time, I had a soupy consistency of soap. Katherine stirred for a few minutes, and we poured it into molds. It will be interesting to see what we wind up with.

For the second batch (plan was to make four batches today), I got all the oils measured and melted except the olive oil, and I got the milk measured. When I went to weigh the lye, the scale stopped working. I thought it was the battery, but I put a new battery in there, and it still didn't work. I saw water in the display, and upon further investigation, I discovered that Jonathan had WASHED the digital scale. It's kind of amazing that it worked at all. So, I am stuck with a bunch of mixed up oils that are now getting hard.

I had a long list of things to do today, including farm chores and school assignments, as well as grading for the classes I'm teaching. I was so excited about the prospect of today. I thought it was going to be one of those days that ended with a huge feeling of accomplishment. Instead, I'm just frustrated. And as I'm typing, I hear the coyotes howling outside. I thought that was yesterday's news, but I am starting to wonder if they'll ever leave.