The curd ready to be kneeded.

A few weekends ago, the youngest daughter and I set out to make some cheese.  Our first go at it was mozzarella.  I also think we did a pretty good job.  I can’t say that it was bursting with flavor, but then again mozzarella isn’t exactly known as a cheese that takes a bite out of your tongue.  I’m looking forward to making more in the future, but I need to build a smoker first.  I think smoked mozzarella sounds very tasty.

The hardest step in home cheese making is obtaining a source of milk.  I don’t have goats or cows, yet.  We all really want to get a couple goats, but we aren’t quite prepared to give up going on vacations.  We really need some friends that live nearby to get some animals that we can trade off animal care duty with.  There is a co-op very near here where I can buy a share of a cow relatively inexpensively, but it is a lot more milk than we could use in a reasonable amount of time.  I’d need to make cheese and butter nearly every weekend to use it all.  One solution is purchasing milk from the store.  This is the route I am going to take until I master the craft.  One hidden downside to this is that more and more dairies are no longer just pasteurizing milk.  They are now ultra-pasteurizing it.  When milk is ultra-pasteurized, the proteins that make time travel cheese making possible are broken down and a good curd will not form after addition of the rennet.

The youngest daughter kneeding the cheese.

To make the cheese you need milk, rennet, an acid, and some salt.  That is it for mozzarella.  Basically you heat it up, press/kneed out the moisture, and then stretch it like taffy.  That’s it.  There are some important temperatures and timings, but you can google those for now.  I’m not going to go into all the details of making the cheese this time.  There are a lot of good resources out there that will teach you what you need to know.  I want to get a few more tries under my belt first.  This time I was concentrating on how to pull it off.

Stretching the Cheese

One other interesting tidbit on making cheese is that it can be made from dried milk.  Most of the recipes call for the addition of cream to the dry milk, but I have seen a few that don’t.  I am excited to start experimenting with this.  I also wonder if you could add melted butter back into the dried milk instead of cream.  Another idea for another day.

A couple of weeks ago when Texas grapefruit was in season I picked up about 40 pounds of it for canning.  I think I paid less than $7.00 for the 40 pounds, making it a pretty good deal for Michigan.  I’m guessing it’s a lot cheaper in roadside stands down south, but with the snow still above the top of the boots up here, it’s not very likely to show up in many road side stands.  You’ve heard me rant about the relativity of local food in previous entries, so just let me leave it at:  I’m fine buying my grapefruit from Texas.  1000 miles away is a lot better than 5,000 miles away in Brazil.  ’nuff said?

Anyway, to keep the Texas grapefruit around and useful until it comes in season this time next year, I wanted to put as much of it up as I could.  The idea of dehydrated grapefruit just didn’t hold the appeal that moist, tangy-sweet grapefruit served ice cold does.  So I decided to can it.  Home canning grapefruit has its ups and its downs, but over all I am very happy with the process.

Preparing the Grapefruit

The most important thing to consider when canning grapefruit is the removal of as much of the white pithy material as possible.  This is what makes grapefruit bitter.  The grapefruit were peeled by hand by the whole family.  This was fun and much better smelling than the onions we dehydrated a few weeks ago.

The next step was to remove the hearts from the membranes.  This was a bit tedious and time consuming.  Unfortunately I had not heard of this easy method of cleaning grapefruit before we canned these up.  Next year we will use this method and probably be willing to put up more because of the speed that the membrane removal goes using the method in this video.

The sectioned and peeled grapefruit is very easy to process.  Being an acidic fruit, you don’t even need to break out the pressure canner.  Simply fill the jars and top with a weak sugar solution leaving 1/2″ head space.  Process quarts for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.  That’s it.

Canned Grapefruit

I find the texture of canned grapefruit to be a little disappointing, but not detrimental.  The flavor is excellent.  I almost prefer it to fresh, but I think this is mainly the ease with which it can be eaten vs. fresh grapefruit.  I also think watermelon that has been cut up into little chunks and de-seeded tastes much better than big slices of watermelon.  The wife has never been very happy with my mother for spoiling me like that.

Once you have the canned grapefruit you can simply eat it.  I like to mix it with other fruit that is in season or stored for an almost fresh fruit salad.  Cubed apple mixes well with it to give the dish a bit of crunch.  Grapes of course are wonderful as are cherries.  One thing I haven’t tried is to add a bit of dried fruit to it and see how the texture feels.  I’m thinking a dish with canned grapefruit, dehydrated strawberries, apples, and some raisins.  Maybe top with a bit of granola for a good breakfast.

You can also turn the canned grapefruit into a juice very quickly or juice it and then use the juice to make a delicious grapefruit jelly.

Grapefruit Jelly

3 Cups grapefruit juice
4 cups sugar
1.75 ounce of  box pectin
3 drops red food color (obviously optional, but improves look)

Add pectin to juice and bring to a boil. Add sugar and bring to a rolling boil for 1 minute. Add food color. Skim and pour into six 6-ounce jars. Skim again and seal.

That’s my adventure with grapefruit from a couple of weeks ago.  Keep workin’ for the simple life!

I was at the restaurant supply store in town a couple days ago picking up some salt.  I got tired of paying $0.60 per pound for salt when I was certain that it was much cheaper in bulk.  Sure enough it is.  It was under $3.00 for 25 pounds.  It doesn’t ever go bad and is really easy to store in a bucket in the pantry.  I’m guessing the 25 pounds should last me a couple decades.  By now you are wondering what does cheap salt have to do with Cheese Powder.  While picking up the salt I saw a bag of cheese powder really cheap.  I thought, I wonder what that tastes like, and I wonder what I could make with it.  So I picked it up and started experimenting.

The first thing I tried was making a cheese sauce with it.  The directions on the package were for a restaurant and were how to mix the whole bag.  Obviously, a lot more than I would need, or want, at one sitting.  I started with 1/2 cup of water and brought it to a boil.  Once boiling I reduced the heat to minimize evaporation and kept it just under boiling temperature and started slowly adding the cheese powder.  After about 3 1/2 tablespoons of the mixture it was just right.  After cooling it thickened even more so I think the perfect amount is 3 tablespoons of cheese powder to 1/2 cup boiling water.

The girls love tortillas.  So we almost always have some floating around here.  I tried dipping a hunk of tortilla in the sauce and eating it and sure enough it tasted like cheese.  So  I have something cheap that tastes like cheese; is made from cheese (I checked the label – first ingredient it cheese); stores just about forever; and is super easy to prepare.  Wow!  Now I just need some uses for it.

The first is easy.  Make cheese sauce.  This can be used in a variety of dishes.  If you add some jalapeno peppers, it takes a bit of a Mexican flavor and can be used in tacos, enchiladas, and other Mexican dishes.  Plain or creamed up a bit it can be used for adding some zip to vegetables.  Here is the recipe for the cheese sauce:

Cheese Sauce Mix

1/3 cup dehydrated cheese powder
3 Tbsp powdered milk
3 Tbsp dehydrated butter
3 Tbsp flour
1/8 tsp onion powder

Mix these ingredients well. Should yield 1/2 cup of dry mix.
To make the sauce: Mix 1 cup of boiling water to 1/2 cup of dry mix.
Use on vegetables like broccoli, celery, potatoes, or add some southwestern spices and serve over southwestern dishes.

Another sauce type recipe, but much thicker is this dip recipe.

Southwestern Cheese Dip Mix

1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup cheese powder
1/4 cup canned chillies
1 tsp taco seasoning

Mix well.  Use as a dip for corn chips or raw vegetables.

An obvious use for the powder is to make macaroni and cheese very similar to the stuff that comes in the blue box.  I loathe it, but the kids like instant macaroni and cheese for some reason, so we keep boxes around for nights when the wife and I are going out and the kids are on their own for dinner.  I like the idea of being able to make my own, instant, macaroni and cheese but I would end up sprucing it up anyway, so why not just make the real thing?  I would need to use some homemade egg noodles.  Then I would want to add a bit of garlic, and onion.  Cube some left over ham, or possibly open a can of Spam and cube it up.  Finally I’d mix some bread crumbs with some butter and sprinkle on top and bake for about a half hour.  It hardly seems right to dump in a few spoons of cheese powder instead of making a roux from some homemade cheese!  But in case you like the blue box stuff, here is a recipe for it.

Macaroni and Cheese

1¼ cups uncooked macaroni
¼ cup cheese powder
¼ cup milk
¼ cup butter

Cook macaroni in boiling water until tender. Drain. Add cheese powder, milk and butter; stir gently until noodles are well coated.

Finally I present an old backpacking/camping recipe using the cheese powder.  We used to save packets from the blue boxes to make this when we went backpacking, so I’m not certain how much powder comes in one of the pouches, but I’m guessing that it was probably about 3 tablespoons based upon the amount of milk and butter you are supposed to add.  This is a 1 pot meal that is tasty and filling.

Cheesy Chicken Rice Soup

1/2 cup instant rice
3 tbsp cheese powder
1 Tbsp powdered milk
1 Tbsp dried veggie mix
5oz can of chicken
Salt to taste

To this add one cup boiling water and cover.  Let sit 5 to 10 minutes.

Cheese Powder Repackaged and Awaiting a Trip to the Pantry.

There are some simple things to try and do with cheese powder.  I took the large bag that it comes in and divided it up into smaller portions and vacuum sealed them in mason jars.  These should have a relatively long shelf life as long as the fats/oils in the cheese powder don’t go rancid.  Evacuating most of the oxygen from the container using the food savers will help prolong that process.

PS:  The hard drive crashed at the end of last week.  I spent most of last weekend reformatting and reinstalling drivers.  Most of the week was spent restoring files, reinstalling software and reconfiguring the system.  I backup fairly regularly and don’t think I lost anything other than the time for the reinstall.  If you do not regularly back up your system think hard about doing it soon.  You will regret the loss if you haven’t.

4 Pounds of Dehydrated Lemons Ready for the Pantry.

Lemons were on sale really cheap.  I picked up a couple pounds and dehydrated them.  the process for dehydrating a lemon isn’t any different than dehydrating a lime.  If you recall I did a blog entry on limes a few weeks ago and you can read about it here. Basically the process is to clean the lemon, slice it thinly and uniformly, and then place it on the dehydrator tray until brittle and it will snap.  These took about 12 hours to dry on a fairly low setting.  I try to use a low setting to avoid cooking the food and boiling off any of the essential oils in the food.  I’m particularly concerned when I dry lemons because I want to maintain as much of the lemon oil in the pieces as I can.

Today’s post isn’t really about the dehydrating process for the limes but more about the using them.  There is a product on the market called True Lemon you can read all about it at www.truelemon.com.  In fact you can get a free sample of the product here.  I just tried signing up for a free sample, but I obviously havent received it so I don’t know how long it will take them to send it out.

Regardless I love lemons in a lot of things but especially in my tea.  I couldn’t help but think that drying some lemons for use in the tea has got to be a lot better for me, the environment, and the wallet than buying these little foil packets of crystallized lemon from the True-Lemon people.  Please permit me to elaborate…The label for the True-Lemon says it contains maltodextrin.  I know that maltodextrin is derived from corn, but ya’ know…I just want some lemon.  The packaging, the foil packets, the freight involved in trucking the lemons from God knows where to the True-Lemon plant, the freight involved in trucking them to my local store, the waste at the True-Lemon facility, etc…If I dry my lemons I use it all either in the dehydrator or in the compost bin for my worms.  I use as local as I can get lemons for a guy in Michigan.  And finally 4 pounds of lemons was a dollar.  The packets which will last me about 1/3 as long as these lemons are about 3.00.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think the True-Lemon stuff is a great tasting convenient product.  If you aren’t excited about eating local or drying your own food, please use it.  I’ve just decided that I want to make my own storable lemon product instead of buying someone else’s from now on.

Tea and a Dehydrated Lemon Slice

To use my dehydrated lemon for a cup of tea it’s pretty easy.  Boil up some water.  Drop a slice of dehydrated lemon into the cup.  Add the boiling water and brew as usual.  Enjoy the tea!  The lemon will rehydrate and add lemon flavor to the tea in the process of rehydrating.  When you are done drinking the tea, you can make a second cup and still get a surprising amount of lemon flavor out of the slice from the first cup.  When you are done with the second cup, you can eat the rehydrated lemon.  It will be a little mushy.  Then you can toss it into the compost bin for the worms.

Mug O Tea with Lemon!

I’m probably violating some tea purists rule by putting lemon in my tea, but it’s how I enjoy it!

Cheers!

The big four ways of storing food are root cellaring, canning, freezing, and dehydrating.  They each have their place in your aresanal of skill sets.  Just because an item cans well or was meant to be stored in the root cellar is no reason to abandon one of the other methods.  Canning is a good way to store a lot of vegetables, but should you need to make your storage portable and light weight it is about one of the worst.  Simply put there is a time and a place for each of the many ways of storing food.  Practice your skills at all of them and you won’t come up short when you really need them.

Dehydrating foods is a simple and economical way of storing food for the future.  You could have a surplus of food because you harvested a bumper crop.  You could have a whole lot of something else because a kind neighbor gifted you 23 zucchini.  Or you might have a whole lot of frozen shredded potatoes because they were on sale and you knew you were going to eventually use them anyway and now they are taking up way too much room in your freezer.  Well that is exactly where I found myself this morning.  So I decided to dehydrate them.

Frozen Shreaded Potatoes On Sale

The great thing about dehydrating store frozen potatoes is that they are already to dehydrate.  The company that packaged them for freezing already steam blanched them before they flash froze them and packaged them up in neat little two pound bags.  All you have to do is spread them out on your dehydrator tray and plug it in.  Depending upon how much you load up the dehydrator you will soon have a bounty of light weight dehydrated potatoes.

Three Trays of Potatoes from a Two pound Bag

I have one of the round Nesco Dehydrators with 12 trays.  I can get 2/3 of a pound of potatoes on to one of the trays.  With a full load 8 pounds of potatoes, it usually will take me about 8 hours to thoroughly dry them in the winter.  You know the potatoes are ready when the pieces are brittle and snap like dry twigs.  If you have ever used the boxed dehydrated potatoes from Betty Crocker you will know what these should look like when done dehydrating.

Once they are dry, I will package them up in mason jars, drop an oxygen absorber into the jar, and then evacuate the air from the jar using my vacuum sealer with a special attachment.  The dehydrating, oxygen absorber, and vacuum sealer give these about an infinite shelf life.  If portability is one of your big needs, you could vacuum seal the dehydrated potatoes in a food saver bag.  I have had some slight problems with this because the sharp edges of the dry potatoes tend to tear the plastic and a good seal will not form.

When it comes time to use the potatoes I will put a tbsp of oil in a pan along with a cup of water and bring it to a boil.  I then will add a tsp of salt and a cup of the dry potatoes and cover.  With some occasional stirring you will obtain some of the most excellent, non-greasy hash browns you have ever had.