It’s the first weekend in a month that I’m not planting anything, not pulling anything out  nor (the firm favorite since we signed the offer to purchase on a new house) planning our vegetable garden . The kitchen counters aren’t covered with buckets of separating whey and curd, the cheese thermometer’s  quietly resting in it’s plastic holder, the food dehydrator isn’t buzzing and the vacuum sealing machine has been boxed away after the morning’s grocery shop. My hands don’t have the faint odor of sterilizer, aren’t sticky with castor sugar and the heavy-bottom pot isn’t sickly sweet with rapidly boiling jam or chutney or preserve. In fact, the house is earily peaceful.

So, with a vaguely guilty frown, I find myself lazy. Or perhaps just tired.

Having been back at work for three weeks, the year appears to be returning to normal. Deadlines loom, the to-do list at work is rapidly extending itself, the 8 hours Monday to Friday calender has filled to a third with meetings and the dreaded worry begins to set in.

I do have to remind myself that last weekend was rather busy, as was the weekend before that. Let me see, last weeked: wake up to the sound of excitedly barking dogs only to find a bag of (what appeared to be) stolen goods on top of our back wall. I phoned the police, who very co-operatively dispatched a vehicle, only to find our neighbor pearing over the back wall and very happily finding that his stolen goods were a mere 3 meters away. Of course we let them jump over (the dogs were not happy with this) and retrieve his high-fi. (We should have returned the goods on condition that they play decent music but, being fast asleep, it slipped our minds).

After that exciting start to the morning, I mowed the lawn while hubby took the maid shopping for her kids’ school stuff, made cottage cheese, washed the cars (this activity hubby instigated, I got involved in order to audit the cleaning process) and began with another gauda.

Sunday was the usual walk-in-the-park with the dogs and the rest of the day was spent on the couch.

In other words, a normal weekend.

So why am I not doing anything today? I simply don’t know. Perhaps one just gets lazy sometimes.

Ingredients

5 litres full cream milk (I’ve only ever used cow’s milk since buffalo’s milk is hard to come by in Springs)

10 tablespoons lemon juice (in 1/4 cup cold water)

1 rennet capsule dissolved in a tablespoon of water (can be purchased from National Food Products in Randburg, Johannesburg [2])

Method:

Sterilize all utensils (do not ignore this step!)

Pour milk into a bucket and place into a pot of warm water over a moderate heat on the stove (I use setting 3 or 4 depending on the ambiant temperature)

Add the lemon juice and stir well with a plastic spoon

Heat to 30 degrees celsius and add the rennet and stir well again

Heat to just over 37 degrees celsius and remove from heat

Leave to seperate and when the whey is clear pour off as much whey as possible

Ladle the curds into a microwaveable dish and kneed gently

Microwave on high for 1 min and kneed again, separating more whey from the curd

Microwave twice more on high for approximately 35 seconds, kneeding between each heat treatment (the curds should be sticking together at this point)

Salt to taste with uniodized salt (NOT sea salt)

Kneed, stretch and pull until the cheese is smooth and shiny

At this point the cheese can be eaten or stored in a brine solution made of uniodised salt (again, not sea salt) in water.

Note: This recipe does not produce the same type of cheese as is commonly bought in a shop since it’s made from cow’s milk. It does, however, brown quite nicely around the edges when grilled.

[1] Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp & Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Our year of seasonal eating, 2007, HarperCollins Inc., web: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

[2] National Food Products, P.O. Box 85103, Emmarentia, 2035, tel: +27 11 646 9022, web: http://www.thehomebrewshop.co.za/

Cheese is, in essence, solid, curdled milk. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, there are various tricks in getting the milk to curdle the right way, in the correct amount of time under precise conditions, but, leave milk out of the refrigerator long enough and it will turn to cheese (strictly speaking, to whey and curds, but lets not get technical).

So why cheese?

Why not?

It seems like a perfectly rational thing for a Physicist specializing in electron microscopy who works with ultra-hard materials on a daily basis to do, especially when aforementioned physicist loves cheese. Not to point out that having something other to do than work, go to the gym, read, watch movies and sleep (all the other hobbies) is useful. Besides, I already make my own pasta and wine making requires a little too much patience.

It probably all began when my folks moved onto a small holding and my mother wanted to make cheese. The rational was as follows: get daughter to learn using her scientific knowledge and passion for cooking. Then get daughter to pass on the knowledge and plunge in head long without making mistakes daughter would have already made; thereby achieving 100% yield. In short – passing the exam by cribbing.

I can’t say I objected to this idea, skills are a little scarce in this country and one never knows when civilization may come to an end, which would mean no supermarkets or convenience shops where one can buy cheese and eat it on the same day. So, with a little research, I came across the least expensive way to learn: self-study via manual.

Now, knowing where to get the manual and necessary equipment is one thing, actually purchasing it is another. As we all know, enthusiasm tends to wane with time as life bogs one down, but it just so happened that a letter was handed over at work saying that if we don’t take our accrued leave, we’ll loose it. Based on this “use it or lose it” strategy, I took a week’s leave, purchased the necessary goodies, bought milk and, very enthusiastically, read the manual.

Then I learnt lesson 1 – cheese making requires patience, lots of it.

For example: the “starter kit” only comes with one capsule of cheese culture. This one capsule has to be used to make second generation cultures in order to extend one’s cheese-making career beyond the first cheese. While it takes approximately a day and a half, it does pay off, since the process involves making cream cheese which, with the addition of a little cream, is fantastic! (A word of warning here – be prepared to eat cream cheese in excess for the next three days, as there will be a lot of it and it does not keep)

Staying on the subject of patience, the average soft cheese takes approximately a day and a half before it can be eaten, while hard cheeses (cheddar, gouda, feta, etcetera) take anything from two weeks to six months! While this may sound like a long time, it is well worth it financially, costing about R50/kg for any cheese (including the mould-ripened camembert and blue).

So far, success has been had with the following cheeses:

• Cream cheese (well, this had to work, didn’t it!)
• Cottage cheese (was a little bland though)
• Colwick (has a hollow in the middle to stuff with canned fruit)
• Camembert

The first Cheddar – type has been waxed and is patiently ripening on the linen closet shelf (the only place that has a reasonably constant temperature), while a Gouda is ripening under a bucket on top of the refrigerator. A blue cheese has been sent a long-long way away, not because of the stinky-feet odour but to prove to my mother that the process has in fact begun. I just hope it isn’t the first flop!

A quick search on the internet will reveal that there are many ways to make the same cheese. I’m currently using a different process to make another cheddar-type using the same ingredients as the first. The only problem now is that the results will only be tasted in October!

In the mean time, I’m being patient.