Raw Milk Cheese

Having a cow is fun! A real cow, I mean. There are so many cool foods you can make when you have your own. Like butter and cream, yogurt and cheese. So far I've made cottage cheese and mozzarella. The first attempts are just like everything else when you're learning to cook. They aren't the best, but it's what you learn from your mistakes that helps you improve. This time I'm trying my hand at Cheddar cheese. This cheddar won't look like the kind you find at the grocery store. That's because it's made with fresh, raw milk. This milk became cheese the day it was born. That's to say the milk went from the milking pail to the cheese pot. Fresh, unpasteurized milk is full of beneficial enzymes and vitamins that aren't destroyed during pasteurization. You can also see that the cheese is not yellow like the stuff you buy at the store. No added artificial colors. 100% natural, whole raw milk cheese. After seven hours on the stove and 36 hours in the cheese press it came out looking like this. It will dry on the counter for 3 days, then I'll wax it and put it on the shelf to age for 3-6 months. Come on.... who's fooling who? You think I'm waiting 6 months to taste this?

Chicken Hotel

Well, not a hotel really. But a nice, warm, BIG, horse stall with lots of fluffy bedding.

I moved the chicks today. They spent their first two weeks in a small cage in my garage. If you've ever raised meat birds before, you already understand why having 26 of them in your garage is a bad idea. Those little 8 ounce birds really raise a stink. Literally. When I opened the garage door, the smell wafted out like a gaseous cloud. Before you think to yourself "Clean the cage!" let me just say that "I did!" It takes less than 24 hours to acquire the "fragrance" of which I speak. So, with the warmer weather and my nose telling me it's time, I decided to make the big move and put them where they'll spend the night for the rest of their lives. In the barn.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

What do you know about it? Did you know that it's in almost everything you eat? What is it? Since the 1980's high fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar as a cheaper substitute. The taste it imparts in food is so similar to sugar that you wouldn't even know it's there unless you looked at the label. I did that a couple months ago. I looked at the labels of the canned and boxed goods in my cupboards. It's in the bread too. I buy the typical stuff you buy. Campbells soup, Kraft Mac and Cheese, Kelloggs cereals, Soft-n-Good bread. Go ahead, take a look in your cupboard. See if you can find some HFCS. I've got twenty bucks says you'll find it in less than a minute.

Like Coke or Pepsi? In there. How about hot dog buns? In there. Fruit juice? In there. Actually, it's in almost everything you eat. No wonder Michael Pollan writes in his book "The Omnivores Dilemma" that we are corn. We are! Corn is an ingredient in one form or another in a huge portion of the food you consume daily.

Here's an article I ran across today about how sugar is making a comeback against HFCS.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/dining/21sugar.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

Here's another article about HFCS.http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

Half a Nanner and Two Berries

Breakfast this morning was half a banana and two fresh strawberries sliced into a bowl. To dress it up I added a few chopped walnut pieces and some raisins. Topped it off with fresh Jersey Cow cream from yesterday's milking and sprinkled with a pinch of organic raw sugar. Yummy!

Hen Pecked

Little Buff, or Jimmy as I call him, is our young Buff Orpington Rooster. Seems he drew the short stick in the hierarchy of chicken life. Big Buff has all the ladies to himself as his confidence and size wins them over without challenge from Jimmy. Jimmy is content to follow along while BB and his harem search the pasture for tempting morsels. The warmer weather has hatched a few from their winter slumber. Enjoying the mild temperatures, my husband and I sat on the porch and watched the birds as they worked their way toward us. All seemed peaceful in the chicken kingdom. Everyone was scratching and searching, snatching a bug here and there. The boxwood bush near the house was a favorite for its green leaves. Jimmy was preoccupied with the leaves and got a little too close to one of the hens. She gave him a good pecking on the head. He squawked and ran away looking for a place to hide. Haha. Now I understand the true meaning of hen pecked.

Does it get any better than this? March doesn't usually give us such nice weather. The windows are open after being closed tight for the last six months. The grass in the pasture is hinting green and I even noticed a little green on the bushes on the drive home yesterday. Winter has its holdout on the treeline at the north face of the back pasture. If you look carefully, you can see a tiny bit of snow holding on for dear life. So long Frosty. See you next year.