Simple Farmer's Curd Cheese

I found the original recipe for this very simple and low fat curd cheese on Allrecipes.com 

Many people seemed to struggle with it a bit, so I made my own revisions based on the reviews and used vinegar in place of the original lemon juice added. It was VERY simple and easy to make. The vinegar cannot be tasted in the resulting cheese.

With all the whey pressed out, it makes quite a dense cheese that can be sliced almost a little rubbery. Almost  something like the drier mozzarella you put on top of pizzas I suppose. Rolling it in crushed peppercorms made it a little more exciting. Loads of whey / buttermilk left over which I'm intending making into soda bread tomorrow

True - this IS a bit bland - but I think this would be a super easy thing to make with kids to teach them the basic principles of cheesemaking. I've seen a riacotta recipe on Foodbuzz here that I'd like to try. Similar principles but a lot more fat content due to the cream and no squeezing out all the whey.

RECIPE

2 pints whole milk (organic, unhomoginised)

1/4 cup vinegar

good pinch of salt (or two)

crushed peppercorns (to roll in)

First of all - make SURE you get unhomogenised milk. Most supermarkets keep pasturised and homoginised. That means that the milk has been treated so the cream is suspended in it and does not float to the top. You will likely need to buy organic milk to get UNHOMOGENISED. 

Put the milk in a pan and bring JUST to the boil on a medium heat, stirring so it does not scorch.

Remove from the heat. Add the salt and stir, followed by the vinegar.

Within a couple of minutes, the milk will curdle and the curds have formed

The curds should be white and the remaining liquid a yellowy colour. This shows that the milk proteins have all been separated. You can purposely see the bowl of whey in the background of one of photos further up.

Line a sieve with muslin and drain the whey from the curds.

Once cooled enough to handle, twist the muslin around the cheese to squeeze out any remaining whey. Roll the resulting ball of cheese in crushed peppercorns. Can be kept refrigerated for up to a week.

Yesterday, we had a lovely family afternoon out in Bury St Edmunds in the Abbey grounds.  Oliver had a ball in the super play area and chasing seagulls and squirrels !

Rather chilly and overcast - but it was nice for all three of us to spend a Sunday together. Doesn't happen very often at all, but we've been lucky to have my husband Steve around the last TWO Sundays !

Oliver did get a bit of a telling off. He was rather too excited and a bit bargy. I told him off for trying to push in front of another kid to get on the slide. Huge sulk followed and it took him a good 5 minutes or more to get himself together and join in again.

I'm not so sure this wall of logs was really meant for walking on... but it was heaving in kids !

This is one angry face - actually - it was Oliver pretending to be a wild animal on a treetop bridge. He looked pretty wild to me !