Homeschool Project, Making Farmer's Cheese

For most of mankind stores were not common place. People made close to if not everything they had and ate. This included cheese. As we teach our children, be it homeschooled or just a fun educational activity it doesn't matter, learning how to recreate the past in our daily lives is inspirational, educational and fun!

One might ask what can be learned from making cheese at home.  For one thing it's a living history lesson. When reading any book about people's lives pre 1950's cheese making is almost always lit upon. The Little House Series makes mention of cheese making in several books. Farmer's Cheese which we did here is a basic quick recipe used often.

Science is also taught with cheese making. Acid is used to curdle the milk proteins. Long term cheeses such as cheddar use bacteria to break down the milk's natural sugars. Blue cheeses incorporate molds into the mix. Heated milk is curdled in one of several ways such as acid being added to it, or rennet. As with all cooking mathematical skills get a practical application to be used on.

Farm cheese is super easy to make at home and an example of using acid to curdle the milk. 

Things you need:

Pot that can hold a Gallon of milk with some room at the top, clean bandana or cheese cloth, strainer and bowl to go under it. 

Ingredients:

• 1 Gallon Milk
• 3/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tsp. salt

Steps:

Heat milk until boiling. pull off heat and stir in vinegar. This will cause the milk to curdle and separate from the whey. Line strainer with bandana and strain out the curds from the whey.  In a separate bowl from strained whey (keep whey for other recipes) mix salt into curds. Curds can be left loose or molded in a container and chilled. Use like a feta cheese or just eat plain on or off of crackers. 

When adding the salt this cheese can be completely changed up. In the picture we used a Greek Rub Mix. Any herb mix can be used not to mention curry, ranch dressing mix, chives along or garlic for savory cheeses. Sweet cheese such as brown sugar cinnamon, strawberry or any berry are nice. 

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