Say CHEEEEEESE!

Since we are getting over 30lbs o' milk per day every day I have decided to stop being such a pansy ass about making cheese. I make the soft cheese (fromage blanc and chevre) really well but dang-it I want to make hard cheese too! Furry Husband bought me a cheese press last summer and for whatever reason, the hard cheeses intimidated me.

When I went to goat convention last summer, they had a mozzerella cheese workshop. I took it and I attempted making mozzerella 3 times at home. I got ONE to set right... the rest were miserable failures and I couldn't get the curd to stretch like mozzerella should - it fell apart and stayed grainy like a ricotta... and mozzerella took a long time to cook and watch and re-cook... whole thing took maybe 3-4 hrs so that is a LOT of wasted time for a complete failure.

I thought that if I couldn't do mozzerella, how could I possibly do any hard cheeses??? I found a cheese chat group and someone assured me that mozzerella is a hard thing that takes a bit o' magic and to please keep trying with other hard cheeses.

Well I got out my cheese books last night and I am attempting to make a goat milk munster cheese. It seemed pretty easy and not a whole lot of time/attention was needed. A cheese making confidence builder?

I had it at the correct temp - added my rennet - added the salt - cut the curds - drained them for 20 min. - put them in our cheese press - put 40lbs o' pressure on the curds for 12 hrs... Furry Husband called to tell me he sucessfully flipped the cheese this morning and the pressure is back on for another 12 hrs. Tonight I will salt all surfaces, and it will age in our fridge for a week... ?? I hope it works! Keep your fingers crossed!

Next thing that happened last night - now, this is just plain stupid on my part.

It's feeding time for the horses and the young ones are all running around crazy. Brandon is at his feeder happily eating... Rosso finally ran out into his pen and Furry Husband shut the gate. I "assumed" that Brandon knew I was there from all the commotion and I had been talking to my sweet Furry Husband etc.

Brandon is all shaggy from his Cushing's disease and has great big clumps o' hair falling off of him now that spring weather is here... there was one irrisistible clump hanging off his back leg begging me to pull it out... I walked up, not speaking and picked the clump off... Brandon did NOT know it was me. His ears went back and he kicked and kicked HARD. Thank my lucky stars that I was standing to the side and he missed me...when I made a noise of suprise, poor Brandon looked SO incredibly ashamed of himself and SO suprised his target was me and not Rosso. His eyes got really big and then the look on his face - complete shame! Poor Brandon. Even when the horse is old and completely trustworthy... you still need to be aware of your surroundings and let them know you are there!!!! Lesson learned!!! Man - I didn't know he could even fire that fast or hard anymore! Good for him!