Category Archives: Recipes – Cheese

Quest for Raw Goat Milk

 

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Yesterday we set off with the grand kids to buy raw goat milk for cheese making. We were not in time to see any milking, or to get close to the goats, but, as usual the scenery on the way to the farm was spectacular.  We had a lovely misty view down North East Valley, affectionately known as The Valley to us, its inhabitants, with the rest of Dunedin’s hills in the background. To compensate for missing the goats we had a bit of a walk, a bit of a climb, some hiding behind the trees and collecting many different types of fungi that all seemed inedible to me.

I have propagated new cultures for the cheeses and will start making the real cheese tonight. Half will be Montasio, the other half a Cheddar. The goat cheese ricotta has been done and tastes delicious, very rich and creamy and with a much firmer texture that the cow milk ricotta I normally make. Romano, Caccio Cavallo and Parmigiano are on the list for May.

Goatherd’s Lunch

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Today’s lunch is unusual because nothing was from my garden apart from the apples. In Italy the herders travel  light, climbing up the mountains with their animals carrying  a lunch of cheese, bread, fruit and wine in a bag. I did not travel on foot, but, on my way to get fresh milk I passed the farm of a friend who makes delicious cheese from the milk of her own goats and sheep and brought some home.  All organic of course, from happy sheep and goats, and she learnt her craft in Switzerland so I could not miss. I rushed home, started my ricotta and spread my treasures on the table along with my own bread and apples, and the neighbour’s pears. A true feast!

I took pictures of the stunning scenery on the way there – it was a bit misty but beautiful still – and only about 10 minutes from my house. Dunedin surprises me every day, it certainly is not only a small university city, it has many talented and gifted residents that revel the lifestyle that can only be had in this rather isolated beauty spot.

The Curse of the Cookbooks

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I had to photograph the result of a cooking discussion or, cooking bickering, if you must.

The great thing about being self sufficient and eating from the vegetable patch is the joy of harvesting something one grew oneself. It is organic and fresh even if, at time whatever is harvested is gnarled and puny it still tastes wonderful. The bad thing is that one is held hostage by the blackbird that eats all the seedlings the chickens overlooked when they were free ranging last time. The seasons and climate, especially here in Dunedin , dictate whether things grow or not and the person in control of the garden constantly suffers arched inquiries as to why in the world so much (or so little) of something was planted

Sometimes there is a glut of something and then the search for a great recipe, or, often many great recipes of one particular vegetable or fruit depending on the amount harvested. The frantic paging through the cookbooks begin, and since my 200 plus books are all about regional Italian cooking the search can not be narrowed down to, say, Indian or Chinese, and mutterings of  ‘ it was always in this book, where has it gone’ are commonplace. A lot of time is spent getting side tracked when I see something fondly remembered or something I always wanted to try. Once the recipe is selected sudden resistance from the household to the ingredients could flare up, prompting the beginning of a new search and the hauling out of more books!

Raw Milk Ricotta Cheese

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My raw milk ricotta has turned out very well.  I don’t even want to talk about the vile supermarket stuff,  but the raw milk effort is vastly different in taste and texture to the batch I made with supermarket milk. The high cream content, and the absence of added water makes a very rich, creamy, soft cheese. Here is a link to my ricotta cheese recipe, good enough but if you can, do it with raw milk.

I made bruschetta for lunch

Toast bread, rub with a clove of garlic drizzle olive oil over . Sopon ricotta cheese thickly on to the bread, add a few dabs of carrot top pesto, salt, pepper and another drizzle of olive oil. Eat it immediately befor the bread cools. Delicious. Link for carrot top pesto

Raw Milk from the Loveliest Dairy Farm

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We got up bright and early to be in time for the morning milking. The beauty of the scenery around Dunedin is astounding, driving high up the hill behind Port Chalmers through dense trees and shrubs (that seemed to be natural bush to us ) overlooking the blue harbour is  thrilling. The intimate scale of the landscape , the green of the hills   accross the blue harbour and the pretty town below us made us feel lucky to live in New Zealand. We turned off on to a narrow gravel road, so narrow and winding through dense growth,   that we are still wondering what would have happened should we have met an oncoming car. We passed a delightful, shingled, ‘gingerbread ‘ house with a spectacular view of the harbour and parked beside the milking parlour, with, of course, a spectacular view of the harbour!

Milking was over and placid Jersey cows stood or lay in the stalls relaxing to soft classical music. The parlour has vines with ripening grapes trailing along the rafters over the heads of the cows.  There is a magnificent wild looking veg garden close by with roses and  what a friend calls  English Garden Flowers on all sides of the parlour.  As an unexpected bonus we were given some artichokes since the owners were not eating them anymore ( getting sick of artichokes  –  unimaginable) !

We fell in love  with the place and the kids fell in love with the cows. The cows were willing to be petted and ate hay from gingerly offered little hands. The magic ended when the smallest child was given a long lick through the face by a doe eyed but raspy tongued cow.  The resulting hysterical wailing and crying shattered the peace and we beat a hasty retreat so as not to disturb the tranquil mood.

Back in Port Chalmers we had the best French Toast ever. A huge cruise ship was docked, dwarfing the town, and the streets were filled with  uniformly dressed passengers enjoying a shore visit in glorious Dunedin summer weather (do the ships distribute shore leave uniforms to passengers, we wondered).

Once we got home, I immediately started making ricotta, mainly because I had no room in the fridge for 20 L of milk.