Super Easy Chevre Goat Cheese!

And you shall have goats' milk enough for your food, for the food of your household, and for the maintenance for your maidservants. Proverbs 27:27

Chevre.  Yes, I broke out the good china for this one!

What's creamy, buttery, delicious and great on just about anything? Goat cheese, baby! If you want to sound sophisticated you can call it chevre which is just a generic French word for goat cheese. Why is it that everything sounds so cosmopolitan in French? What ever you decide to call it, you should definitely try this simple recipe for chevre. Don't be intimidated by the cheese making process, I promise you this is one of the easiest recipes you will ever find!

You will need only 4 ingredients: 1 gallon of goat milk (you can half this recipe),  rennet (do not use junket rennet tablets...they will not work), a culture and 1/4 cup of water.   I use a double strength vegetable rennet and a little goes a long way! You can make chevre with pasteurized goat milk but if you have access to fresh raw goat milk the flavor tends to be more complex and buttery.  My Nubian goats are given grains and alfalfa as well as being free range grazers so they bring a distinct floral, somewhat savory and what I call summery flavor to our cheese that we absolutely love.  

Okay, are you ready for this?  Pour your milk into a large container, I used my crock pot because I do not like to use metal. If you must use metal make sure it is stainless steel so it will be non-reactive. Your milk can be cold or room temperature, I have done this both ways and the process has worked out well either way.

Step 1: Pour you goat milk into your container

Next add 1/4 teaspoon ( or 1/8 teaspoon if you are halving the recipe) of your culture and stir well with a wooden spoon. You do not want to use a metal spoon.

Now, add 1 drop of your liquid rennet to your 1/4 cup of water and mix to blend. I told you a little goes a long way! Take 2 Tablespoons (use 1 Tablespoon if you are halving the recipe) of this mixture and add it to your milk. Stir well.  Cover your container with a cloth napkin or dish towel and secure with a rubber band.

Let your milk, culture and rennet sit for 24 hours.

Simple so far, right? You will let your milk mixture sit out for 24 hours. I just let mine sit on the counter in an out of the way spot but if you are short on space you can place it in your oven, just be sure not to "preheat" while your milk is in there! During this time your milk will thicken into curds.

Curds and whey!

The next day you will want to drain your cheese curds from the whey which has separated during the 24 hour period.  Place a large colander in a large bowl and line with a fine butter muslin, cheese cloth or you can use a cotton pillow case. I used an old white cotton pillow case that I cut open along the seams and it worked wonderfully.  Do Not use the cheese cloth that you find in grocery stores, it is not fine enough and it will not work! 

Colander inside a bowl to catch the whey that will drip off.

I used a king size pillow case and it worked fine.

Carefully pour your curds into the colander, it should be gelled and have the consistency of a thick yogurt.  You do not have to worry too much if they fall apart some.

Tie up the corners of your cheese cloth to enclose the curds and be sure to keep the ends inside the colander or the whey will drip all over your counter.  I used a rubber band to secure the bag closed.

Curds securely wrapped and whey dripping in bowl.

You may need to pour off they whey into another container so that the colander doesn't sit "in" the whey and so it can finish dripping.  You can save your whey for baking bread, cooking with, or give it to your animals, they love it! Let your curds sit for another 24 hours.  I placed the other half of my pillow case over the top to cover it.

Almost done, I can hardly wait!

This is the moment you have been waiting! Untie your cheese cloth and transfer your chevre to a clean bowl.  Add 1 teaspoon of sea salt or kosher salt (do not use iodized salt) and blend well.  Remember to use only 1/2 teaspoon if you have halved this recipe.

Add salt to taste.

You can get creative and combine herbs and spices to your cheese or eat it plain!  I like garlic, dill and chives, or parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.  Zatar is another wonderful blend of Middle Eastern spices that pairs perfectly with chevre.  Traditionally it is mixed with olive oil and baked into the crust of flat bread but I like to just mix it into the cheese or top it off and eat it! Yum.

Store your cheese in small containers in the refrigerator.  You can also freeze your chevre. Just allow it to thaw in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours before eating.

This makes about 2 pounds.

Whew. That was hard work wasn't it!  Give this recipe a try and you can impress all your friends, that is if you don't eat it all first! Enjoy!  :)

Blessings,

Michelle

Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

1 1/2 quarts of sweet and creamy fresh goat milk

Okay, so we've all heard the old saying "Don't cry over spilled milk"...well, now I know where that expression comes from!  I've been milking my first year fresheners (does who have had kids for the first time) and I must say, somehow I pictured it differently.  I dreamt of milking out gallons of wonderful and nutritious goat milk for my family while my sweet natured does munched happily on their grain and alfalfa. Not.

While my doe Ruth is gentle and doesn't seem to mind my inexperience, my other doe, Shiloh is, well...not so gentle. Bill likes to say Ruth is a bit "slow" but sweet and Shiloh is smart and stubborn.  I'll take slow and sweet over smart and stubborn anytime! If it wasn't so frustrating I'd find it hilarious that Shiloh kicks, jumps, hops and practically tap dances all over my milk stand in her (successful) attempts at keeping me from milking her. I've tried everything I can think of to win her over to no avail, from hobbling her , holding one back leg up , singing Amazing Grace to her (I find the acoustics in my milk room to be really good btw), and talking gently (and not so gently) to her. Nothing. I get no respect, and apparently very little milk. 

After 35 minutes of stress, tears and pleas for mercy I managed to get 1/2 a quart from her. Sigh. I can only hope it will get better.  I did fair better with Ruth who gave me a full quart of milk (actually I didn't milk her out completely as she is still nursing her twin bucks).  Then it was to the house to prepare my milk.

This little hand pump is perfect for first fresheners with smaller teats

After milking out a doe I put the milk in either an ice bath or the bottom of my deep freeze before I milk out the other. The faster you chill the milk the better it tastes.  Then, when the milking is done, I will filter it and either continue to chill it or freeze it for later use.  Because I use an Udderly EZ hand milker, I have very little to nothing to filter out of my milk but I do this none the less.

Bill filtering the milk so I can get this picture...what a guy!

I really love my milk filter, actually it is a jam funnel with a fine mesh filter and it works wonderfully for the small amounts of milk I process.  I may need to go to a larger filter made for this purpose when my quantities go up but that may be a while. Since I am freezing this milk I will filter it directly into quart size freezer bags.

It's a little tricky to hold and pour, but with only a quart it's not too bad.

When I've filtered all the milk I then date any bags I'm freezing or, if I'm going to use it immediately I'll place the milk back into an ice bath in my refrigerator or if it's a small quantity I'll put it back into my deep freeze until it chills down, about 20 minutes.

milk ready to be put in the freezer

When I need milk I just thaw it in the refrigerator, and it's wonderful.  This is a perfect way to store my extra milk and to save enough for making cheese or butter. So far, that hasn't been an issue. Well, there's always tomorrow, right?

Blessing,

Michelle

We're Expecting!

It is an exciting time here at Flumgummerie as we gear up for our first kidding season. Our Nubian does, Ruth and Shiloh, are both due in the first couple weeks of April. Talk about jitters, I haven't been this nervous since my own pregnancies!

There is so much to learn and so much to do that I am having a hard time deciding what to do first. Since this is our first time around we are starting from the beginning and that can be daunting to any new breeder. What should you have on hand? What equipment is absolutely essential to have on hand? What, when and how much should you feed? The list goes on and on! I have to sit back, take a breath and remind myself that most of the time these events happen without our help and without incident.

I decided that I should be prepared for any emergencies but I wasn't going to stress myself out worrying about it. I have put together a "kidding kit" of sorts with the basics and a few items that have been deemed as important in an emergency and best to have on hand. Nothing over the top or expensive, although one could certainly go that route. I did't think it was necessary to have navel clamps on hand when dental floss would work just as well, nor did I opt to purchase a navel dipper when I could repurpose the cap from one of my makeup bottles to serve the same purpose. I am still in the process of completing my kit and I will list everything together as soon as I am done with the hope that this will help someone else new to dairy goats and kidding.

I must admit my job has been made slightly more difficult because I am also trying to prepare for milking and cheese making, of which I am also a beginner starting with nothing! This means that my mind is in overdrive trying to decide on a myriad of choices and possibilities. I have spent countless hours reading books and searching the internet for ideas and resources to help in this process but I still find it difficult to make a final decision. To be fair, making decisions has always been hard for me. I can never just "make a choice"! I have to think and rethink on everything...a kind of paralysis by analysis. Although some choices are easier than others, for instance, building a milk stand vs. buying one was simple. The savings was so great to build one that there really wasn't any choice there for me to make. Build it and they will come! The same factor helped me decide on whether I should purchase a $500 pasteurizer or just use a stainless steel pot and a thermometer. I opted for the $17 thermometer method (after I decided whether or not I should or should not pasteurize the milk of course)!

I don't have it all planned out. I am not a type A personality by any stretch of the imagination and I am prone to changing my mind, but I do believe that a little planning and a lot of knowledge never hurt anyone. I will prepare the best that I know how and trust that the world will keep turning if I make a mistake.

Now, should I start with making soft or hard cheese or both? Hmmmm, decisions, decisions.