Making Goat Cheese

Goat Cheese.

I have a fascination with cheese. I can spend enormous chucks of time thinking about it. Then I hit a wall and leave it alone for awhile.

I think it all stems from my dream......to own a cheese shop. To work there every day handing out samples of cheese to customers....having my customers get big smiles on their face when they taste something they have never tried before....but they know they want again. I want to chat with them about where the cheese came from, how to serve it, how to use it in a recipe, how to store it. I want them to leave not only with cheese but with a fond memory of our conversation. I want them to remember the place and the people and I want them to come back again for more.

Where do all these cheeses come from? How is it possible to take the same milk and rennet and come up so many different types of cheese? I am fascinated by this. I want to learn everything there is about it.

To that end I have started the only way I know how and that is to make cheese. Really simple cheese. So far I have made ricotta, goat cheese, and mozzarella. They were all three delicious. With the ricotta I made an acorn squash lasagna, with the goat cheese a caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza, and with the mozzarella we sliced it with organic heirloom tomatoes, fresh picked basil directly from the garden, drizzled a little olive oil over the top and hit it with some sea salt and pepper and ate it straight away.

I have spent some time researching this cheese making topic and found that it is much more difficult then one might think.

In my childhood I recall my mother coming home from the supermarket with Velvetta cheese and we would make grilled cheese sandwiches. We had no idea this was not real cheese. And it melts beautifully. Have you read the package on that stuff lately? Yikes!

So on to what this post is about: I decided to be brave and make goat cheese. I love goat cheese. I buy it quite often and love it on salads and for crostini with various toppings. So I put it on my calendar and decided to just do it. (Putting tasks on my calendar somehow tends to make me do it. I know! I know!) I found a recipe that I liked and my first challenge was to find the goats milk. Pasteurization in milk can effect the cheese making success so I wanted to find unpasteurized or raw milk. However, that proved to be more difficult than I thought. Hum....who would have thunk that living in the big city would limit the prospect of getting raw milk? Now if I lived out in the country where I had access to a farm I could go buy some wonderful fresh milk and make some fantastic cheese. Here in Orange County we have Mothers or Whole Foods Markets. There are a couple of dairy's but they carry basically the same thing and none of them carry unpasteurized products. Its a safety thing....which is a whole other topic!

There are a few recipes out there which you can find in cheese making books for by googling the topic. Look in the cookbooks you already own. Some recipes work better than others and lend a slightly different taste. What I am amazed at it that often the same ingredients are used but somehow we end up with different cheese. It is very subtle. A slightly different technique or the difference in time and temperatures all produce a different result. Some folks say making cheese is easy but I don't know if I agree. Some folks say making wine is easy too but I think we all know that is not true.

I found a recipe that I liked and so off to Mothers Market I went to get the milk. I purchased the best quality pasteurized organic goats milk they had. Do NOT buy ultra-pasteurized. That is the key. I had my doubts as to whether the pasteurized would work or not but it did and it was a breeze.

Basically you put stuff in a pot, wait for it to get to a certain temperature, then strain it. The recipe takes two days and most of that time is waiting.

Ingredients:

2 quarts organic goats milk
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 tsp liquid rennet
Salt

This makes about 3/4 pound. You can easily double the recipe for 1 1/2 pounds.


In a large non reactive saucepan or pot combine the goats milk, buttermilk and rennet. Stir just until combined and then do not touch it. Do nothing. Heat over low heat until the temperature reaches 180 degrees F. Be sure to use very low heat so the milk does not burn. Getting the temperature up to this point on low heat does take some time, so just stand there and watch it. But don't leave the area! Watch the temp carefully and once it reaches 180 turn it off immediately.

Transfer the liquid to a non reactive bowl and allow to sit and cool for a few minutes then cover with plastic wrap. Now it sits until the curds and whey separate, overnight, see photo. The next day line a colander with cheese cloth and ladle the curds into the colander. Discard the whey. Fold the cheesecloth over top of curbs and allow to drain overnight. Put the colander inside another bowl to catch any liquid. Refrigerate overnight. You now have goat cheese. Add some salt and give it a taste. I bet it's good!



Ingredients you can add to the goat cheese to create the taste you like: olive oil, salt, pepper, herbs, sun dried tomatoes or pesto. These are all excellent in goat cheese. I used some of mine to make a goat cheese and caramelized onion pizza. How good does that look?

Blueberry Tarts

Blueberry Tarts

One recipe - two dishes! How can you not love that?

I had filling left from the cheese danish I made. (see previous post) I had just bought a lovely basket of blueberries and I had a sheet of puff pastry in the freezer. The mock blueberry tart was born. I love when this happens.

I've gotten pretty good about looking around my kitchen and making something with whatever is on hand. In this instance it come in very handy because I was having a dinner guest and the creme brullee I had made did not turn out. I made the tarts at the same time I made the creme brulee only because it would provide something for later and cooking multiple dishes at one time saves so much time. One cooking session, one mess to clean up but two dishes to enjoy. Good thing I did this. I was able to heat the tarts and serve them with vanilla ice cream. My dinner guest loved them and so did we. So of course I made them again the next week just to test the ingredients and to confirm how easy they were to make. They are indeed very easy to make and they taste so darn good for a quickie recipe. This recipe is perfect for people who want tasty homemade desserts but don't want to spend hours in the kitchen.

Set four ramekins on a baking sheet. Take a sheet of the puff pastry and cut it into four squares. Put one square into each ramekin. Fill with one large tablespoon of the cheese filling, see previous post for cheese danish recipe. Add a handful of fresh blueberries. Sprinkle with some torbinado sugar. Fold the corners into the center. Brush with egg white. Bake for 12 minutes, rotate pan and bake for 12 more minutes.

My favorite way to serve this is warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can remove them from the ramekins and plate them so that when the ice cream starts melting it has a place to land. Other than your mouth that is.

Cheese Danish

Cheese Danish. Yum!

On Sunday mornings I make French press coffee. My husband looks forward to it every week. I usually get up before him, putter around in the kitchen, then bring him a cup in bed. When he hears me next to his bed he gets a big smile on his face. Ahhhh.....the coffee has arrived. It's one thing I do to spoil him because he gets such a kick out of it.

We have had this June gloom weather the past few weeks so last Sunday I decided I needed to make something special to go with the gloomy weather. I made these cheese danish and boy am I happy I did. Not only were they really easy but they were delicious. And it turns out, they are my husbands favorite danish. (I knew that!)

You can make these for your family next Sunday. I am giving you a recipe for a very small batch, it makes 4. Which is plenty for us two, we had one on Sunday and then again on Monday with our coffee. But if you want to make more just double it. That will give you eight. I cheated and used frozen puff pastry because making danish from scratch is a long and time consuming process. Better left for another day. The danish need to be eaten pretty quickly, they will not hang around the house for days on end, because the puff pastry gets stale.

The recipe: (makes 4)

• 4 ounces of cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and ready to use
• 1 egg white (for egg wash)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In an electric mixer place cream cheese and sugar and blend until smooth. Add sugar, then the egg yolks and mix well. Add the ricotta, vanilla, salt and lemon zest and mix only until incorporated.

Lay the puff pastry sheet out and cut into four sections. Place the four pieces on the parchment lined baking sheet. Place a heaping tablespoon of the filling on each puff pastry piece then fold 2 edges towards the center to slightly overlap. See photo. Brush the edges with egg white to hold together. Brush the entire surface with the egg white to get a nice golden brown finish.

Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the pan and bake another 10 minutes. The result be a light flaky dough and a creamy cheesy lemony center.

If you want to get fancy you can add fruit. Strawberries or blueberries would be great.

I hope you spoil someone in your family with these. Even if it is only you.

Wine tasting in Paso Robles

Each year, over Memorial weekend, we take a wine tasting trip to the nearby wine regions in California. Santa Barbara, Monterey County, Napa and Sonoma, Paso Robles, which are all within driving distance for us. How lucky are we? These annual trips started about 20 years ago. My husband and I took a spontaneous trip over Memorial weekend and ended up at the wineries in Santa Ynez which is outside Santa Barbara and only 2 hours from where we live. We had such a good time, and drank so much good wine, that we decided to do it again the next year.... and a tradition was born. We then started inviting friends and over the years we have gone with several different groups making each trip unique and memorable. We went to Santa Ynez for many years then several years ago we started investigating the Paso Robles area. This year was our 4th trip there. We have also visited Napa, Sonoma Valley and Monterey County. As they say......its a tough job but someone has to do it.

We left our house early on Saturday morning and we were at our first tasting room by 11:30 AM. After tasting at a couple of places we stopped for a picnic lunch, which everyone participated in preparing. We all bring a few dishes and it turns into a feast. The food is always wonderful or maybe it's just that we are starving and have been drinking that make it taste so darn good. There is something so special about setting up a picnic and tasting all the wonderful food, drinking more good wine, and talking up a storm, catching up and visiting with people you enjoy. Sometimes we sit far too long and have to force ourselves to get up and move on. After lunch we taste at a couple more wineries, until they finally all close at 5:00 pm. By then we are done. Stick a fork in us, done. These days evenings are slow and we usually all want to hit our rooms early to rest up for a repeat the next day. In years past however we would go back to our rooms, freshen up, then go out to dinner and eat and drink more. Ahhh to be young again.

We have a list of our favorite wineries but always try to get in a new one. This year we tried 3 new wineries and two of them were quite good. I love when that happens. We find new wines that we can buy and bring home or look for in the future. We all belong to several wine clubs too.

This years list included stops at: Bella Luna, Martin and Weyrick, Malony O'Neil, Tobin James, Opolo, Minassian Young, Nadeau Family, Pipestone, and Four Vines. We also went to the olive oil place Paso Olivio. Did you know you can do an olive oil tasting? It's wonderful because you can taste before you buy. The people there are all so nice and they obviously love what they do. It's a nice thing to do first thing in the morning before you start with the wine. We all left with bags of precious oil.


I have had one beef with the wine industry. Wine tasting starting because wine makers wanted people to buy their wine so they offered a taste in the hopes you would buy it. Well, here in California wine tasting has become big business. Lots of people go tasting, and some don't buy much, they just use it to party, and many get a little unruly and drunk. (Us older, more mature people, don't do that anymore.) The tasting rooms charge anywhere from $5.00 to $20.00 per person. My feeling is that when you buy from them they should waive the tasting fee but many of them don't. They have become so arrogant! That means if a group of 6 go in and taste you can spend $60 at one stop. And that's before you buy anything. After years of paying for both a tasting and buying from wineries I decided I would boycott certain wineries for this practice. I decided to contact several of them to ask about this policy and I have found that many of them are now changing their policy. It appears the slow economy is causing them to reconsider. I was happy to see this. I also believe in using my consumer power and voicing my opinion. Businesses need to hear from their customers to know what they want. Of course there are still many who will not waive the tasting fee no matter how much wine you buy. Turley comes to mind. Buy a case of wine and you will still be charged the tasting fee. If you choose to do business with them you just have to know what you dealing with.

I have to say that in Paso Robles there are still many fine small wineries who still do not charge a tasting fee. Like Bella Luna who says the still believe they should earn our business. I have found Napa who is the most arrogant of all.

If you are going tasting, or on a buying trip like us, there are several good web sites out there that describe the wineries, the hours, the fee, and the style of wine they specialize in. It pays to do a little homework before going.

Going tasting with a small group is perfect. I love the interaction and listening to each person talk about the nuances of a wine, what they like or dislike, what food it would pair well with. It's interesting to see how we all react to wine, the flavors we prefer, the tannins, the money we are willing to spend on something we truly enjoy. Everyone has such distinct wine personalities. I am envious of the folks who can find the good in any wine. They appreciate a particular wine for what it is. I am not there. I either like it or I don't. And if I don't you are not going to talk me into it. I also hate when you go into a tasting room and they say "but have you tasted ours? Its different". I don't want to taste it. Period! No it is not different. Why do they do that? I guess it's admirable that they think there's is the best, but come on, I am not a rookie at this. Do not try to force something on me that I have not liked for the past 20 years. I only have so many wine points in a day and I am very careful about how I spend them. I am not going to spend them on something I already know I am probably not going to like. One sip and it gets dumped. This happens over and over. Ok I feel better having gotten that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

On Monday morning we met up with our friends for breakfast, said a quick good bye, and then hit the road. We have learned from past experience that the traffic going through LA on a holiday is to be missed at any and all costs so we either leave early or very late. We headed home around 10:00 am and by 1:00 pm we were home safe and sound. As another wonderful weekend came to an we were already talking about the funny moments and good times.

Get out there and drink some wine.

Arugula, goat cheese salad with fig dressing

To accompany the sweet potato ravioli I made, see previous blog post, I made this salad of arugula, goat cheese and prosciutto with a fig balsamic dressing.

I make, and sell, a fig jam. For some time now I have been racking my brain trying to think of other ways to use it besides eating it with manchego cheese and crackers. A salad dressing kept coming to mind. I kept thinking about trying to make a dressing with the fig jam but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do until it dawned on me that I need to create the same flavors for it to be successful. The thing that makes the jam so good with the manchego cheese and salty crackers could also be done with those flavors in a salad. The saltiness of the prosciutto, the creaminess of the goat cheese, the fig, brings it all together. I finally gave it a try and I think it turned out pretty darn good.

The dressing:

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 3 tablespoons walnut oil
• 2 tablespoons fig jam
• Salt and Pepper, freshly cracked

In a small add balsamic vinegar then the walnut oil and whisk to blend. Then add the jam, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

The salad:

• Arugula
• Mixture of other greens, any type you like
• Goat cheese
• Prosciutto
• Honey

To assemble: Chill the greens in a bowl in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes until they are really cold and crisp. Toss the greens with the dressing and plate. Take one tablespoon of goat cheese and place it in the middle of the greens and a slice of prosciutto on each side. Drizzle the goat cheese with a little honey.