Blessed are the Cheesemakers

I made fresh cheese yesterday. I followed the instructions on Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It was easy and the results, paired with a sweet, robust, purple tomato from my friend Ron's garden, were quite tasty.

Essentially, one simmers a half gallon of milk, then, once it bubbles a little, adds a quart of buttermilk and a big pinch of salt. The milk solids quickly separate from the liquid whey to form curds. After a minute of stirring, the whole thing is poured through a cheesecloth-line sieve. You gather the corners of the cloth and start twisting the curds into something resembling a softball. You squeeze as much whey out of the ball as possible, then secure it with string and suspend it over a bowl for any remaining whey to find its "way" out. An hour later you have cheese.

(There's also lots of leftover whey. I'll use this for breakfast smoothies and to moisten my two dogs' dried food over the next few days.)

If the co-op sells raw milk I'd like to try it with this next.

The blog title comes from the Sermon on the Mount, as portrayed in the funniest movie ever.