cheese report: mozzarella & ricotta

Whoop-dee-doo. I made cheese today. First I made mozzarella which we covered with basil-infused olive oil and served with the yummy walnut and flax seed bread from the other day. Oh how I longed for the tomatoes to be ready, but they are not.

Then I used the whey from the mozzarella and made ricotta.

Then I mixed the remaining whey with the fruit sauce I made last week and made a super nutritious drink for the kids which they loved. I cleaned out the pantry last week and ran across jars and jars of fruit canned back in the 90's. It was safe, but rather bleakly colored and very mushy. So I popped it all into the blender (pie cherries, apricots, pears, applesauce) and made a fruit sauce to pour over the children's daily bowl of plain yogurt. It works beautifully mixed with the whey.

So there you have it. The mozzarella was awesome and quite fun to make; one kneads and stretches it like taffy. I would show you pictures but we ate it all up before I thought to get the camera out.

I will be looking for a larger slotted ladle as it took forever to ladle the curds out with the one I had.