Making cheese

I scoured the internet and found making cheese was easy! So as a school project I figured it would be a breeze !

   Not so much!

   I found a proclamation of "Make cheese in 20 minutes" and we did it.

4 HOURS later we had cheese!

I suppose it's not very expensive. Once you have the rennet and citric acid it will last forever and isn't very expensive at all. About $5 for them both. A gallon of milk (yes a whole gallon made that small wheel of cheese) and some salt which I already had for canning. Cheese cloth is easy to find during canning season but good luck after that! I found it at the dollar store.

Let me add that I totally loved the fact my son enjoyed the cheese. So it was worth it. But I lost my helper about 30 minutes in to the project.

If you have time and milk that isn't ULTRA PASTURIZED and these few items I would suggest you try it! Flavor it with chili powder or tomato or garlic or whatever you choose to liven it up. (unfortunately my helper is not a try-er of new things) but wanted it plain! 

   It was still a yummy experiment and we had fun.

What to do with those pesky skins?

Tomato skins are everywhere and I hate throwing them away! So I dehydrate them and grind them down to ies as instant tomato paste or as flavor for soups or chili or even fry coating. You will be surprised at the amount you get when dehydrated and then sadly amazed at how little it is when ground down to powder.

  Once you realize how easy it is you will wonder why you didn't do it before now!

Garden produce

Right now my garden is producing like crazy. I can't keep up with it. My green tomatoes that I was so worried I was going to be stuck with have been turning red every which way.

No what are you doing with all this produced? How do you save it from being wasted away and doing nothing but becoming that glarb in  the bottom of the garbage can that attracts all the fruit flies?

  

 You can make jams or preserves or conserves, can it, pickle it, dry it or freeze it. It's really all up to you. But don't forget the best choice .... EAT IT!

  This year I have found dehydrating is easiest, but I have done just about all of the choices.

   But making dehydrated veggies let me make a veggie powder I could smuggle into even the finickiest of eaters.

   So I dehydrated loads. It's also a space saver. And I can vaccu pack the results into jars for use later.

   However you choose I preserve your bounty, make sure you are doing it safely.

What they don't know might be healthy.

I have this in a finicky eater. I don't mean just turned up his nose at one or two things. I mean this kid will not be anything except food that is on his preapproved list. Clear soup broth is his favorite soup, spaghetti with no sauce, pizza with no sauce, of course he likes french fries, and his staple is chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. And not the homemade kind! 

   He didn't see this coming!

I dehydrated veggies and made veggie powder. A pound if veggies grinds down to a few spoon fulls of the powder that can be hidden even in cookies, cakes, and brownies! 

These are brownies.

If you look really close you can see the granules.

But not one granule shows after they are baked! Not a trace of taste either!!! ( I tried to detect even a hint of the veggie powder knowing it was there and couldn't) and my finicky eater declared they were so good they didn't need frosting!

I figure this is a win, score 1 for Mom!