Sunday, January 24, 2016

Brooklyn Blizzard - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, CHEESE!

Yesterday - 
 Today -

And tomorrow? Well, no pictures of that yet, for some reason, but with the city having had a full day to clean up and a nice south wind bringing in some warmer temperatures tomorrow, I'm fully expecting a normal commute & work day.

TQ works for the NYC Parks Department and he was called in at oh-dark-thirty to help with the cleanup. Go Parks Dept. and Sanitation and anybody else involved in Shovel-out Sunday! I had a nice quiet day, though - slept in, then decided to walk over to the Food Co-op where they usually have the pasteurized, just pasteurized, not ultra-pasteurized milk that I've been getting for my ongoing experiments in cheesemaking. I wasn't sure they'd have any, New Yorkers tend to do the same crazed buying of bread and milk as people do in less populous areas, but I figured I'd go see what the situation was, and if nothing else, I would get a good walk out of it. Which I did. Lovely day in Midwood and Ditmas Park. 







 When I got to Cortelyou Road, I was amazed to find that the Cortelyou Road Greenmarket was actually open for business!
 Only 2 vendors, understandably, but I was surprised anyone had made it. I'd only planned on getting milk, but since these two had made the trip down, I figured I'd do a little more shopping. 

 Rogowski Farms was selling all her root veggies for two dollars a pound, so I got a pound each of carrots, potatoes and beets.

 I got cider and eggs from the Knoll Crest gentleman. Even if the co-op didn't have milk, now this trip was worth the time,in addition to being the nice walk I'd hoped for. 
Food co-op was stocked as though nothing had ever happened, so I got my milk and headed for home. Little bit more of a hike with so many groceries, but I need the exercise!

Got home, had an eggs-cellent breakfast sandwich with a greenmarket egg (very fresh and good!), tomato, Serrano ham and grated romano cheese, then curled up on the Evil Futon of Nap with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Naturally this led to a nap, because that is what the Evil Futon of Nap does, no matter how much I'm enjoying the book. This wasn't a bad one, only about 40 minutes, I woke up, read for a bit more and then decided it was time to get going on my cheesemaking. I collected the stuff and then realized that I didn't have rubber gloves (I'd decided to try mozzarella again and that involves kneading and pulling the cheese at 135 degrees) or bottled water (even NYC's wonderful tap water has chlorine in it, which will stop your cheese from cheesing) so I went out to get some -

and immediately came back for my camera, because there was a fine sunset going on, one of those pretty pink-and-blue ones.  








Came home and made my cheese. Mozzarella, 2nd try, came out delicious - first time I'd accidentally gotten 2% milk, which you can still use to make cheese; this time I got whole milk, plus I worked it a little bit less and left a little more whey in so it came out creamier, tenderer, and moister than my last mozzarella (which was my first ever cheesemaking attempt, and was pretty good, but a tiny bit rubbery - I think I fixed that this time). 



8 comments:

Carla said...

I was definitely all kinds of jealous of my friends in Brooklyn and DC over the weekend. But I will confess, this morning as a child left for school, I was happy not to have a snow day :-)

Haralee said...

Great pictures! I have never even tried to make cheese. Looks great.

Rena said...

Loved the pictures! The cheese looked delicious. I've never tried to make my own before, but I would love how to make the mozerella!

bonnie said...

I highly recommend starting with a kit, Rikki the Cheese Queen's kits from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company are excellent and have everything you need except milk and a big pot. My mozzarella kit was actually from a company called Roaring Brook, and it had most of what I needed but I ended up breaking into the Rikki's cottage cheese kit I'd gotten a while back for cheesecloth for the draining. This was my 3rd try, I've made 2 mozzarellas and 1 batch of cottage cheese. It's a fun thing to do on a cold winter day, and of course I'm looking forward to summertime when I can make a caprese salad where everything except the olive oil and vinegar is homemade or homegrown!

bonnie said...

Thanks!

How to make -- based on my limited experience so far, I highly recommend starting with a kit, Rikki the Cheese Queen's kits from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company are excellent and have everything you need except milk and a big pot. My mozzarella kit was actually from a company called Roaring Brook, and it had most of what I needed but I ended up breaking into the Rikki's cottage cheese kit I'd gotten a while back for cheesecloth for the draining. This was my 3rd try, I've made 2 mozzarellas and 1 batch of cottage cheese. It's a fun thing to do on a cold winter day, and of course I'm looking forward to summertime when I can make a caprese salad where everything except the olive oil and vinegar is homemade or homegrown!

Roz Warren said...

Cool photos. You are actually MAKING cheese?! Most impressive.

Andrea said...

That cheese looks delicious! I have never tried to make it, but I've heard it can be pretty easy - and can turn out amazing. Glad it worked better on your second try.

You've made me a little homesick for Brooklyn with your pictures. What beautiful ones - and that sunset - great capture.

bonnie said...

Thanks! I've been having fun with my yummy new hobby.

And that sunset -- I walked out the front door and my jaw dropped. A beautiful end to a beautiful day!

Brooklyn's great! Hawai'i will always feel like home, but I've been very very happy with my many years in Brooklyn, especially my current neighborhood of Midwood.