Made with Pride at Blackrock

There are many new skills I have learned here that were not a part of my pre-Blackrock life: flinging dead animals, plumbing in small and disgusting places, butchering deer . . . and now I can add another one.

Cheesemaking.

Okay, so it was only ricotta cheese, which is basically just curdled milk and is probably the easiest cheese in the world to make. But I think I get bonus points for the fact that the milk had been milked from our very own sheep less than 10 minutes before I made ricotta with it.

You want to hear all about it, don't you? Good, because I'm going to tell you.

You'll remember (RIGHT?) that we separated the lambs from their mothers last week. Although the lambs are no longer nursing, the mothers will continue to produce milk for a bit, until their bodies realize they don't need to anymore. But in the interim, the milk can build up and the pressure can be a little uncomfortable for the ewes. So A. decided to milk the ewes a little yesterday, just to relieve the pressure. He did this last year, kind of spur of the moment while we were worming them, and I remember watching the milk coming out onto the ground and thinking what a waste it was. So I told him if he did it this year, I wanted to collect the milk.

He informed me yesterday afternoon that he was going to be milking the ewes. I grabbed a bowl and hoofed it up to the pasture. He milked all three of the ewes who had given birth this year. And there I was, kneeling on the floor of the shed in the pasture, breathing in the pungent odor of sheep shit and catching the milk in my bowl.

You know that line in my profile about wondering every day how I got here? Yesterday's wondering moment was, "How the hell did I end up kneeling in sheep manure on the floor of a shed with a bowl while my husband milks a sheep?"

BUT ANYWAY.

I ended up with exactly two cups of milk. I strained it through a coffee filter to catch the little gnats and bits of straw and other nastiness that had gotten in there. And then I made ricotta.

I used a method that seemed to be all over the place online. The curdling agent was buttermilk. This seemed a little less ridiculous than using rennet or something similarly specialized, so I tried it. It may have been less ridiculous, but it was not more effective. The curds did not separate when they were supposed to (at 180 degrees, if you must know). So I added some extra vinegar and boiled the milk longer, until I had curds. Then I drained it in muslin (like juicing the mulberries, except not, uh, purple). And then I had ricotta.

I used the ricotta to make a crustless quiche. Also in this quiche, besides the ricotta (which I made myself--did you catch that yet?), there were tomatoes (which I grew and canned myself), spinach and chard (which I grew myself and which I had an overly large bag of in the refrigerator), eggs (which the chickens made themselves, but I fed them!), dill (which I . . . well, you know) and, um, bacon, onion, heavy cream, and parmesan (which I did NOT grow or make or feed myself, but which tasted really damn good so I'm not sorry).

We also had a nice green salad because OH MY GOD THE LETTUCE WILL DESTROY US ALL.

But the quiche was really good. Really, really good.

And I made it myself.