Marinated Feta & Mediterranean Dreams

The other night, we were standing around the barn enjoying a beer and some storytelling. The goats were all in their stalls for the night, softly chewing on hay. It was one of those perfect summer moments that you know you will look back on when the snow is piled up outside. We were chatting with the father of one of our daughter's friends who is married to a woman from Greece. It was in the darkness of a summer barn that he shared with us a tradition from her village. Each year in the weeks that garlic scapes appear, the goats are let out to graze on these tasty aromatic flowers. (This helps the farmers because the scapes have to be cut anyway to allow the energy to go into the garlic bulb.) The resulting cheese is a treat that people far and wide wait all year for and come great distances to enjoy. My mouth watered just listening to him. And now it is clear I will have to plant a garlic garden for this sole purpose, but before then, it is time to make Feta! The cheese I would most like to make is a marinated cheese that is a mix between feta and chevre. So this morning after milking I set to work fueled by visions of goats munching on fields of garlic along the Mediterranean Blue sea. Hopefully these visions will add to the success of my feta.

My recipe is an adaptation of Mary Jane Toth's from Goats Produce Too. See link above to get your copy.

Mild Marinated Feta

Ingredients:

2 Gallons Pasteurized Goat Milk

1/2 tsp DCI Supreme Vegetable Rennet (Double Strength) from dairy Connection

1/2 cup cool water

1/8 tsp Mesophilic Culture MA 19 from France (some recipes use 1/4 tsp) 

(I want to try other cultures this summer and compare: MT1, MM100 and Dairy Connection Feta A)

Salt

Pasteurize Milk

Add culture at 86 degrees

Let sit for 1 hour

Mix rennet with cool water and add to milk

Cover and let set until you see a clean break 45-60 minutes.

Cut curds (see picture)

Let rest for 10 minutes

Stir curds keeping them at 86 degrees (easiest in a sink of warm water, or I used my pasteurizing vat) for 15-30  minutes

Hang curds for 6 hours

Slice into slabs 1-1.5 inches thick

Sprinkle with salt and let sit at room temp for 24 hours (turn and salt 2-3 times)

Then slice into cubes and cover with Olive Oil, garlic, basil leaves, peppercorns and other herbs.
Let sit in fridge in airtight containers for at least a week.
YUM.

2 gallons of milk in pasteurizer 

culture

salt

vegetable rennet

clean break means curds are ready to cut

cutting curds to form small uniform cubes

cutting curds releases the whey

let curds rest before stirring

stir curds for 30 minutes

while stirring try to keep temp at 86 degrees

ready to drain

cheesecloth ready over colander in pot

gently transfer curds to drain

before draining

after draining

slice feta 

Salt slabs and let sit. They should each have their own space, I layered them because I only had one container.

after 24ish hours

So now it's evening on the 2nd day

Most will add brine to feta in a jar and leave for a week (or a few) in the fridge.
I decided to jump to the marinated stage.

cut cheese into cubes and taste

before adding oil

add the things you love to olive oil

admire your creation while it sits for a week or more in the fridge to tasty up even more.

An added note: I was so excited to try this cheese that only one container made it to the 2 week mark! It was a thousand times better than the ones we ate right away both in texture and taste. I knew this would be true, but next time I will have the patience to wait!Because I was a little too rough on the curds the cheese was hard. Next time I will stir less.

New Chevre is Heavenly!

Like goats, goats owners are known to make their own path. If you need any proof of this google any goat question and you will be amazed at the wide range of answers. What should a dairy goat eat? When should the kids get their CDT shots? Should a pregnant goat get a BoSe injection in Maine? For any one question, goat owners are doing things in a million different ways and it is no different with goat cheese makers. Once a cheese maker moves beyond the no fail packages of prepared starter and rennet, you are on your own with a thousand options. (Thankfully goat owners are incredibly generous with their knowledge and experience, so you are never really alone.) While the cheese making process is amazingly simple and virtually the same no matter what type of cheese you want to make, the details matter and can produce dramatically different results depending on a million factors. This magic so appealing to me. The fact that my water, the hay the goats eat, the forage available in the field, the culture I order and how happy the goats are all play a role in what ends up on the cheese plate is a wonderful reminder that food is not something we can mass produce and still get the same delicious results. It is both simple and complicated and completely connected to the well being of the cheese maker and animal! This summer it is my goal to make cheese every other day. I will post my results on my quest for the perfect, irresistible cheese! This first one was mighty delicious, a great start to the summer.

FIRST SUMMER CHEVRE-JUNE 18

2 gallons milk

1/4 tsp DVI culture from France (Danisco MM100)  for 2-5 gallons

Mixed 1/2 tsp vegetable rennet in 1/4 cup water, then used 2 tbs of mixture 

(I read goat's milk needs less rennet)

•Pasteurize milk then cool to 80F.

•Add culture and let culture sit on surface for a couple of minutes.

•Gently  stir with up ad down motion.

•Add rennet and stir.

•Let sit  about 7 hours.

(I look for the curd to pull away from edge of pot and the whey to cover surface of curds.)

Note: This recipe is causing my curds to set up quickly, can take much longer. 

In thin slabs gently transfer curds to a bag

Drain for 5 hours.

Add salt.

Put in fridge for the night.

The next morning we shape into logs and add herbs. (Dill looks especially pretty rolled onto the outside of cheese mixed with salt and Herbs de Provence.)

Notes:

Target PH for goat milk is 6.4

Our fresh milk tests at 6-7 on June 18. 

We are making cheese every 2-3 days.

June 22-Getting 10 cups a day milking in the morning only.

5 does. (One gives barely any milk, one gives twice the amount of any other goat.)

Lucky 13

After an exciting two weeks of kidding, we have a busy barn full of 13 leaping baby goats. We are keeping the 4 girls (yes bad odds!) and selling the 9 wethers at eight weeks. They all have such personalities already that we know we will miss them when they go, but part of the fun is meeting all the cool families who are interested in having their own goats. The first two will be headed to York to live with a lovely couple who have had a farm for years with animals of all sizes. They brought along a granddaughter to help pick out the bucklings they wanted. Who knows who else we will meet in the coming weeks. We still keep in touch with most of the folks who bought kids and piglets last year and even received a first birthday picture of a goat we sold last year wearing a birthday hat!! He is all grown up and looks just like his mama Bonnie!
The highlight of kidding season was Tess (13 years old) being midwife to our two goats who went into labor at exactly the same time. By the time we got home, six bouncing babies were nursing and Tess had taken care of dipping their umbilical cords and making sure each goat got colostrum. She is a natural! The low point was a kid who was born unable to walk or hold up her head. We did our best: gave her a shot of BoSe, some NutraDrench, and some colostrum via syringe, then brought her in with us by the wood stove, but after watching her all night, she died the next day. It was our first goat to ever die on the farm and it was very sad. I can't imagine it getting much easier with time, but I'm OK with us being emotionally attached. And the surprise of the season: Bonnie had 4 boys! One who came out 2 hours after the rest, long after we thought she was done kidding. Lewis is one of our biggest kids and came out raring to go. Our smallest kid is also Bonnie's (her first). His name is Clyde and he is the cutest thing I've ever seen.
We began milking a couple of days ago. At two weeks we separate the kids from their moms at night and milk once a day in the morning. After we sell the wethers at eight weeks we will begin twice a day milking. And after months of waiting, the first chevre is doing its thing overnight! YUM! I could burst with excitement. I had no idea just how much I missed milking and cheese making until we got back into the action this week!
We are feeling like 13 is very lucky indeed.