I gathered my ingredients and utensils.
Notice the wonderful local milk I found. Fresh Jersey milk thick with cream. The jug I used was only two days from the cow.
Poured milk into pan and waited for it to reach the required 55 degrees. Waited and waited and finally it happened.
Added the citric acid and look! I see curds!
It seemed to take forever for it to reach the required 105 degrees. I stirred and waited. And stirred and waited. And stirred and waited some more.
After what seemed an eternity, the milk reached its goal, I added the rennet and set it aside to cool. The curds were supposed to separate from the whey in approximate 5 minutes.
This is what it looked like in 5 minutes. Not quite what I was hoping for.
So I let it set for 5 more minutes. It did set a tiny bit so I proceeded to the next step, heating it to 105 degrees. Again, it seem an eternity for this to happen. Curds were there but they were pretty gloppy. But, being I've never done this before, I figured it was OK.
I took out the curds to drain and went through the microwave process. It never got shiny or stretchy. It just looked like Ricotta. Delicious, creamy Ricotta but it was supposed to be Mozzarella.
Then it hit me. I glanced at the thermometer and noticed there were two sets of numbers. One was Celsius. The other was Fahrenheit. Then I laughed.
Yup, I wasn't paying attention and used the Celsius reading. No wonder it took so long to reach the right temperatures! My 30-Minute Mozzarella & Ricotta took about 2 hours!
So my first cheese making adventure was sort of a flop, although the Ricotta is absolutely delicious. I'm making lasagna tonight and it will taste wonderful. Fortunately, I thought ahead and bought some mozzarella.
Here is the lasagna I made. Hubs said it was the best he's ever had!
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