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Monday, May 31, 2010

Yo No.

Well, I must have angered the yogurt gods with my over-confidence and blase attitude toward measurements, temperatures and times.  A few nights ago, I made my second batch of attempted yogurt, and was even foggier than before about following directions.   I'll tell you what -- when I opened my oven door in the morning, I was greeted by two warm bowls of milk.  Oh no!  

I was determined not to let all that milk go to waste.  Perhaps, if I boiled it again, I could start over?  I put the milk in an extra-big soup pot, turned it on high and covered it.  And then the phone rang; my milk and good intentions were completely forgotten.  About ten or 15 minutes later I returned to find a pot of very hot milky water and what looked like giant cottage-cheese curds.  Again, oh no!  But perhaps all was not lost -- cheese is made from milk too, right?  Maybe I've accidentally made cheese?  I scoured the internet to try to discern what happens to milk when it is boiled and separates, but came up empty-handed.  Certainly, cheese is made from milk, and you can make it at home, but the information I found about that made it seem like a far more complicated process.

 

At any rate, I strained my cheese-like concoction through a colander and refrigerated it.  At lunch time I made a cold pasta salad with whole-wheat penne, black beans, sunflower seeds, balsamic, olive oil, avocado and my curds.  Absolutely, completely delicious. 

 

I have no idea what this is -- cottage cheese?  Ricotta?  Whey?  A completely stumbled-upon creation.  Yogurt gods, I promise to amend my non-measuring ways.  Cheese gods, thank you for stepping in and opening the door to a whole new realm of experimentation.

10 comments:

Cal said...

I am glad you "experimentation" turned out fine... they look like curds to me, and actually look nice in that pasta salad bowl.
Also, nice of you to recover the yogurt gone awry rather than toss food away.

clare said...

Awesome. Waste not, want not ;)

Rose said...

I like your attitude! There is an article in issue #8 of World Sweet World about making ricotta – which looks a lot like what you've made.

Seedling said...

Rose, thank you for the link to World Sweet World -- what an awesome site. Yes, this was a happy result after a series of mistakes. As I keep reminding myself, mistakes can be good things! I'll definitely make it again -- this time intentionally. Thank you all for your comments!

angelina said...

haha. i was thinking cottage, looks good! i still havent tried the basic yogurt.....

Tracey@bountifully said...

yum, looks pretty much like ricotta to me! enjoy!

GLN said...

Perhaps this is what is called pot cheese or farmer's cheese, which is like cottage cheese.

From my mother's 1944 cookbook (I watched her make cottage cheese when I was Solomon's age:

Crush rennet in milk. Heat 1 qt mild to 95 (F), stir in rennet, remove from heat and let stand in warm place until mixture thickens. Break curd and pour curds and whey through cheesecloth. Drain, season with salt, moisten with cream, chill.

You did not have rennet, but you seemed to have gotten a good result without it, probably because of the long boiling denaturing the protein--see below from Wikipedia.

Rennet (pronounced /ˈrɛnɪt/) is a natural complex of enzymes produced in any mammalian stomach to digest the mother's milk, and is often used in the production of cheese. Rennet contains many enzymes, including a proteolytic enzyme (protease) that coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). The active enzyme in rennet is called chymosin or rennin (EC 3.4.23.4) but there are also other important enzymes in it, e.g., pepsin or lipase. There are non-animal sources for rennet that are suitable for vegetarian consumption.

Stella said...

Ha ha, sounds yum! And thanks for your comments, don't be intimidated though, it was way way easy really! I just made some silly mistakes... Also, I don't know what your bub looks like but I can imagine similarities purely based on that pic of her wearing that sweet dress you made! Classic that they both pull the same poser face!

natacha lee said...

You can actually make cheese from yoghurt. It is called "Labni" in lebanese (also spelled "Labneh"). Mix yoghurt, pinch of salt, 1/4 cup cold water together, pour yoghurt in muslin bag and leave to drain for 3 hours. I skip the part where you add milk. You can leave the yoghurt in the muslin bag for longer, in the fridge. The more water drained the harder the cheese! It is similar to Ricotta but different ingredients: yoghurt has various bacteria depending on the type you make, but no rennet.
It's all yumm anyway!

Seedling said...

Natacha, that seems so easy and yummy! Will definitely have to give it a go. Dad, thanks also for the excerpt from Grandma Lea's cookbook. Very cool. xx