Cheesemaking at Cornersmith

Last weekend I made cheese.

My friends have called me the Dairy Queen for decades. 

My love of cheese and cheese dishes is legendairy!

So a cheesemaking course at Cornersmith was always going to be something I had to do.

I just had to find a free weekend.

Kristen Allan is the cheesemaker; ricotta, yoghurt and labneh are the cheeses we learn to make.

Slowing cooking is the philosophy; sustainable, ethical food production is the aim.

And good times are the name of the game.

The course begins in a relaxed manner.

A platter of homemade cheeses, pickles and bread are provided for us to sample as we get to know each other over a glass of wine (or homemade cordial).

After a discussion about what type of milk we should use and the various processes involved we get stuck in.

We don our aprons, pick up tools and begin to slowly heat a pot of milk, lemon juice and salt.

Kristen told us lots of amazing facts about curds and whey, including the uses of whey to wash your face and to water your pot plants.

After the appropriate cooking time, it's time to separate the curds and whey.

Ricotta is born!

Kristen then showed us how to make our own yoghurt before providing us with enough of her homemade yoghurt (made earlier as it takes a day to make yoghurt from scratch) for us to start our own labneh.

  

I have since made my own yoghurt at home and another batch of labneh. 

Kristen provides a cheese hotline so that we can contact her with any problems.

My second batch of labneh ended up tasting quite different to the first - it may have been the milk I started with or not enough salt. 

I'll add some herbs and olive oil to see if that improves the flavour.

It's all very, very fascinating & I can't wait to have more time over Easter to make another batch!

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot and Weekend Cooking.

I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson Part 1

I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson has had a lot of press and word-of-mouth buzz this past month or so.

Out of curiosity I finally took some time to go through the book.

I have spent a lot of time over the years reading up on food and health related issues.

When I was teaching, I constantly got sick. I expended a lot of time and energy looking at my eating, hygiene and exercise habits to try and boost my immune system and stay healthy.

Turns out the best thing for my health, in the end, was to retire from teaching completely!

But my interest in eating well, being healthy and creating a positive & sustainable food environment has stayed with me.

The Slow Food movement in particular caught my attention. I try to eat seasonally, buy fresh organic produce where possible and the rest of the time, I read labels carefully and look for products with the minimum amount of ingredients in them. I also try to avoid products with ingredients that are numbers or include a 5 syllable scientific word! If sugar or salt is listed as one of the first two or three ingredients I also leave it on the shelf (chocolate is the exception to this rule of course!)

My latest thing (post Bali) is to make my own granola and spiced yoghurt for breakfast.
I enjoyed the most amazing homemade granola and spiced yoghurt for breakfast every day that I was in Bali.

Sarah has a great granola recipe on pg 76 that I now use as a basis for my own recipe (I also have added wheat flakes, quinoa flakes and barley flakes and I use maple syrup.)

I'm still experimenting with ingredients and quantities, but it has been a HUGE success. Even my husband is being converted.

The spiced yoghurt includes crushed cardamom seeds, fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise and honey. Over winter I will try to add a little ginger as well.

Happy eating!

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore is a discussion on time, food, economics, food, globalisation, food, urban life, food, speeding, food, medicine, food, relationships, food, parenting and food!

"The Slow movement is not just about doing everything at a snail's pace....On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast paced, modern world. That is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when it is called for."

Carlo Petrini "Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life. You decide how fast you go in any given context....What we are fighting for is the right to determine our own tempos."

I first came across this book about 10 years ago. It coincided with an interest in feeding myself better and taking care of my health as I got older. I was also searching for a better work/life balance. When a dear friend died suddenly from a rampant illness I knew it was time to make some changes...before it was too late.

"In our haste, we feed ourselves badly, and suffer the consequences." When I read this, I knew I had found something that made sense for me and so began my love affair with food and cooking. As the love affair has deepened, I've become more and more concerned with shopping, gardening and eating ethically and seasonally.

Over the years, this love affair has waxed and waned. Always the waning has occurred during times of out-of-control busyness and speed. And each time it has taken an illness or a death to make me slow down to smell the roses again.

In part, this blog is a way to try a keep the slow principle closer to the front of my mind, to make it a more permanent part of my life, so that I don't lose sight of it again.

One of the questions that is asked in the book is "does this improve our quality of life?" I try to keep this in mind when I get fired up about a new idea or a new way of doing things.

"There is more to life than increasing its speed" Gandhi