Cheesiest Post Ever - Homemade Farmer's Cheese

Can you see why I needed to make this?
It's even more delicious in person...

There's an SCA event coming up and I wanted to go a little outside of my comfort zone for meal planning. There's a slot of time that I, and three other friends will cook a small "second breakfast" sort of meal and I just wanted to kick it up a notch. Farmer's Cheese was my idea. I had never made cheese before, and didn't know how easy it could be!

Who doesn't love cheese (other than folks that are allergic, of course)? Cheese has been around for over 4,000 years and I've always wanted to try making my own. This event seemed like the perfect opportunity. First, I had to test it though.

It's only takes three main ingredients, and a few commonly found items in your kitchen.

1/2 gallon of whole milk

1/8 cup of vinegar

 A dash of Salt

Those are all the ingredients you need. That's it!

You materials should be the following:

Large stock pot (big enough to fit a half gallon / whole gallon of milk in)

A colander

Cheesecloth

A large spoon for stirring, and scooping

Large bowl for colander (to reserve whey) - Optional

To bring all these together to make yourself some delicious cheese... follow these steps.

Place your milk (either half gallon at a time, or all at once depending on your pot size) in your pan, and turn it to medium heat. You don't want to scald your milk, but you do want to bring it up to temperature.

Some folks like to use a thermometer when making cheese, but I don't think your run of the mill Kitchener in the middle ages had one.. so I didn't use one either.

You'll want to stir this pretty continuously while the milk heats up. A large slotted spoon or ladle works best for this.

Keep this up until your milk just starts to steam and simmer. You don't want it to get to a rolling boil, but it should be steaming a good amount and bubbles should start coming to the top on the sides of your pan.

Once this happens, add your vinegar! Your milk will immediately start to separate. Make sure to stir as it does this, so that you get all that vinegar throughout your milk.

Once lumps (soon to be cheese) start to form, scoop them into your lined colander and let them drain. It only takes a few minutes, and you can gently squeeze it to urge it along. You can place your colander in a clean sink, or in a large bowl to reserve some of that whey! Whey can be used to make a lot of things, so it could't hurt.

Once your cheese has drained, place it in a storage container and add salt. You can also add whatever spices you prefer as well! I tried a small batch with herbs and garlic - it was divine. I'm not sure how long it keeps, I just made it yesterday afternoon. I you like what I've posted here, let me know and I'll be happy to follow up with other techniques and flavors! Thanks again for reading.

Completed cheese - Ready for eating!