Book Review: Growing a Farmer

I just finished 'How I learned to Live Off the Land' by Kurt Timmermeister. Tim has written a very good book about how he changed his 4 acres of overgrown land into a 12 acre successful small farm.

He really goes into good details on how he's had to adapt and learn to work out his problems that he encountered.
His chapters are:

• Growing the Farm
• Bees
• Fruits, Apples, Vinegar
• Sheep, Goats, Pastures and Grazing
• Cows
• Dairying
• Raw Milk
• Vegetables
• Fowl
• Pigs
• The Slaughter
• Butchering
• The Present-Day Farm
• The Table

All in all, a good read and worth the money to acquire it and learn how to plan for a homestead.



Amazon info:

Book Review: "hay fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life"

I just finished 'hay fever' by Angela Miller and Ralph Gardner Jr.

A very good book about the experiences of Angela as she and her husband moved from big city life in New York out to a Vermont farm (but they kept up their NY careers). Once there, they decided to start making cheese. Excellent, artisan cheese. And raise their own goats, and run their farm. They ended up taking on 2 more full time jobs.

This is not a how to manual of how to make cheese, it is someone's experiences with running a farm and cheese making business. She and her husband have to worry about the animals, the staff, making and marketing their products, and the normal craziness of daily life. Angela tells us about her trials and tribulations doing all of this and keeps her story upbeat, amusing, and interesting.

A good book to read.

Amazon info:

Smoked mozzarella and cream cheese

Jeff (my neighbor) and I made mozzarella and smoked it using hickory chips on Saturday. Tasted nice, we found that smoking it 10 minutes is max, after that, the smoke flavor gets too strong.
We also setup 2 batches of cream cheese, one with heavy whipping cream and the other with normal whipping cream. We let them sit for 24 hrs, then hung them to dry. We let them dry for 18 hrs, then smoothed them this am. We added spices and taste tested them. Great flavor and consistency. Work liked it also...

Teaching cheese

I taught my neighbor Jeff how to make mozzarella cheese Sunday. I first did a batch with him watching, then he created the 2nd batch mostly by himself as a test. He was so excited to learn. The cheese turned out great.. Nice to learn the little secret of being gentle with the curds.

Mozzarella Making

Made mozzarella cheese on Saturday. First batch was a complete failure. But learned what I've been doing wrong. When making cheese, do not stir it a lot. Especially with a slotted spoon. It destroys the curds and you end up with curd/whey soup which is useless for anything outside of feeding chickens/hogs.

More cheese please!

I've been working on developing my 'cheese-fu'. Had a rough couple of times, scorched the milk, used a new pan and added to much rennet. Bleagh, rather disappointing. But made Paneer over the weekend, so back on my game I hope.

And more...

Last night I cooked up a batch of queso blano cheese and made more butter. It's amazing to watch the changes of milk as you add a little something. A little vinegar, a little energy, and BOOM! Something new!

More creating

Well, I've created a few more batches of cheese. Made one more paneer (learned NOT to use aluminum pots), and my first mozzarella. I also made my first batch of butter, it's fun to watch the cream get thicker then boom! it's butter!

First Cheese!!!

Well, I've made my first simple cheese today. I made paneer which is an Indian cheese. Rather good. Simple to make. All it takes is whole milk and lemon juice. Even I can handle that. And now I'm hungry again and want more. So much for eating it for lunch tomorrow....