Week 12: Cheese - Chevre with Chives

My mom used to work part time on a local goat farm that produced cheese. It’s in all the hoity toity health food stores in the area, and is still my favorite brand. We also used to have a milking goat of our own, and she made more milk than we could drink. Cheese is always a good use of extra milk, especially considering how much milk it takes to make a small amount.

I don’t have Rennet, or any enzymes to get the milk curdling, and it’s pretty costly if you don’t make cheese often, so I used this method from Serious Eats. Lemon juice as a substitute is cheap and easy to come by.

1 quart of goats milk, 1/4c of lemon juice, salt and chives for ingredients. You’ll need cheesecloth, a pot, a way to suspend the curds to drain the whey, and a thermometer.

Bring milk to 180F. Add lemon juice. Watch for 2 minutes as it curdles (eeew).

Pour in cheesecloth layered over a colander. Gather it up, and suspend. Go get a haircut (I did!). When you come back it will be much like Ricotta in texture.

I added salt and fresh chives. 1 quart of milk made about 8 ounces of cheese. The texture is super smooth and the flavor is quite delicate. I recommend breaking out the fancy crackers for this one!