I made cheese!

It was actually a lot easier than I thought – and has turned out really well! I only recently put dairy back into my diet. I discovered about 3 years ago that I am gluten intolerant, and was experiencing a cross-reaction with dairy, so removed that from my diet too. However, my husband doesn’t have any issues, and so we continue to have dairy in the house. We decided to stop buying intensively farmed milk and go for raw milk instead. Being in Scotland, we have to get this delivered from England (a wonderful little farm called The Calf At Foot Dairy), as it isn’t possible to buy it here. Strangely you can purchase raw cheese though! The raw cheese is made very locally to us, in Royal Deeside, and is really nice, although only hard cheeses are available.

I started to add small portions of the raw cheeses into my diet again and was pleased to discover that I no longer experienced an adverse reaction. I then started adding small amounts of raw milk to occasional smoothies and, again, have had no problems.

So, I decided it would be nice to have some soft cheese every now and then, and started experimenting. Having made yogurt in the past, it is a very similar process, and wasn’t difficult at all. So I thought I would share it with you…

Ingredients:

• 1 litre raw milk
• 1 capsule Biokult probiotic
• 2 tbsp live yogurt

Utensils:

• Pan
• 1 litre mason jar
• Crock pot/large container – with lid
• Cheesecloth
• Elastic band
• Whisk
• Large towel

Directions:

Pour the milk into a pan and heat it to just below boiling point. Turn the heat off and add 2 tbsp of live yogurt and empty the probiotic capsule into the milk. Stir with the whisk.

Pour the milk into the mason jar and close the lid. Place the mason jar into the crock pot, or large container, and then fill the container with hot water.

Put the lid on the container and then wrap with a towel and place in a warm area (I used my airing cupboard).Leave for 2 days.

Remove the container from the warm area and take the mason jar out. Pour the water out of the container, wash it out and then place the cheesecloth over the top (making a dip in the cloth) and secure with an elastic band. Carefully pour the milk (which should now be more of the consistency of yogurt) into the cheesecloth. Replace the lid and place the container in the fridge for another day or two. The whey will separate from the cheese into the bottom of the container and you will be left with the soft creamy cheese in the cheesecloth.

Carefully remove the cheesecloth from the container and put the cheese into a small bowl. At this point you can either enjoy as it is or add some extra flavour such as garlic or herbs. Delicious served with veggie sticks.

The added benefit is that you now also have a natural source of whey protein, left in the bottom of the container, which can be added to smoothies!

So give it a go! And let me know what extra flavours you like to add!