Goat Fencing ~ Homemade Parmesan Cheese

I'm still hacking away at the garden weeds, and it's been a long week.  Orion (aka Big Boy), has his "stink" on.  You can smell him everywhere now.  And guess who gets to babysit him, and water him?  Ugh.  Yep.  Me.  I need to call him "stinky la' pew."


I made a batch of homemade grout/tile cleaner, and another batch of homemade dishwasher detergent (50/50 mix of washing soda and borax, then I pour 1 cup of vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher).  As I was making them both, I realized I need to write up my fall "stock it up" list of supplies - salt, borax, washing soda, baking soda, vinegar, etc.

I am really enjoying a book I borrowed from the library, which is now on my "wish list" to buy for our homesteading library.  I made homemade parmesan cheese using a recipe from Cookin with Home Storage, by Peggy Layton and Vicki Tate.

Although I found the recipe in this book, I found one blog (A matter of prepardness) that had made this recipe too.  There are 3 ingredients - boiling water, dry milk, and lemon juice.  You make your curds, and drain it, then dry it.

The original recipe requires you to dry it in an oven at 150°F for 120 minutes.  Well, my oven does not go lower than 170°.  Although I could have just shorten the drying time, I placed it on parchment paper, in my dehydrator, and it dried within a few hours.   One batch filled only 2 trays.  I ground it up (but not to a fine powder), and placed it in a jar.  Also, you can see I let my "cheese" drain very well, and it spread out like crumbs.

We have not tried it on food yet, but I did taste it.  I can't say the title fits the recipe.  I found nothing "zesty" about it.  However, this is about preparedness, and if I had dry milk in storage, this could be made.  Tasting it, I just found it tasteless by itself.  I had hoped it would make nice Christmas presents, but until I try it on pasta or something, I won't know for sure.

We finished the goat fencing.   Hallelujah!   If you happened to be driving by our place, you'd probably see my 16 year-old on the roof screaming to the world that it's done.  Man that job took forever.  There were always interruptions that kept us from finishing it - supplies, cash for the supplies, other emergencies, and weather.  It's done.  Phew!

They are calling for thunderstorms today, and I need to get out to the garden and see if we have any last potatoes.  And possibly tomatoes.

  I now have the bottle cap (felt/embroidered) necklace tutorial up at S.C.R.A.P. Blogspot.