Tuesday, July 29, 2014

which whey?

 There is something about homophones that stir interest and delight.

To this extent, my delight  was in the making of some whey.



The trickiest part of this experiment was the acquiring of some raw milk product. My source was raw goat's milk, generously shared by Charlotte's violin teacher who keeps a flock of milking goats.

Another one of those Nourishing Tradition ventures that materialized from my "want to try" list. I did not keep the cream cheese left in the dishtowel, however. It took longer to curdle than I expected, and...well, no takers, including myself.

But the whey is refrigerated and will be used in the making of fermented things. Way to go!

Okay, I wrote this post back in the winter, so here I am jumping ahead to just several weeks ago when Claire and I made a Saturday morning visit to the Farmers Market with the intent to purchase raw cow's milk. I promptly came home and began to make whey. It is really quite simple; incase you have never tried making it, you simply put the fresh raw milk into a clean cotton towel and hang it over a large bowl. I suspended mine with a rubber band from my counter's knobs. It will drip for several hours, upon which the finished product will yield liquid whey in your bowl, and solid curds in your cloth. The curds are pure cream cheese, really quite tasty. We ate ours with pesto on a cracker.
Tomorrow Claire arrives at 2:30 with her bag and lemons  and we will try our hand at making fermented lemonade with our whey.

But as another side note, what I want to share even more is a great breakfast dish you can prepare in either the winter or summer.

Baked Blueberry Oatmeal  
2 cups of water,
 2 cups of oats,  
 2 tablespoons of whey
 Put into a saucepan, cover and let set soak until morning. 
The next morning:
add 2 cups of water 
1 teaspoon of salt 
 Cook until oatmeal is done. Place the cooked oatmeal into an oven proof dish, add a few dabs of butter and maple syrup, make this completely your own personal taste. Add 1 cup fresh blueberries and bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes. 
This will weigh heavily in getting your morning off to a great start!


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