Tassel Cheeses in Action

Time for Tassel Nanobrewery to get brewing again? Well quite apart from the 20 or so bottles, the little keg is still a quarter full...

Best wait till I've finished that before brewing some more. Anyone want to help me finish it off? I've maintained a top pressure of CO2 so it' still tasting fresh 6 weeks after brewing (hence the little CO2 cylinder still in the valve on the top).

But it's a while since I made some cheese, and now the Christmas cheese gifts are all finished, I thought it time I made some more. I use this kit...

...which has various recipes and ingredients, thermometer etc.... although not milk, obviously. I was thinking of doing the Halloumi recipe, but it looked a bit complicated and was going to take about 5 hours... and none of us like Halloumi cheese anyway! So I decided to do the easier and quicker Mozarella recipe.

The curds developed very nicely...

 
...and, after separating from the whey, and microwaving looked like this.

I put my rubber gloves on and got kneading, draining the whey, microwaving again and then stretching to get this...

I made 5 cheese portions...

...and then chilled in cold water before packaging in sandwich bags (note to self: get some proper cheese packaging next time) and labelling.

I went for a walk to Sainsbury's (and then some - to meet my daily step target!) to get some nice tomatoes and fresh basil leaves. I got William to use one of the cheeses to make an Insalata Caprese. This is the result...

Delicious! If anyone at work on Wednesday/Thursday or on Joyce's Friday walk this week would like some, let me know and I'll bring you some along. You wont be disappointed. I think I might make some more sooner rather than later!