Homemade Cottage Cheese

Here’s a very simple recipe that I like to make and the family loves:

1. Heat 1 gallon of milk to 180 degrees. (This obviously is not raw cottage cheese but with the probiotics of plenty of other raw milk, cheese and kefir in your diet, it’s not a big deal.)
2. Stir while heating to keep milk from scalding near the bottom of cooking pot.
3. Slowly stir in 3/4 cup vinegar (I use organic apple cider vinegar). As you stir, the curds should form almost immediately.
4. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.
5. Pour through a fine colander. If your colander has large holes, you may line it with cheese cloth. If you want to save the whey, set your colander over a bowl. (We like to drink some of the whey especially when it is warm, with a dash of salt. You can also water your house plants with it.) Let it drain completely.
6. Rinse with cold water and drain well. Rinsing the whey out keeps it from tasting sour if you plan to store it in the frig for more than a few days.(I skip the rinsing step if we are going to eat it immediately....which we usually do!)
7. Transfer to a bowl, add salt to your taste.  Add a bit of cream or milk or sour cream to moisten. We love the curds moistened when we eat them plain. But we like them dry when eaten as a salad topping.
8. The cottage cheese is delicious just as it is or you may add herbs like basil, dill weed or garlic powder for a different twist. The ingenuity is yours!

This is so quick and easy and it is sure to disappear fast!  Our boys fight over it. One gallon of Family Cow Raw Milk yields approx. 3 cups (1.3 lbs) of cottage cheese.

Do Not Forget: Order an extra gallon or so of raw milk if you’d like to make Cottage Cheese this week!

Note: Raw cottage cheese is much more complex and I don’t have much experience myself. I’ll practice a bit more and try to put that recipe up in the near future.