Not all first tries are edible….

I like to make things from scratch.  Bread, jam, pickles, salsa, crackers.  If I eat it, I want to make it at least once.

However, these things do not always work out.

First I made bread.  I learned on whole grain flours(which took a while.  I made a lot of bricks!), moved on to fresh ground and sprouted wheat.  I even dabbled in gluten free baking for a while.

Then it was canning.  Jams and jellies, pickles, salsa, tomato sauce.  My basement is filled to the brim with delicious canned goodies.

My current challenge is cheese making.  I got this book, and am working my way through it.  I’ve made the soft cheeses, ricotta, paneer, mozzarella(yum!!), all with great success.  Then I tried my first hard cheese, a 1 pound farmhouse cheddar.  All was well.  It was made and waxed and went in the basement(which is in the proper temperature range) to age for a month.

Time to see how it turned out!  I cut the first slice and everything looked wonderful.  I cut a slice and took a bite.  Cheese!  But also…not cheese.  It was pretty close to inedible.  I peeled the wax off the whole cheese to examine it more closely.

This is what I found.  Totally disgusting, moldy cheese.  Yuck.  My first try at hard cheese was a total failure.   On to the next try, then.  I  am determined to make a good hard cheese.

In the meantime, this cheese made my chickens very happy.