Sustainable Cortland Events

Sustainable Cortland has planned a winter reading discussion series "Soup and Sustenance".  The first event is this Thursday (January 26) from 6:00-7:30 at the Beard Building (9 Main Street) in downtown Cortland.  The January book choice is "Folks This Ain't Normal" by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, Inc.   Joel has been described as "America's Most Influential Farmer". Books are available at a discount from Mando Books in downtown Cortland.

Please feel free to join us even if you haven't had a chance to read all the books, as there will certainly be interesting discussions, and of course great soup and homemade bread!  RSVP is not necessary, but would be helpful for planning.  Please email sustainablecortland@gmail.com to let us know if you are planning on coming.  Hope to see you there!

Making Butter

Feeling confident after the success of our first attempt at making cheese, I decided to give making my own butter a try using some of the organic raw milk we purchased from Twin Oaks Farm in Truxton.  Googling “Making butter from raw milk” led me to several websites with directions. This one has great photos of the process.

After letting the quart jars of milk sit for a few days in the fridge for the cream to separate, I carefully dipped the cream out of a few of them.  I put the cream in a separate container and back in the refrigerator to chill. Meanwhile I placed my steel mixing bowl in the freezer to also chill.  This is apparently a mistake.  According to this website, it strongly recommended that the cream be very cold in order for the process to work. Having always chilled my bowl before making whipped cream topping, I assumed it would also help the process of making butter. It did not. 

After several minutes of my mixer going full speed, it stayed in the whipped cream stage. I had nice peaks of whipped cream.  It just wouldn't "seize" and become butter. I decided to turn off the mixer and just let it all sit for about 15 minutes before I tried it again. It still stayed whipped cream. At this point I was getting a little frustrated, but I persevered and decided to wait another 15 minutes or so and tried it again. Hurray, I had butter! After squeezing out the buttermilk and washing it a few times in ice water, I added a little kosher salt and kneaded it in. Apparently homemade butter (especially by novice butter makers) does not keep too long, so most of the butter I wrapped up and put in the freezer. I think it tastes pretty good, although that could be just me trying to rationalize the effort.

Making Cheese

I know many local food advocates have been making their own cheese for a while now, but we just made our first cheese. After a few “creative differences” between my husband and I, we produced some rather tasty mozzarella cheese from our recently purchased organic raw milk from the Arnold’s Twin Oaks Farm in Truxton. Our next quandary was what do with all of the whey left over (especially with no pigs or body-builders to share it with). We decided to freeze some for use in cream-based soups, and use some in bread making. Making homemade focaccia bread was our first attempt at using the whey in our bread baking. We sprinkled our focaccia bread with some herbs, garlic, and our just made mozzarella.

In order to make our own cheese, we had purchased the mozzarella cheese making kit from Lehmans. Based on this successful experience, we intend to purchase some additional cheese making supplies and plan to extend our learning experience with making other kinds of cheese.

Local Organic Raw Milk Available in Truxton

For those of you waiting for fresh organic raw milk, the wait has ended. Twin Oaks Dairy along Rt. 13 in Truxton has acquired a license to sell their milk at their farm. We just stopped yesterday to have co-owner, Kathie Arnold, fill our jars with the fresh milk. (Click here to see a Cortland Standard article about Kathie and the Twin Oaks Dairy).

What can you do with raw milk? We are planning on using the milk to make our own cheese. (For supplies and directions you may wish to go to this website: http://www.cheesemaking.com/). Others enjoy making homemade yogurt, butter and other dairy products. I just used some in my butternut soup I made for dinner this evening. I’m told it also freezes well.

If you are interested, contact Kathie about setting up a time to get your fresh organic raw milk. Her email address is: randkarnold1@juno.com.