Anyone want some homemade Cheese?

[s0me0nesmind1]

So... Bit of a fun story.

My mother in law lives with us. Comes from Latin America - so likely grew up on the poorer side of things. Let's just say that desperation definitely followed her and has... ahem... fully affected her to this day.

It's very similar to hoarders - and she is pretty bad there too. I bought an expensive bottle (~$15?) of balsamic vinaigrette to go with some mozzarella + tomatoes + basil, and she told me once it's empty to save the bottle for her. Just little things like that in life - and she refuses to throw anything away. If we throw away some food that is slightly old she will give my wife a guilt trip.



Anyhow - Needless to say, we buy a good amount of milk in the house. Wife + MiL drinks it for latte every morning. Both kids drink it daily for breakfast and dinner. Between all the supplies of milk, and "pandemic buying" I sometimes overbuy to make sure we have enough. Sometimes we get some that goes bad and turns sour.

It's literally a $3 gallon of milk at the most - and usually we get part-way through it before it goes bad.

Well queue the crazy hoarder mother in law - She won't let us throw it away and insists on making some HOMEMADE cheese from sour milk. That sounds fucking great. My wife just said "Whatever - Just don't give any to me or the kids".

She made it - and... surprise surprise - she opted to have our oldest daughter try some which resulted in her barfing out her entire dinner a few hours later.


Anyhow, want some?

 

[lxskllr]

Maybe? I'd try it for sure, but I'm generally not a fan of soft cheeses.

 

[pete6032]

Other foods' expiration dates are fungible but one thing I do not mess around with when it comes to expiration dates is dairy.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm not sure what the hell is going on with that but there's no way I'd eat it.
I don't like cottage cheese when it's made well and that does not look like well made cottage cheese!

 

[WelshBloke]

Other foods' expiration dates are fungible but one thing I do not mess around with when it comes to expiration dates is dairy.

Cheese doesn't go off it just gets more expensive.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Maybe? I'd try it for sure, but I'm generally not a fan of soft cheeses.

You're awfully brave for trusting something made from soir milk that is then made with bacteria... From someone who knows jack shit about the science of it heh.

That and she hasn't done it before.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm guessing it has some spice added to it. If that's not the case, I retract my "maybe", and go for a "Hell no!".

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm guessing it has some spice added to it. If that's not the case, I retract my "maybe", and go for a "Hell no!".

I think the only spice in that is the gamble on whether you're going to end up expelling all your bodily fluids from both ends for a couple of days or not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have this theory, that "old people" don't care about whether something is CLEARLY spolied or not. Their fridges get filled with mouldy food, they don't care, they still eat it. I hear that stage is one away from Death.

 

[crashtech]

Maybe what she doesn't know is that factory farms in the US have to literally have crap filters in the milk line because filth is so pervasive in the confined feed/dairy environment. It's a different kind of spoilage when factory milk goes south.

 

[lxskllr]

I figure most dairy that isn't straight milk was developed when shit went off, and people ate it anyway cause food was precious. They figured it wasn't too bad, and refined it over time, intentionally spoiling it, then crafting the process. The above is the alpha version of cheese.

 

[bbhaag]

ATTN: bbhaag
716 Catherine Street
Washington IL 61571

You pay the shipping. Don't punk out on me man you made the offer.

 

[sandorski]

Can be done

 

[ponyo]

Depends how sour that milk was. Barely sour, I would eat the cheese. Really old and sour with shit floating in the milk, nope.

$15 for bottle of balsamic vinegar is not expensive or the good stuff. Gotta pay lot more.

 

[WelshBloke]

Can be done

Thats a lot of fannying about to make cottage cheese! My mum used to do that every weekend and I don't remember her making that amount of fuss over it!
Also UHT milk or cream tastes like crap, there's no way anyone with functioning taste buds can't tell the difference between that and regular pasteurised milk never mind unpasteurised!

 

[WelshBloke]

Depends how sour that milk was. Barely sour, I would eat the cheese. Really old and sour with shit floating in the milk, nope.

Its brown. That's not a good sign. I'm not saying that makes it a no go but I'd want to know why a fresh cottage cheese was brown before I went anywhere near it!

 

[Captante]

Casu-Marzu: an illegal cheese


Looks disturbingly similar!

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Depends how sour that milk was. Barely sour, I would eat the cheese. Really old and sour with shit floating in the milk, nope.

$15 for bottle of balsamic vinegar is not expensive or the good stuff. Gotta pay lot more.

Gotcha. Gotta get the hermes bottle of balsamic.

I know it's not much but like i said... She's nuts.

 

[Captante]

Gotcha. Gotta get the hermes bottle of balsamic.

I know it's not much but like i said... She's nuts.

You also actually CAN get pretty dang good Balsamic at reasonable prices too at places like Ocean State Job-lot, Big-Lots etc provided you know what your looking at. (and carefully read the label)

And if you want the absolute best vinegar you'll ever taste what you need to do is brew some up yourself! (which is easy btw)

Be warned however that much like after whipping up that first homemade batch of mayonnaise what you used to think was "top-shelf" will never taste the same.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Food poisoning is serious business and kills way too many people. Your house, your rules!

While the American food supply is among the safest in the world, the Federal government estimates that there are about 48 million cases of foodborne illness annually—the equivalent of sickening 1 in 6 Americans each year. And each year these illnesses result in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths

 

[skull]

I figure most dairy that isn't straight milk was developed when shit went off, and people ate it anyway cause food was precious. They figured it wasn't too bad, and refined it over time, intentionally spoiling it, then crafting the process. The above is the alpha version of cheese.

That was before pasteurization though, unpasteurized milk has good bacteria in it that protects it somewhat from other bacteria and probably aids in making cheese naturally.

 

[brianmanahan]

nah thanks, i'll stick with my pickles.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

ATTN: bbhaag
716 Catherine Street
Washington IL 61571

You pay the shipping. Don't punk out on me man you made the offer.

It's tempting, but the legal liabilities are scaring me away

 

[Fritzo]

Sour milk can be used to make cheese at home (you can make things like queso fresco, cottage cheese, feta, and other "crumble" cheeses), but using sour milk and spoiled milk are two different things. When people make cheese at home, they'll add a tsp of vinegar or lemon juice per cup of water to sour their milk (this is also a good substitute for buttermilk if you have a recipe that needs it). Old milk does go through a "sour" phase, but there's a fine line between sour and spoiled.


I had relatives like that- they refuse to throw anything away and would end up reusing leftover meats in casseroles. In the end they would be eating a roast that was a week and a half old surrounded by fresh ingredients. Not good.

 

[ponyo]

Gotcha. Gotta get the hermes bottle of balsamic.

I know it's not much but like i said... She's nuts.

I'm too cheap to buy the top shelf. I'm more bang for buck guy. I use this.

Giuseppe Giusti

$40 for 8.45 oz. Not high end but not low end either. Probably lower middle price wise since it's 8.45 oz. The top shelf stuff is $100-$200 for 4 oz.

For general cooking, I use Kirkland balsamic vinegar. That's around $10 for giant 33.8 oz bottle.

As for the cheese, my daughter wanted to make cheese at home so my wife helped her make that cheese. Except they used fresh whole milk and added vinegar. We ended up throwing away most the freshly made cheese since the taste didn't suit our palate.