Spring Into High Gear

Holy crap, Spring is here! I've been so busy I forgot to blog. Most of my extra time has gone into building the new goat barn. I think Danielle has a post dedicated to that going up today, so as not to reinvent the wheel, hop over to her blog for more on the goat barn raising.

We have two goats that are due to freshen in the next week and preparations are being made for the flurry of activity that will follow.

Jacqsonne is milking away and we are making cheese about every three days. I've been making mostly chevre because I cannot keep up with the demand; however, I've been able to sneak in another batch of the non-camembert experiment and last night a batch of feta. I've never made feta before. I'm excited!

I'm usually wrapping up my pruning in the vineyards about this time in March, but not this year. I usually get started on the pruning around mid-January. We had so much snow this year and is stayed around that I was not able to get into the vineyards until a couple weeks ago. I've just barely started. I'm way behind! I hope I finish before bud break.

I've got to run and do something with the Feta. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Thrown Together

Over the last couple days, our area was blanketed with about a foot of snow. Yesterday, we spent most of the day inside as the white stuff continued to pile up. So, this morning, Dad and I set out to work on pushing snow. We finished pushing our driveways and the neighbors driveways around lunch time and decided it was time to get out of the house. So, Danielle and I along with my parents headed to town to run errands and pick up some groceries.

While at Sam's Club, Danielle asked me if I've tried any of their different sausage offerings. We picked up a package of their Spinach and Asiago Cheese Chicken Sausage. When we got home I pondered how to turn the sausage into dinner. I browsed the world wide web for ideas, but nothing really jumped out and said cook me. I decided to improvise. I'll apologize now for the lack of step by step pics. I didn't think about making this a blog entry until the dish turned out so well.


I started by cutting up a pound of the sausage. I got a saute pan (thanks Ginny and Joe) pretty hot and added a couple rounds of olive oil. I cooked the sausage until it was beginning to show just a little of browning. I then added maybe 4 loose cups of spinach. I didn't measure anything. I cooked that until the spinach had wilted. I transferred the sausage and spinach to a bowl and added about two tablespoons of butter to the pan. When the butter melted, I added three cloves of chopped garlic. I let the garlic caramelize but not too much. Never overcook garlic! Its not good. Trust me.

To the garlic, I added about a half cup of roasted red peppers, roughly chopped. I use these all the time. They really add another dimension to a dish.


While the garlic and peppers were commingling I thought I needed to add some acid to the sauce. I looked through my everyday wine selection and realized that the only white wine I had on hand was a Moscato. That would be too sweet for the sauce I was envisioning. Then I saw a bottle of Verjus from Chateau Z Vineyard. I had never had Verjus, but Cliff convinced me to buy it a few weeks back. What is Verjus you ask. It is the juice of unripened grapes. Usually verjus is pretty acidic but gentler than vinegar. Bon appetit has a more in depth definition of you're still wondering. I added a little less than 1/4 cup to the garlic, pepper, and butter concoction.


To this mix I added about a tablespoon of chopped Italian herbs. I had basil, marjoram, rosemary and thyme. Use whatever you have. After the liquid had reduced by half, I added about a cup of heavy cream and reduced some more. To the bubbling goodness, I added a 1/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan and a generous helping of black pepper.



I added the sausage and spinach back to the saute pan and brought the sauce together. I don't know what to call it. I served it over Tagliatelle noodles. We'll just call it good.

Goat - Yes , Camembert - No!

In my last post (I know its been way too long), I posted step by step the making of what I had planned to be a goat version of a Camembert style cheese. The cheese aged beautifully, and after about 50 days (just before Christmas), I pulled one of the rounds out of the "cheese cave" i.e. wine fridge and cut it to share with family.

I was expecting the knife to slide through pretty easily. Then came the first deviation from the plan. I had to practically lay on the knife to cut the wheel in half. When the two halves fell apart came surprise number two. The cheese had pockets of green/gray mold throughout. I was disappointed. At this point, I quickly decided (while no one else was looking) that I put a lot of work into making this cheese and by golly, I was going to eat it. So I cut a small piece from a mold free area and it tasted GREAT! The flavor was very complex and reminded me a little of Manchego. Don't hold me to that as my cheese palate is only in its infancy. I knew that the mold wouldn't hurt me. Some molds transform cheese into absolutely delicious works of art. On the other hand, this particular cheese wasn't supposed to have mold. I'm guessing that in this particular round, the curd did not knit together consistently throughout, leaving pockets of air and creating an environment for contaminant mold growth. I didn't think to take a picture until the round was almost entirely eaten. However, the pic below shows some of the mold in a small piece. We all really enjoyed the flavor of the cheese, and my grandfather liked the stronger flavored moldy areas best.




I left the second wheel in the "cheese cave" for another couple weeks. I told myself that I was giving it more time to age. Its more likely that I was scared of what might jump out of it when I cut into it. So last Saturday, we were heading out for our normal market trip to the Lynchburg Community Market and then on for a visit to Caromont Farm in Esmont, VA. The "bread people" over at Lorraine Bakery had been in Germany for two weeks over Christmas and we were really excited they were going to be back on for the Saturday market. So, I decided it was time to cut into the second Not Camembert wheel and share the love. Early Saturday morning, I pulled the wheel out of the cave and cut it in half. Again the cheese was very hard - think Parmesan, but there was no mold contamination. I was really relieved. I packaged up half of the wheel to share at the market and half to take to Caromont hoping that Gail Hobbs-Page would be able to help me identify a style that the cheese resembled. The cheese was very well received by Petra and Steve at Lorraine Bakery as well as our friend Cliff over at Chateau Z Vineyard.

After the market trip, we headed out to Caromont Farm in Esmont, VA. Gail gave us a wonderful tour of her farm. Hop over to Danielle's blog and look for her January 9th entry for more on our trip. After the farm tour, Gail invited us inside for cheese tasting and fellowship. What better time to pull out my Not Camembert cheese for a little identification help. Gail and her husband Daniel both tasted the cheese and seemed to appreciated its flavor. She was very quick to point out that it was nothing like Camembert! She did mention that the flavor was similar to a Spanish goat cheese with a fairly dry and crumbly texture. I pulled out my notebook where I kept detailed notes during the cheese making. After examining the notes, we decided that if I wanted to make Camembert, that I should not cut the curd, but instead ladle the curd directly into the molds. This would also eliminate the 15 minute curd stirring step. I really liked the flavor of the cheese and don't think I want to turn it back into Camembert. I would like to get the texture a little less dry and crumbly. I've been reading and researching flocculation and the influence of flocculation time on the moisture level of the cheese. So, I have some ideas on how to go about getting the moisture level up in hopes of influencing the texture. Below is a picture of the round that I cut on 1/9/2010 for the market and trip to Caromont Farm.


On a more bittersweet note, we've been out of milk for over a month now that our friend Anita over at Shantara Acres has dried up most of her goats and ours are not due to kid until March. Well, late Sunday night Jacqsonne (our oldest doe) aborted five little goat fetuses. She was huge, and we think the stress of moving her from Tennessee over New Years along with the stress of carrying five fetuses was just too much. We began milking her Monday morning and she is slooooowly coming into milk. You can check out Danielle's blog for more info on Jacqsonne and the other girls. So, we are beginning to have a little milk and I will be able to resume cheese making sooner than anticipated.

Goat Camembert

Last Thursday, I tried my hand at making Camembert. The last time I made Camembert, I was in college working on my internship. Unlike the Camembert that I made in the past from cows milk, this attempt was with goat milk. Danielle went over to Anita's to get some more practice milking. She came home with about two and a half gallons of fresh goat milk.

For the chevre I've been making on a weekly basis lately, I've been pasteurizing the milk prior to cheese making. All of my favorite Camemberts have been made with raw milk, so I cleaned everything really well, and then cleaned it again (don't want any bad bugs jumping into the batch), and embarked on my Camembert journey with raw goat milk.

I started around 8 pm that evening while watching the Hokies play ECU in Greenville, NC. Note to self - start earlier next time. I didn't get to bed until 1:15 am, a full two hours after the Hokies wrapped up a win.

I had been worried about the quality of the rennet I purchased a couple months ago. I tried making three batches of 30 minute mozzarella, only to have each batch fail. I was unable to achieve a clean break on any of the mozzarella batches. I had first suspected the the rennet and now suspect the quality of the grocery store milk I used. After talking to a few others who have had more failures than successes with 30 minute mozzarella, it will be a while before I attempt any more mozzarella.

I used Flora Danica for a starter culture and also added my penicillium candidum directly to the milk when adding the starter culture. I've read that geotrichum candidum added with the penicillium candidum helps to create an optimum medium for the penicillium candidum to grow on the surface of the cheeses. The penicillium candidum is the white mold on the surface of the Camembert and Brie cheeses.

I got a nice clean cut 60 minutes after addition of the rennet.

Getting ready to ladle the curds into the molds.

As the whey heads south, the curds quickly settle in the molds.

By morning and several flips later, they looked like this.

Now the Camemberts are snugly resting in my makeshift "cheese cave." I can already tell my cave is not going to be big enough.

All signs point towards success! Now we wait for the fuzz.



NEWS FLASH:

We are now on day five for the Goat Camembert, and there are definite signs of fuzz. Each of the cheeses has begun to develop a good covering of penicillium candidum mold (at least I hope that's what it is.) I'm pumped! I will wait another day or two to get a good picture.

Goat Cheese!

When I was at student at Virginia Tech studying Dairy Science, I had an internship one summer at a rather prestigious farm in northern Virginia working on their small private dairy where me made many kinds of cheese and other dairy products from a few Brown Swiss cows and one Jersey. I got quite a bit of experience with cheese making. It was the kind of farm where money was of little object, so we had really nice equipment and the ability to experiment without the thought of how much it was costing. Oh what a rough life. Moving on..........back to the real world of today.

On Monday of last week (Columbus Day) one of the two farriers we use came out to trim Huck's hooves (to learn more about Danielle's adventures with Huck, check out her endurance riding blog). Anita (the farrier) has a small farm, Shantara Acres, where she milks about a dozen Alpine Dairy goats. Well, when Anita came out we talked to her about getting some milk from her for me to get back into practice making cheese. That evening Danielle went over just after milking time and came home with two gallons of very fresh goat milk.



I pasteurized the milk on Tuesday using the LTLT method, which uses lower heat for a longer period of time. In LTLT pasteurization, you bring the milk to 145 degrees Fahrenheit and hold at that temperature for 30 minutes. LTLT pasteurization is preferred by most artisan cheese makers because it does not risk denaturing the proteins like the HTST method, where you bring the milk up to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds.


After pasteurizing the milk, I cooled the milk back down and refrigerated. On Tuesday morning, I ordered some direct set Chevre cultures from New England Cheese Making Equipment. The cultures arrived on Friday and I set out to make some cheese. I warmed the milk to 86 degrees Fahrenheit and added the Chevre culture (which came premixed with a vegetable rennet). I allowed the culture to rehydrate in the milk for 30 seconds and then stirred for two minutes with and up and down motion. At that point I covered the pot and let the microbes and enzymes do their magic for about 15 hours.



Saturday morning, we got up and went to the farmers market. While we were out, we picked up 6 plastic tumblers from Walmart, which I have turned into cheese molds. I used a torch to heat a nail, which I used to make holes in the tumblers every inch or so through which the whey can drain.

After sterilizing our equipment, we took the top off the pot to find that our curd had set very well. There was a good layer of whey floating above and around the curd. I cut the curd into roughly one inch cube with a stainless steel knife and Danielle ladled the curds into cheese-cloth lined molds. We had enough curds from one gallon of milk to fill three molds. In one of the molds, I spooned herbs de provence as she was spooning the curds. We allowed them to drain for about twelve hours. Then we unmolded the cheese and I used a rubber spatula to press the wonderful Chevre into Ramekins. We've been enjoying it for days.


I'm very happy to know that I'm not too rusty when it comes to cheese making! I want to try making Saint Maure soon, which is sort of like a goat version of Camembert.

Damn Deer

So, I'm a little bummed; hell, I'm a lot bummed. Two weeks I was working through the Chambourcin block at the Naked Creek Vineyard cluster thinning. Chambourcin is a variety that tends to over crop in fertile soils, and if all the clusters are allowed to hang to maturity, the flavor quality will suffer. Cluster thinning is especially important in this vineyard as we are rehabbing the vines, which are not yet back to optimum vigor. Around July 18th, everything was looking pretty good. We had a little black rot, but considering how wet this season has been, I wasn't too concerned. We had probably 15% of the clusters affected with black rot. At that point, I was removing 30-40% of the clusters anyway, so I culled any of the black rot infected clusters. No big deal

Fast forward to last Tuesday, July 25th. I had been busy with work and life and had been away from the vineyard for about a week. I stopped by on the morning of 7/25 to take a look at the vines with the plan of getting back to cluster thinning that afternoon. Well, that didn't pan out. When I walked the rows that morning, ALL of the grapes were gone. I was mortified and had no idea where my grapes had gone. I had been pretty diligent with my spray schedule. Where could my grapes have gone. I took pictures and sent them to another grape grower and to a viticulture expert. Both of them came back with the same answer - wildlife damage. I'm dumbfounded that a herd of deer or turkeys could strip an entire acre of grapes in 5 days but it appears that is what happened. No Chambourcin this year.

Danielle and I decided that we will go ahead and begin our Winter project list which now includes erecting a deer fence. I'm bummed!

On a bright note, we hosted the second Peaks View Animal Hospital Wine and Cheese Pairing party on 8/23 and it was a huge success. We featured Virginia wines and Virginia cheeses. I will write more about the pairings in another post soon.

Eat Local

For over a year now, Danielle and I have been trying to spend as much of our grocery budget with local producers and merchants as possible. Most weeks we spend 60% of our grocery money at the Lynchburg Community Market, and about 40% at chain grocery stores. I'm hoping now that we are in the full swing of farmers' market season, we can push that 60% even higher.

Recently f0r dinner one evening, we had steamed mussels with mixed green and strawberry salads.


We steamed the mussels in a mixture of canned tomatoes, dry white wine, oregano, and basil. The wine used in steaming the mussels is the Mylonite White from Chateau-Z Vineyard. The wine made it to the glass too. I'd be a safe bet to say the wine was in the glass first and that's how it made it to the mussel pot. The mussels are from Prince Edward Island, which I picked up from Blue Marlin Seafood. I had hoped to find mussels a little more local, but did the best I could.

Lets back up for a minute and talk about the wine we enjoyed with this dinner. If you've followed along with my blog, you'll know that Cliff Ambers over at Chateau-Z is someone whom I have great respect for. He is working almost exclusively with hybrid grapes (he has over 200 varieties in his breeding vineyard), and makes some great wines with little known and sometimes even less appreciated varieties of grapes. Tonight's wine is his 2007 Mylonite White, which is a blend of Rayon d'Or, Seyval Blanc, Muscat, Vivant, Traminette, and Vidal Blanc hybrids. The wine is dry, crisp, and fairly aromatic. This wine is aged without oak and reminds me of Viognier. Stop by and see Cliff at the Lynchburg Community Market.

The strawberries used thin the salads were from Three Springs Farm who sells at the Lynchburg Community Market.



The broth from the mussels is great poured over the mussels as you serve them, and just begs to be soaked up with a great crusty bread. We rounded out the meal with a loaf of a country white bread from Lorraine Bakery who also sells at the Lynchburg Community Market.



I challenge each of you to seriously evaluate where your food comes from. Ask a kindergartner if he or she knows where their food comes from. If their response is the grocery store, maybe you should take a better look at what you are eating. I'm not here to bash grocery stores or even big agribusiness. I just ask that you to be more engaged in how your food gets from field (or ocean) to your plate. Ask where it comes from and what happens to it along the way.