I'm having a hard time coming up with something clever about cheese to use as my title.

In a supreme display of willpower, I will refrain from reposting President Obama’s badass health care speech tonight. I will not call heckler Joe Wilson a silly douchewagon who should be booted off of the Hill. I will not agree with Rachel Maddow’s statement that the latter part of the president’s speech was one of the most articulate defenses of Liberalism that have come out of a politician’s mouth. I will stray from the bombshell that is the late Senator Teddy Kennedy’s final letter to Obama.

Instead, I will write about cheese.

Farmer’s cheese, to be exact. NPR’s “Weekday” host Steve Scher had a guest on yesterday who casually mentioned a really easy recipe for homemade farmer’s cheese. I’m a decent cook I suppose, however I tend to avoid the more complex culinary endeavors. Yet this recipe sounded deceptively simple. And really, wouldn’t it be great to brag about making my own cheese? So I decided to give it a shot.

This morning I walked down the hill to the Haggen and picked up the necessary ingredients:

One gallon of milk
One lemon
One jalapeño pepper
Fresh oregano
A pinch of salt

(The jalepeno and oregano were last-minute additions I thought would go well.)

Basically, the woman on the radio said to boil the milk, add the lemon juice, drain with cheesecloth, and viola! Cheese! So, after getting everything ready

I put the jalepenos and oregano in with the milk

and heated everything on medium heat until it boiled (stirring often).

Having never made cheese, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I added lemon juice into the mixture. It was actually pretty cool, though. The milk curdled right away. It reminded me of the “cement mixer” shots you always buy for someone on their 21st birthday.

I let it sit for a few minutes, killing time by playing a sweet game (which I can't seem to embed properly, so here's the link instead)and then poured the now separated curds and whey (I think it’s whey, isn’t it?)

 

into a colander laced with cheesecloth.

After it had sufficiently dried, I sampled it. Not bad. I was afraid it was going to turn out terrible. But to be honest, it was a little bland. Next time maybe I’ll add a little more salt or something.

All in all, I’m tremendously proud of my achievement. Tomorrow I think I’ll melt sand into a glass orb, or something equally impressive.  And incomprehensibly boring.