{"id":46800,"date":"2014-01-15T00:09:57","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T08:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=46800"},"modified":"2014-01-15T00:09:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T08:09:57","slug":"cheese-making-merit-badge-expert-level-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/46800","title":{"rendered":"Cheese Making Merit Badge, Expert Level, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/a>, now with 5,602 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,898 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> former life<\/a> \u2026\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this week\u2019s Farm Kitchen\/Cheese Making Expert Level Merit Badge<\/a>, I got to spend some serious quality time with one of my first loves: cheese.<\/p>\n

Mmm, ooey gooey, smooth as silk, slices of heaven. I never met a cheese I didn\u2019t like. Well, I\u2019m not super-fond of American, but I\u2019m not entirely sure that is<\/i> a cheese. Thoughts?<\/p>\n

I had already made a few different types of delicious cheeses earning my Beginning and Intermediate level badges, so I was feeling pretty confident about my skills. While looking up the guidelines, I was intrigued by the suggestion:<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re adventurous, try smoking your cheese.<\/i><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how confused I was for a moment, thinking of some sort of whey-based tobacco or something, but then I realized what they meant. Like a smoked gouda? Smoked cheddar?<\/p>\n

Why, yes.<\/p>\n

I was halfway there already, since I have a little camping secret I\u2019d like to share with you girls. Are you ready for this?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve had all the s\u2019mores you can swallow at the campfire, try one of these babies:<\/p>\n

A wedge of Brie, roasted on your skewer, then topped with dark chocolate. Or skip the chocolate (Now, there are four words I thought would never come out of this gal\u2019s mouth!) and smooth it on a hunk of French bread.<\/p>\n

Bliss on a stick.<\/p>\n

But anyway, I assume the merit badge gurus aren\u2019t talking about smoking your cheese quite like that, so back to the drawing board (and cookbooks) for me. I decided to try a smoked mozzarella, because let\u2019s face it, no matter the question, mozzarella is always a good answer. Really! Try it.<\/p>\n

Have a bad day? Have some mozzarella.<\/p>\n

Need to jazz up some leftovers? Top with mozzarella.<\/p>\n

Feel your blood sugar dropping to dangerously cranky levels? Snack on mozzarella.<\/p>\n

Etcetera, etcetera, and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I made up a batch of cheese:<\/p>\n

A gallon of milk, 1 1\/2 t citric acid dissolved in 1\/2 cup water, 1\/4 of a rennet tablet, crushed and dissolved in 1\/4 cup water.\u00a0 I poured the milk in my pot, added the dissolved citric acid, stirred, and heated it to 90\u00b0F.\u00a0 Then I gently stirred in the dissolved rennet and brought the temp up a little more (to 100\u00b0F).\u00a0Then I shut the heat off and let the pot sit for another 5 minutes or so while the curds and whey continued to separate. Then I fondly recited “Little Miss Muffet” a few times, which isn\u2019t required for cheese making, but is recommended. Then I drain off some of the whey and begin my kneading. It turns from a weird-looking, shaggy mess to a lovely ball of smooth cheese. It\u2019s like magic! Magic, I tell you!<\/p>\n

After my cheese was ready, I got Mr. Wonderful to heat up the ol\u2019 smoker …<\/p>\n

Cheese Making Merit Badge, Expert Level, Part II coming soon!\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,602 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,898 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ Wondering … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}