I’m not usually one for experimenting, I’m much too controlled for that. Instead, I like recipes, instructions and the like. So I really like that there are lots of written resources as to how to make cheese. I have a few lovely books which in total have probably nearly 100 different cheeses in them. With so much milk around at the moment, I have started to try to make every different cheese in the book. We don’t eat an awful lot of soft cheese, so that section of the book will take a while, but with hard cheeses you make them then store them, so that section has been (mostly) ticked off. Then there are the “special” cheeses, the white rinded like camembert, the blue cheeses, swiss cheese and red rind cheese. As you know, I’ve tried camembert with varying results, though I hope to start again tomorrow to perfect my technique. Blue cheese I’m waiting on, swiss cheese I’ve made but I’m not sure it worked very well. I really want to make a Port Salut, which is a red rind cheese. In fact, I have made Port Salut twice, but….. I’ve never managed to get my timing right to get it finished so it ends up with the chickens! The idea is that after 6 days, you make up a “red wash”, leave it for a day and then rub the cheese with the wash the next day and for several days after that. Again, maybe Port Salut will be on the menu of cheese for this week. Third time lucky?!

Today, however,  I have broken the mold, and I have embraced experimentation! I know, exciting!? Frankly, the process of cheese making is essentially the same for all cheeses (I’m talking about hard cheeses here), with just a few differences here and there. I’ve been doing a very basic recipe 2-3 times recently and it’s been working really well. Tonight though, I didn’t quite have the time to do the recipe to the letter. So I experimented! Yikes! Careful, anarchy may reign at Ra Puke. I’ve used the same basic process…heat milk, add bacteria and leave to ripen, add rennet and leave to solidify, cut curds, stir and cook curds, drain, salt and press. I’ve just tweaked things here and there so that it actually fit with what needed to happen around here tonight. And I won’t be able to share the results for another 3 months! Got to be patient around here.

And on another note, I would like to admit a defeat. Loom bands have taken over in New Zealand over the last month or so. Everyone has them and they were a great thing for the kids to be doing at school, until the school banned them…thanks for that. But I’m also quite taken with the different designs so I set myself the task of completing a “fancy” bracelet this evening….but it didn’t work. Oh dear, please don’t say I’m going to have to take my own advice to Emily to start with the easy ones…..