Dairy

I mentioned The Cheesemaker’s Apprentice by Sasha Davies a couple weeks ago before I’d read through it, but it turns out that it deserves so much more than a mention. It’s so well written and inspiring that if you have any interest in cheesemaking or cheese eating, you should BUY IT immediately. When I first […]

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Raw vs. Pasteurized

September 24, 2012 · 13 comments

I think about raw milk a lot. Probably every day that I’m out milking my own dairy goat. There’s a lot to think about, and after six years of milking, I’m still pretty undecided on a lot of the issues surrounding raw milk. In a society that seems to be so very polarized on this […]

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This Morning

August 15, 2012 · 9 comments

Any day that starts with peaches is a good day. Early this morning, Henry and I went up to the greenhouse and picked the last of the peaches off our one peach tree. We still have two small nectarine trees in the greenhouse with fruit that hasn’t ripened up yet, so there will be more […]

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First Milking

April 24, 2012 · 10 comments

My goat kids (Admiral Ackbar and Mon Monthma) are a month old today, and so begins milking season. Last night, I shut Minnie up in a stall apart from her kids (but still within smelling and hearing distance) for the first time. They complained a little last night about the separation, but it wasn’t too […]

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Lactation Cycles

December 23, 2011 · 1 comment

                A fairly significant annual milestone in my life came and went without fanfare a few weeks ago. The weekend before we went away to California, I made the decision to stop milking my goat, Bella. Though my brother in law was housesitting while we were gone, and he […]

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On a beautiful Friday afternoon in August, I made a batch of simple fruity frozen yogurt. As far as homemade frozen desserts go, frozen yogurt is so easy. Unlike ice cream, you don’t have to cook and cool it, and it is a little lighter and more refreshing without all the heavy cream. What follows […]

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Easy Mozzarella

July 1, 2011 · 14 comments

I really don’t understand why fresh mozzarella tastes so good.It’s just milk plus salt, acid, and rennet, and yet  the simple, creamy flavor complex plus the dense, slightly squeaky texture  will always satisy and impress any cheese lover. Mozzarella is probably the most common cheese attempted by cheese making amateurs for good reason. A basic […]

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I know there are folks out there who hate beets. To you, I apologize for this post. Actually, no. I feel sorry for you because I LOVE beets. Hot steamed beets with a dribble of good olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar topped with a generous garnish of cold, plain chèvre is the […]

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At the suggestion of Kara over at Peas and Happiness, I photographed pretty much everything that happened during one day, last Friday. The original plan was to schedule lots of interesting but not extraordinary events, so that I’d have good stuff to take pictures of, but circumstances changed, so the outcome was not set up […]

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Be forewarned: reading this book will probably make you want to get goats. That said, you should still read it. Brad Kessler (author of Birds in Fall that I haven’t read yet but probably should even though I’m significantly less enthusiastic about birds than goats) chronicles his move from the city to a small farm […]

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