Switzerland: Post 2

This last week was "Cheese Week" at our home school. I couldn't really find any good books about cheese for little kids, although I did find an interesting book called, "And that's how you make cheese." And I read it and learned all about it. The key, apparently, is cleanliness and sterile utensils, which interpreted, means I'm probably never going to be really good at making my own cheese (although after we get a goat in maybe 10 years, I would like to try.)

We chose to make Queso Blanca which is what the stores sell as Monterey Jack. However, homemade it is more bland, a little sweet, and less rubbery, so said the book.  Ours turned out quite differently.

First you heat up a gallon of whole milk to 180 degrees F and let it stay at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Then you add a 1/4 cup of cider vinegar and stir the milk until the curds separate from the whey.

You take all your curds and let them drain for four hours in high quality cheese cloth. (If you don't want to waste all that whey, use it immediately to make Ricotta cheese - we didn't do this, though, because it required bacteria cultures with long names that I didn't want to go out and buy.)

Then you have your cheese! Ours was so bland. It just tasted like milk. I'm pretty sure the author forgot to mention you are supposed to add salt at some point in the recipe. So I added Swiss Alpine Spices to about a half cup and it was so delicious!  So delicious in fact, that for dinner that night we had home made whole wheat toast with home made Swiss Alpine herb cheese and home grown garden fresh tomatoes on top. I was feeling very domestic and self-sufficient!

For breakfast the next morning I used the non-salted cheese and mixed cinnamon and sugar in it for a kind of sweet cheese spread and we ate it on sliced bread. It was really good.

Also that day we had cheese fondue for lunch. Did you know cheese fondue is a Swiss invention? Ours turned out, well, gross. At least I didn't like it. But the kids thought it was the best thing they'd ever had! So it was still a great success.

Our big field trip was to the Heber Valley Cheese Co. in Midway, Utah. The weather joined in on the fun and delivered a typical Swiss day experience - rain. Lots of rain. The store is kind of small and they only had a few samples out - but we tasted the various cheeses displayed and looked through their window into the room where they actually make all their cheeses. We bough three different flavors - which I forgot up in Midway at my in-laws so we will have to have our cheese taste test this weekend when we are up again. Oh well. Spread out the fun, I guess.

After the cheese co. we went to my out of town in-laws to take care of the indoor plants (the outdoor plants were getting thoroughly watered already) and just play around a bit until the weather let up. While there, I felt like I was on a Swiss scavenger hunt! Look at all the Swiss stuff I found! And this isn't even the beginning of it.

And then before driving home, we drove around Midway to take some photos of the Swiss architecture. I had promised Joshua for a long time that we would do this, and I had originally hoped to go by foot, but the Swiss weather didn't permit. It may have been better this way. I took photos on my camera through my car window and Joshua took photos with my old camera through his car window. Here are some of my favorites.

The other days this week we worked on our lapbooks and put them all together. We also wrote a letter to some Swiss relatives that I really should get in the mail soon. But I will wait to post on the lapbooks for a while still until they are completely done.

This week has been geography and Globi! I will explain later.