Jen & Jen Make Cheese Again

This entry is a thrilling follow-up to a post from last year, titled 2 Jens Make Cheese.  This year's challenge: mozzarella.  :o)

First, let me say that anyone wanting to try home cheese making should absolutely start with mozzarella.  The ingredients are readily available and inexpensive, the process is easy and quick (especially if you follow this easy mozzarella recipe), and there is no aging, which means you can instantly taste your cheese.

The first step was to pour citric acid over the milk.

This had almost no effect on the milk.  The only visible result was a very slight change in the surface of the milk.

Next we brought it up to 90 degrees on the stovetop.  Again, super easy, and it only took 15-20 minutes.

At this point you could see only a slight change in the milk.

The next step, adding the rennet, caused the biggest change and created the curds, which we then cut into cubes.

In goes the rennet

Texture becomes 'gelatinous'

Cutting the curds

After cutting the curds, we strained them into a microwave-safe bowl and drained off as much whey as possible.

Straining curds from whey

Bowl full of curds

This cheese is so easy it can even be done in a super messy kitchen!

After that -- and this is what makes this recipe easy -- we put it in the microwave to sort of melt down the curds.

After each stint in the microwave, we stirred a little bit and strained off more whey.

These curds are still pretty separated...

...but with time and microwaving, they started to melt together.

This started looking like mozzarella pretty quickly.  That's when the kneading and stretching started.

Mozzarella!

Put it in a water bath for 5 minutes and there you have it!

One gallon of milk produced a pretty decent amount of mozzarella.  Wondering what it can be used for?  Here's an example!

Just slice it and eat it

Or make caprese!

 I'm saving the rest to make a lasagna, my all-time favorite application for mozzarella.

Thank you to my friend Jen for being my motivator.  She's always up for some cheese-making!  Jen, we never did decide what to try next...