Tackle it Tuesday - Cottage Cheese

This week I decided to tackle making homemade cottage cheese. I'd heard this works and I couldn't wait to try it myself. The only ingredients necessary are white vinegar and milk. I used whole milk but you can use 2%, 1/2% or even skim milk.

I poured a gallon of milk into a large stainless steel pan. Then, I heated the milk to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, I turned the burner off and poured into it 3/4 cup vinegar. My directions said to leave sit for 1/2 hour, so I set the timer and let it sit.

After the timer went off I found a blob of curds sitting in a yucky liquid mixture (whey). I scooped out the curds and put into a jelly bag (cheese cloth would be better but I had none) and let the stuff drain for a few minutes. Then I rinsed the bag of curds with cold running water and squeezed out the water. I put the cheese, which was sort of dry, into a bowl and added back some whole milk and some salt. This is what I ended up with:

My husband said it is good but he added more salt. It seems more like ricotta cheese than cottage cheese but that's okay. I don't think this would save anyone money but it's fresher than store bought cheese and has no additives that we can't pronounce or define in it. If one had milk that was reaching the end of its shelf life in the fridge, it would be easy to adjust down the recipe and use up that milk. Don't know if I'll make it again any time soon but it sure was easy to do!