Friday, October 23, 2009

Trying hard to avoid making a pun about whey

I've been talking a lot on here about soaking grains and beans. So far, I've been using lemon juice because that can be used for both black beans and brown rice, but for any other type of bean or grain, you must use a cultured dairy product, such as kefir, whey, buttermilk or yoghurt. I've been avoiding this because these aren't things you can typically buy in the grocery store, or if you can, I'd rather ones made from grass-fed, organic dairy.

But, I finally bit the bullet and tried it out a few days ago. I decided to make (or isolate) whey. I got an extra 1/2 gallon of grass-fed cow, whole milk at the farmer's market and poured a quart into a clean glass jar, capped it, and let that sit in my cupboard for 4 days. (I know, scary , right?). After the 4th full day, I poured the milk into a strainer lined with a clean dish towel, with a bowl set beneath the strainer to catch what came through the towel/strainer combo. If everything goes right, the whey should drip through the towel into the bowl and what's left in the towel is cream cheese.

I left the bowl and towel sitting, draining, on my counter for 4 or 5 hours, then tied the towel around a wooden spoon and let it drip some more into the bowl, without the strainer. I left it for another several hours. Then poured the whey into a mason jar, put the cream cheese into a glass pyrex container and put them both in the fridge. We've been eating the cream cheese on toast with strawberry jam in the morning for breakfast. To be honest, the cream cheese has kind of a sour flavor that I don't like very much, but Micael seems to like a lot. The whey will last for 6 months in the fridge, and I've already used it to soak brown rice!

1 comment:

Ainsley Sundberg said...

Micael is so brave.