SO disappointed... they took my milk away :(

Well, not fully away, but mostly. We get WIC from the state which helps us a LOT right now. We go through probably 3-4 gallons of milk a week. I was so excited last month when I posted that there is now local fresh milk in the stores from the SPOKANE'S FAMILY FARM. The stuff is fantastic, tastes great, low-heat pasteurized... I can't wait to make cheese from it.

But apparently the fact that it isn't homogenized makes it a no-go for WIC rules. So the month or so we've been drinking it, while it has been wonderful, we will now need to go back to drinking regular trucked-in storebought :(

I called the WIC office at the state, spoke with a supervisor, then I called Trish at the dairy. She was a gem and was just made aware of the situation. She is looking into it and I hope she can figure out a way to make it WIC OK. Apparently, they don't homogenize on purpose. I didn't know this before, but homogenization breaks up the nice round fat globules into teeny pointy ones that are more damaging to your heart. Think... tiny little pieces of fiberglass. Great.

Anyway, I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope that at some point, they find a way to make it work. Maybe by going kosher, they can solve that problem. We'll see. In the meantime, if we ever need to buy milk out of pocket, I know what I'll be getting! :)

Here's a reprint from a recent newspaper article about the dairy, from
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/may/20/udderly-fresh/.

“C’mon girls. C’mon,” Mike Vieira calls out his evening invitation to the ladies in black and white at Spokane’s Family Farm. “C’mon,” he repeats, walking into the pasture, “C’mon. Let’s go.” Visitors make the “girls” hesitate slightly, but they eventually oblige and line up behind the barn door for the evening milking. It’s a ritual repeated twice daily at the farm 13 miles west of Spokane where Mike and Trish Vieira bottle up to 2,000 gallons of milk each week. “This is what everyone thinks of when they think of a dairy,” Mike Vieira says.

The couple began milking cows a little over a month ago, after spending the winter retrofitting the 100-year-old barn with modern milking and pasteurizing equipment and preparing for the arrival of the Holstein cows. It’s a small operation, with just 30 animals in a state where the average dairy had 480 cows in 2007. Many of the state’s large dairy operations have more than 2,000 animals.

Mike Vieira worked as a dairyman near Othello, selling his milk to the Darigold cooperative, before coming to the Spokane area. Although he was known for being a top-quality producer, Vieira says the milk he produced was dumped together with that of the other 850 members and bottled. He longed for closer connection to the finished product.

So, the Vieiras decided to move near one of the state’s bigger cities to find a market for an old-fashioned dairy – where milk is produced and bottled on the farm and then sold nearby. The milk from Spokane’s Family Farm is no more than 72 hours from the cow and has traveled less than 20 miles by the time it lands on grocery store shelves.

“I have a lot of incentive to produce quality milk,” says Mike Vieira, who recently turned 38. “My name is right there on the label. It comes down to me.”

Spokane’s Family Farm uses low-heat pasteurization to kill the potentially harmful pathogens in the milk. It’s heated to 145 degrees and held there for 30 minutes before it is quickly cooled to prepare for bottling. Most commercial milk is pasteurized at higher temperatures (HTST) to kill the bacteria as well as other enzymes in the milk and extend the shelf life. Some milk is ultra-heat pasteurized (UHT), or heated to a temperature that kills almost all of the microorganisms and can be shelf stable if it is put in hermetically sealed packaging.

Food and Drug Administration researchers say the higher temperature pasteurization doesn’t significantly affect the nutritional value of milk. Others believe human bodies benefit from the natural enzymes that are left intact by low-temperature pasteurization. They also like the flavor better, and the remaining enzymes help with the fermentation of milk into cheese and yogurt.
The Vieiras like the taste of the milk and the “good bacteria” left behind. Although they like keeping the milk closer to its natural state, they don’t believe in selling raw milk. “It is a liability and it’s still a serious issue,” says Mike Vieira, who also worked for five years in dairy sanitation as a troubleshooter for Sunnyside Dairy Supply.

Spokane’s Family Farm doesn’t homogenize the milk, which means the cream rises to the top of the jugs. Most commercial milk has the cream separated out, and then sprayed back into the milk in a prescribed amount (1 percent, 2 percent or about 3 percent for whole milk). The cream is forced through tubes at high pressure to break up the fat so it no longer separates from the low-fat milk.

Milk from Spokane’s Family Farm averages about 3.5 percent fat. Shake the jug for creamy whole milk or, as the Vieiras suggest, store it in an iced tea dispenser with the spigot on the bottom. The milk that settles to the bottom has about 2 percent fat and the cream that rises to the top can be saved and made into butter, used for coffee or even whipped. It has about a three-week shelf life. The retail price is $4.29 per gallon. It is sold on the farm for $3.50.
Running a dairy is not easy work. Vieira wakes before 5 a.m. every day to feed the “girls” and get them ready for the 5:30 a.m. milking. Cleaning, sanitizing, bottling and other farm chores keep the couple busy until the evening milking. Most days are 18 hours long and sometimes end with the Vieiras delivering milk to stores that are running low.

“There is no pause button on these cows,” Trish Vieira says. Friends and volunteer hands on the farm like to tease them about the never-changing schedule, “They like to rib me. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ they’ll ask,” Mike Vieira says.

The farm on Coulee Hite Road was used as a dairy until 1962. The Vieiras retrofitted it with state-of-the-art equipment, but it’s still what’s called a “flat barn.” Most dairy operations have a pit so that dairy workers are at eye level with the cows’ udders.

“You don’t have to bend over to milk cows anymore,” he says. “I still do.”
Actually, most of the time he’s squatting. For the first two weeks of operation, Vieira says he was sore from his toes to his ears.

“I’m in it because I love the cows,” he says. “It’s all I ever wanted to do. I think I started saying I wanted to be a dairy farmer about second grade.”

That was after a trip to his uncle’s dairy farm in California captured his imagination. His first job out of high school was as herdsman for a dairy. He recently told a group of veterinary students that if any of them were thinking about dairying, they needed to see a psychiatrist for at least a year. And then at the end of the year if they still want a dairy they should get a second opinion.
The Vieiras have five grown daughters in their blended family. They’ve been married for about two years and have a son, 1 1/2-year-old Kohl. There’s a playpen for him in the barn where the cows are milked, but on a recent evening he was perched atop the nightly feed ration in the wheelbarrow.

The dairy is not certified organic. The cows eat locally grown grains. Although the Vieiras wanted to reserve the right to treat a sick animal on the farm with antibiotics, they would never allow the milk to go into their tanks.

The farm is 160 acres, and they hope to eventually double the operation to 60 cows.
Mike Vieira takes pride in his contented herd, which he bought from an 80-year-old dairyman and his son. When he lets the first group of cows into the barn, they quickly assume positions in each of the milking stalls.

He quickly cleans each cow’s teats using an iodine and glycerin solution and then strips a bit of milk from each one before attaching the milking apparatus. The rhythmic sound of the machinery fills the small barn. The cows eat until the milking is complete, and the units automatically detach and are drawn back up into position for the next round.
Trish Vieira brushes the mud and dried waste from the hide of the cows while she helps with milking. She helps shoo the cows outside, and then they start over with the second group.
She walks outside while the milking and cleaning is finished. Tomorrow, they’ll start the whole process again.
“C’mon girls. C’mon.”


Old-Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream
From Trish Vieira, Spokane Family Farm. Vieira says when she made this with additional milk from the farm instead of cream to lower the fat, no one noticed.
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 1/4 cups Spokane’s Family Farm Milk with cream on top
5 fresh eggs, lightly beaten
5 cups whipping cream (can use whole milk for less fat)
2 tablespoons vanilla
Combine first three ingredients in saucepan. Gradually stir in the milk, cook over medium heat for approximately 15 minutes, until thickened, stirring constantly.
Gradually stir 1 cup of the hot mixture into the beaten eggs. Add to remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly. Cook for 1 minute, remove from heat, and refrigerate for 2 hours. Add whipping cream and vanilla to chilled mixture and whip with wire whisk. Freeze as directed.
For an electric home freezer, use approximately 2 cups of rock salt per batch and 1 1/2 bags of ice cubes. Vieira puts a little water into the freezer bucket (about 2 cups) to start the ice and salt melting process. Fresh fruit or chocolate cookie bits can be added to flavor the custard before freezing.
Yield: About 5 quarts

Homemade Yogurt
From Trish Vieira, Spokane’s Family Farm. This yogurt can be used in place of sour cream, she says.
1 quart whole milk
5 grams yogurt starter
Heat one quart of milk to 180 degrees and then cool down to 108 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dissolve 5 grams yogurt starter (or use unflavored yogurt) in small quantity of lukewarm milk. Then pour back into the quart of milk and mix well.
Incubate for 4 to 4 1/2 hours, or until yogurt has reached the desired firmness.
Refrigerate to stop incubation.
Fresh fruit or jam can be added to sweeten the yogurt. A yogurt appliance can be used to incubate the yogurt.
Yield: 4 cups yogurt

French Breakfast Puffs
From Trish Vieira, Spokane Family Farm. She says these are “simply divine.”
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup whole milk
Topping
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and mix just until blended.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Stir in flour mixture alternately with 1/2 cup milk.
Fill muffin tins two-thirds full with batter and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
While the puffs are baking, melt 6 tablespoons butter and mix together sugar and cinnamon.
When puffs are baked, remove from the oven and immediately dip them in melted butter and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake with Dark Chocolate Rum Sauce
From Trish Vieira, Spokane’s Family Farm.
1 1/4 cup sugar, divided
1 cup flour
7 tablespoons cocoa, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup dark rum
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine ¾ cups sugar, flour, 3 tablespoons cocoa, baking powder and salt.
Blend in milk, melted butter and vanilla. Pour into an 8-by-8-inch pan.
In a small bowl, combine ½ cup sugar, brown sugar and 4 tablespoons cocoa.
Sprinkle over cake batter.
Pour hot water and dark rum over the top. Bake 35 minutes. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
Yield: 1 (8-by-8-inch) cake

Milky goodness

The other day I was at the grocery store and I needed to get milk. I was walking through the aisle and as I was approaching the milk section I noticed something different. A strange new brand of milk was next to my normal Darigold. As I walked closer, I started to be able to make out the words on the label.

The music swelled as the chorus sang "Hallelujah!" There it was, on the jug's label - "Spokane's Family Farm."

I was stunned in disbelief. I picked up the jug, cradled it lovingly in my arms, and inspected the label closely. Yes, my eyes had not deceived me. Something I had been looking for since I moved here - locally produced milk! I immediately filled my cart with three gallons. We do go through about 2-3 gallons of milk per week (Eleora loves milk). I've been buying 1% but all they have is whole. I'm making the switch entirely, and I'll just drink less myself to compensate for the calories.

The best part? It's not homogenized. It is pasteurized but it's cream-on-the-top whole milk and so I'm THINKING and HOPING that I will finally be able to make a decent cheese. We'll see!

Cheese update!

Alrighty... so many of you remember I made my first hard cheese about 3 weeks ago. It was supposed to be a provolone, though I couldn't get it to stretch and finally gave up on that part. You can see the original post on when I made it here.

We decided to cut into it yesterday. Wowee! That was a tangy sharp cheese! Tommy was absolutely in heaven. He loved it, and wants me to make more - he said it tasted like the goatcheese his grandmother used to feed him when he was a kid. That's actually a pretty good compliment because he has said many times he wished he could have that cheese again and never had one that was like it. It was a bit too stout for me, and I think it was so stout because of the type of lipase enzymes I used (KA). Tommy just really loves strong flavored food. I bet he'd love it if I put garlic in it next time

The flavor was really good, it was a very dry and hard texture. I think I lost a lot of butterfat in the whey because I remember it was pretty milky, and the cheese didn't taste like it had as much fat in it as I'd expect for being made from whole milk. The flavor itself was cool because you took a bite and it tasted pretty good and then exploded in your mouth with flavor! I know that sounds cheesy (ooo, pun not intended lol) but it really was how it felt to me. I liked it, though it was too strong for me to eat but Tommy gobbled it up. I now have a pot that will accomondate 2 gallons of milk and I have a cheese press so I think I'll try the same cheese pressed next time. It looked like if I aged it a bit more it could be a passable sub for parmesan, though with WAY more flavor. We'll see!

I think my next one will be a farmhouse cheddar, though. Tommy now wants me to let him know next time I make cheese so he can watch the process. Who knows, this might be something we could both get in to :) But I'll do my best to keep him in this cheese, I hope it turns out as good next time I try to make it. So, without further ado, more pictures :)

The unveiling of the cheese :) This wasn't pressed, all I did was hang it. It ended up a pretty weird texture on the outside, very "brainy" looking. I think I'll press the next one just lightly to see how that goes.




The final product. You can kinda see just how dry it is - and it was only aged for 3 weeks. I think it was because of the lack of humidity in my basement - though it turned out pretty darn good!

Happy cheese-loving husband :)

Whole milk Ricotta cheese

So today I want to try something that's been floating around in my brain for a couple weeks now. It's an Italian type of food and I need to make some Ricotta cheese for it. So, here's me making Ricotta :)

We went to Costco earlier and I bought a couple gallons of their whole milk. I poured one gallon into my cheese pot, and then dissolved 1 tsp each of citric acid and cheese salt in 1/2 cup of water. I added it to the milk in the pot, and then heated to 185 degrees F.

The citric acid makes it curdle, and the salt of course seasons it. When the curds separate, you simply strain the ricotta out, saving the whey for the garden or whatnot.

Here's a cool photo of my straining apparatus :) I have a big huge cone-shaped colander I found at a thrift store, lined with an old bleached muslin cloth diaper. Birdseye diapers are great for straining cheese.


Here's the milk mixed with the citric acid and salt. It's on the burner and starting to warm up.









It's starting to warm a bit, frothing at the edges and looking a little thicker now.










OK it's done! Heated to 200 degrees actually (the baby had to nurse, so I ended up getting it a little warmer than I planned). Once it reaches that certain point in temperature, it all curdles into, well, curds! :)

Poured into my strainer contraption













And hanging to drip!




















I let it drip for about 30 minutes and then unmolded it.











Here I've broken it up a bit in a bowl. It looks more like cottage cheese than ricotta.









I've broken it up more, stirred a bit, and added milk for extra creaminess.

So there you have it! I then used this cheese to make dinner tonight, which will be in a separate post. :) It made about 2 pounds of cheese, and my total cost was probably about $2.48. Not bad, eh?

Current Projects

I've got a couple projects going right now. Actually one is ongoing and the other I did yesterday. I make homemade pizza probably once a week. I have this great pizza stone I got from my mom and with it's help I've been able to churn out gourmet pizzeria-style pizzas on a weekly basis, much to the joy and delight of my husband. I generally make up a sauce fresh, especially if we want to have a white garlic sauce on our pizza (which is fairly often). However, I did buy a canned pizza sauce a while back and we ran out which made me think... gee, I'm a pretty good cook, why shouldn't I just make up my own sauce and can it into jars?

Bingo :)
So yesterday on our trip to Costco I bought a giant can of tomato sauce and made up some pizza sauce. I ended up making it pretty spicy, more heat that I'd normally like, which is great for Tommy (he loves spicy hot things) but that's OK, I usually prefer ranch dressing or even just olive oil for my pizza. It went pretty well, though added to the MESS in my kitchen (that I have yet to clean up this morning).


My other project is CHEEEEESE. I've been interested in making cheese for quite some time. In fact, a few years ago I made some but forgot about it back in the fridge and it dried out and crumbled. My mom got me Ricki Carrol's cheesemaking book for Christmas last year and of course I devoured it but it did take me this long to start. I'm pretty methodical and like to do lots of research and have my ducks in a row before I learn a new skill (for the most part).

I have already made mozzarella a couple times, and made Ricotta with the leftover whey (though still haven't gotten much from that, but I'll get there :). The other day I found out the Provolone is basically just mozzarella with sharp lipase enzymes added (gives it the distinctive flavor) and so I decided to make up a batch.

So of course I don't have pictures of the process but I took a couple photos yesterday. I don't know if it will be a true provolone since I never got the mozzarella to "stretch" like it's supposed to. I suspect too little citric acid in the recipe, I used a different one this time. In any case, I soaked it in a saltwater brine for about 22 hours. It looks kinda like a BRAIN, huh? heh. After that I rubbed it with olive oil and wrapped in cheesecloth.

Then I drew up the corners, tied them up with a pretty pink shoelace, and hung the whole mess down in my creepy basement. It's too warm in the main house to cure cheese, the basement is the right temperature though not the right humidity, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Edible, at least ;)


Looks kinda like one of those ghost thingies people hang in their yards for halloween, huh! :)

My next projects for cheese will probably be either a farmhouse cheddar or maybe a gouda. I'd also like to build a cold smoker (from a cardboard box) so I can smoke my cheeses. Tommy is a big cheese fan so I hope to be able to get really gourmet with them. I can only picture the smoked jalapeno cheddars I can make for him as my garden starts producing.

I don't have access to a source of raw or fresh milk (unless I want to pay $10/gallon, yech). But I just found out that Costco doesn't use hormones in their milk (rbst) and it's a lot cheaper than grocery store milk so I'll try using that next time.