Mozzarella!

Call it the kids' science lesson. Sort of looks like one anyway, don't you think? We are a bit late getting started with school this morning due to cheese-making priorities. I don't do this often, as we use most of the milk our low-production Jersey gives us, but when we have a few more gallons than I can use, I make mozzarella.

I have a cheese press, but getting a knack for making hard cheese isn't quite as easy as making mozzarella...and the mozzarella you can use and eat almost as soon as it is made. Hard cheese is a matter of delayed gratification (or severe disappointment, as has been the case with me!) after a minimum 3-month wait.

This mozzarella, by the way, is very like the rubbery/stretchy stuff you get at the grocery store, what I call "American" mozzarella, great on pizza and very little if any shrinkage. I long to make the marvelous fresh, tender mozzarella that is so good with sliced summer tomatoes and fresh basil, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with salt and pepper (doesn't that just have you dreaming of summer?); silky, white balls of it, marinating in jars of herb-infused olive-oil. I'll give it a try this spring, perhaps. To make the really good stuff, I'd have to find a buffalo to milk...but I don't know that my quest for really great mozzarella will take me that far...