Mayfield Road Creamery Cheese Class

CSA 1 Response »
Apr 172012
 

On Saturday, Stephen and I headed out to Orwell, Ohio for a cheese making class at Mayfield Road Creamery.   This is one of the farms that our Fresh Fork CSA buys from.  All of the class was made up of Fresh Fork customers.  When we arrived, we left our dirty shoes outside and put on “clean shoes” for the creamery.  Susan was by the 180 gallon tank talking about the first cheese making steps. We spent the day making Havarti cheese.

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Here, she’s checking the Ph level.  In the next photo, she’s testing for coagulation.

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The covered tank needs to rest before the curd is ready to be cut.  I really liked the cheese cold room.

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Soon, it was time for lunch.  We enjoyed sampling all of the cheeses that the creamery offers.  I was surprised that I liked the chipotle.  It wasn’t as spicy as I suspected.  I think my favorite was the blue cheese (although it’s being discontinued).  I also really like the Havarti cheese.  I was glad we got it in our Fresh Fork CSA bag last week.  Kevin is checking the cheese to see if it’s ready to be cut.

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It was really fun to watch both Susan and Kevin work together.  The Morris Family farm was established in 1860 and is alive and well with a small number of cows (about 40), due to the creamery business.

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Draining and washing whey.

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Once the cheese curd was ready, we dug in and filled molds.

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Then we moved them to the pressing table.  After 15 minutes, it was time to flip.

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It’s harder than it looks, but we didn’t drop any.  The cheese gets flipped a few times before going to the final steps.  Our class ended with the cheese in the pressing stage.

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After the formal class ended, we were given a tub of ricotta cheese and had the opportunity to buy some cheese.  I had came with a cooler and knew I wanted to go home with cheese.

Before we left, Kevin showed us around the dairy farm.  We met a few cows, checked out the milking barn and milk room.  About 60% of their milk goes into cheese.  The rest is sold to Dairymens.

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It was really fun to see the cheese making process and participate in the class.  I have a much better appreciation for the skill and art involved in cheese making.

We made farmer’s cheese with the kids last summer.  I think we’ll try a few more this year just for fun.  I’ll leave the larger scale cheese making to Susan.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 8

CSA No Responses »
Feb 022012
 

Today was our week 8 pick up for our Fresh Fork CSA.  We got there about 5PM and didn’t have any wait at all.  It’s nice when the kids can just run around for a minute or two.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

  • 1 stewing chicken, approximately 2.5 lbs.
  • 1 bag dried egg noodles
  • 1 pint fig vinegar roasted cherry tomatoes
  • 1 lb. egg linguini
  • 1 lb. bacon
  • 1 bag spinach or mixed greens
  • 1 8-oz. piece of cheese
  • 1 dozen eggs
  • 2 lbs. cornmeal
  • 1 quarter peck apples
  • 3 lbs. sweet potatoes (please keep refrigerated)

Here’s a group shot:

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We were notified early today that there wasn’t going to be spinach.  The yield wasn’t as the farmer had hoped.

I was glad to see apples today.  We love having them in our oatmeal.  I don’t think I’ve ever cooked a stewing chicken.  From reading, it sounds like it will make great stock.  I have some carrots and celery in the fridge to add to it.   I’ll probably also add the noodles.

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We had our choice of beer or cheddar cheese.  I chose beer cheese since it sounded more fun.

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Our kids call the Ohio City linguini “spider web pasta”.  It’s always welcome in our house in any flavor.  Maybe we’ll top it with the roasted cherry tomatoes for dinner one night.

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I don’t feel like we use a ton of eggs in our house, but we always seem to use them up.  Baked oatmeal, muffins, pancakes, and such all use an egg or two at a time and it adds ups.  I’ve been leaving the bacon frozen and cutting it across the width for smaller pieces of bacon as flavoring in dishes.  It works well since I don’t need to thaw all of it at once and it last longer for us.

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I’m hoping to have the sweet potato / chorizo type of hash that Stephen made for us before using the potatoes.  I think we have all of the ingredients in house.  Our kids eat corn muffins like they are going out of style.  I also want to try some pancakes made out of corn meal soon.

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We also picked up a bag of corn chips ($3.5) from the back of the truck.

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All in all, this is a pretty easy week.  I’m glad to have a chance to use up more from our freezer stash.  We have two small freezers in the basement and one needs to be defrosted soon.  I’m hoping to tackle that in the next 2-3 weeks.