2020 will stand out forever as a really interesting year. As will 2021. And 2022? With increasing supply chain disruptions, food shortages, and impending war with Russia and China, 2022 will surely not disappoint.
The whole empty shelves and shortages thing gets a little tiresome. However, as some have correctly noted, if you maintain a deep pantry of food storage staples, life can continue pretty much like normal, sans perhaps, the fresh produce.
We just have to know how to make food from the basic staples. And because we are not immune to cyber attacks, it’s best to have critical recipes in a hard copy. I hope you print out information you find important. Of course, there’s also Food Storage Made Fabulous by yours truly available on Amazon, but as it came out over a year ago, it doesn’t contain everything from the blog.
Anyhow, I decided it was time to see if the claims of being able to make cheese from powdered milk were true. I figured I'd begin with cottage cheese and ricotta. The recipes seemed simple enough. And then I realized that the recipes were basically identical. So if the ingredients and processes were the same, how could they make both ricotta and cottage cheese? And why is store-bought ricotta so much more expensive than cottage cheese? The things I learn writing this blog...
True ricotta is made from sheep milk. Cottage cheese is made from cow milk. And for the record, feta is made from goat milk (with a little more ageing at the end).
I started with the following recipe. Obviously, it doesn’t use powdered milk, but I felt it necessary to make sure I could make cottage cheese with fresh milk before moving on to powdered. And I would have something of a control to compare the powdered milk cottage cheese results with.
Fresh Whole Milk Cottage Cheese
1 quart whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Place a coffee filter in a large strainer over a bowl and set aside. (Alternatives include using cheesecloth, a
clean discarded t-shirt, or paper towels.)
In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk and salt to 175-180°F. When the milk reaches 175°F, add the vinegar and stir gently to combine. Let curds form (about 5 minutes) and remove from heat if the temperature reaches 180°F. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the curds to the lined strainer. Let drain 20-60 minutes, until desired consistency is achieved.
Yields 1 cup cottage cheese.
Notes: Do not use ultra-pasteurized or organic milk. Ultra-high temperature pasteurized milk alters the protein structure of milk and prevents it from separating into cheese curds and whey. And most organic milk is UHT pasteurized. If this cottage cheese is to be used in a dessert, substitute lemon juice for the vinegar.
Reviews: This is good stuff. The consistency I achieved with this first batch is very similar to ricotta, so much so that I don’t need to buy fresh ricotta ever again
as long as the stores have fresh whole milk.
It’s quick and easy, and I can make just the amount I need. It’s also a lot cheaper than store-bought.
Nonfat Dry Milk Cottage Cheese (do not try this at home)
2 cups water
6 tablespoons nonfat dry milk powder
4 teaspoons white vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coconut oil
In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the water, dry milk, salt, and coconut oil. Cook until the temperature reaches 200°F. Then remove from heat and gently stir in vinegar.
Let sit for 20 minutes, then strain. Yields ½ cup nasty stuff.
Reviews: This was yuck. In comparing it to the fresh whole milk recipe, I see this one had twice as much vinegar. I also noticed that the amount of milk powder called for was less than would be used to make milk.
I thought the above recipe (from a popular food storage site) might work if some alterations were made—decreasing the amount of vinegar and increasing the amounts of milk powder and coconut oil. I also thought keeping the temperature below 180°F might help.
So here we go with the vastly improved option:
Prep School Daily Nonfat Dry Milk Homemade Cottage Cheese
2 cups water
½ cup nonfat dry milk powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoons coconut oil
2 teaspoons white vinegar
Place a coffee filter in a large strainer over a bowl and set aside.
In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk and salt to 175-180°F. When the milk reaches 175°F, add the vinegar and stir gently to combine. Let curds form (about 5 minutes) and remove from heat if the temperature reaches 180°F. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the curds to the lined strainer. Let drain 20-60 minutes, until desired consistency is achieved.
Yields ½ cup cottage cheese.
Reviews: Ok, I think it is not as good as the recipe above that uses fresh whole milk, but it's really not bad. Especially if you're baking with it. To make this creamier and more like store-bought, you can add a little whipping cream.
And as I was working with the nonfat milk powder recipe and adding in coconut oil to increase the fat and creaminess, I thought back to using dehydrated butter (which is 2/3 dry milk powder) in place of butter and dry milk in Magic Mix. And so I wondered whether dehydrated butter powder would work for making cottage cheese. This is the recipe I used (do not try this at home):
2 cups water
½ cup dehydrated butter powder
2 teaspoons vinegar
I omitted the salt because butter has salt and I omitted the oil because the butter is the oil. This did not work at all. But hey, I thought it was worth a try.
Links to related posts:
Basic Food Storage—Making Thick, Creamy Yogurt
Basic Food Storage--Dry Milk
An In-Depth Discussion of Dry Milk
Magic Mix
Emergency Baby Formula
Dehydrated Butter Powder (and How to Make Your Own)
For more information:
https://afoodloverskitchen.com/homemade-ricotta-recipe/
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-ricotta-cheese-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-23326
https://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2014/05/05/how-to-make-ricotta-cheese-from-powdered-milk/
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