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  Today I needed to use about 4 gallons of fresh Jersey milk, so I chose to make cream cheese, mozzarella, butter and ricotta. The pictures are from the cream cheese batch, which uses whole milk, heavy cream, yogurt, rennet tablet and small amount of water.

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The milk, cream and yogurt are warmed to 100 F then a rennet tablet, previously dissolved in the water, is added to the warm milk mixture. The directions say to stir for 3 minutes, but my mixture set up into curd in less than a minute, probably because it is fresh, raw milk.

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Let the curd sit undisturbed for at least an hour. This is when I made 2 batches of microwave mozzarella! Slice the curd into chunks and let rest for 15 minutes to release whey.

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Gently scoop or pour the curds into a colander lined with muslin. I like to save the whey for ricotta cheese or so many other things, so I catch it in a large pot. The curds are then wrapped with the muslin and refrigerated for 8 hours until it finishes draining. Then I will add a little kosher or sea salt, mix it up and use it in a recipe! Voila!