Cheesemaking class September 12th

A new class of soft cheese making will be September 12 at 1 pm. We will make Mozzarella and probably some yogurt. It's very satisfying to to teach other people to make their own food. I like giving the power back to the individual instead of big profit Agriculture when making cheese is very easy and much more tasty when you make it yourself.
While cheese making is theoretically a science, it is also an art! The skills and the understanding it takes to turn milk and rennet into a lovely cheese can be taught but really must be developed with time and experience.



Here are some pictures of the cheddar cheese I made this week:



The milk is heated, culture added, then the rennet and left alone to set



The curd is cut into smaller pieces to allow the whey to drain








Depending on what you are making, the curds are cooked








Curds are drained








Salt is added to curds and
packed into the cheese press







10 lbs for 30 min....then 40 lbs pressure for 12 hours.
Then the curd is flipped and 40 more lbs for 12 hours.







Here is the cheese being undone and flipped








The cheese will dry for a few days and then be waxed to age until you decide it's done. Mild cheddar is done sooner, a sharp cheddar is done much later like 4-6 months down the road.

I'm taking a class soon on raising poultry. The importance of grass fed chemical free chicken and eggs cannot be stressed enough. More people and cities in America are realizing this and changing the laws to allow more chickens in the city. Many times the law will say no roosters but chickens don't need a rooster to lay eggs. These laws may be handled by the city or the county you live in.

Save kitchen scraps to feed the hens (Cat ref INF13/143 f13)

I've raised chickens in the city, it's fun and interesting to watch them interact. Chickens can have distinct personalities of their own. The eggs and manure for my garden really helped too.
I want to develop a class on raising poultry because I believe we need to take back our food from big profit agriculture. I don't want chemicals in my chickens or in my eggs. I don't want to contribute to animal abuse perpetrated on factory farmed chickens. Chickens are easy and fun to have in your backyard. I think almost everyone should think about doing this. In this class we will talk about housing, diseases, and daily care of Chickens, Geese and Turkeys.

French Intensive methods

FRENCH INTENSIVE METHOD

A promoter of this system had this to say to his British compatriots about the French and their "stinkin’" cloches:

We have several important things to learn from the French, and not the least among these is the winter and spring culture of salads inasmuch as enormous quantities of these are sent from Paris to our markets during the spring months… The fact that we have to be supported by our neighbours with articles that could be so easily produced in this country is almost ridiculous. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this culture for a nation of gardeners like the British ; and if it were the only hint that we could take from the French cultivators with advantage, it would be well worth consideration.

French intensive gardening, also called Biointensive Gardening, is a gardening technique which is designed to maximize yields, using a combination of biodynamic agriculture and specific alterations to the normal garden layout and planting system. In addition to being very productive, French intensive gardening is also extremely efficient, and an astounding array of crops can be produced in a very small space when the garden laid out well. This form of gardening can also be beautiful, especially when gardeners take the time to plan and map before plunging into the project.
One of the defining features of French intensive gardening is the raised used. In this style of intensive gardening, the beds are very large, allowing gardeners to walk in the beds rather than along established pathways to perform garden maintenance. The beds are also double dug, which means that the soil is worked to twice the usual depth. The intensive working of the foil in French intensive gardening produces light, fluffy soil well amended with compost and humus, which encourages healthy plant growth and the production of deep roots.
The beds are also mounded, rather than flattened, creating more surface area for planting in each bed. While it takes a lot of work to establish the beds for French intensive gardening, many gardeners feel that it is worth it, especially in a small space. The garden is maintained with the addition of rich compost, organic fertilizers, and daily light watering.
Another important aspect of French intensive gardening is plant spacing. Plants are typically grown very close together, with the leaves of the plants creating a cover which reduces weeds and helps keep the soil moist, acting almost like mulch. Gardeners who use this system also utilize companion planting, a planting system which pairs plants to their mutual advantage, using things like beans to enrich the soil for energy hungry plants, for example, or scattering Marigolds in the garden to reduce insect pests.
You may also hear French intensive gardening called the Marais System, or just the System. This technique was adopted in France in the middle of the 19th century, and it spread to other regions of Europe such as Austria from there. In people with limited space for gardening, French intensive gardening is a great way to get the maximum benefit of a garden space. Fortunately, many companion plants are pretty as well as functional, so French intensive gardening can be used to create a form of landscaping as well as a source of food.

What are the features of bio intensive gardening?

1. Maximum utilization of soil especially in areas where enough space is impossible to obtain. All vacant spaces of the soil shall be utilized. The kind of plant that shall be planted is aligned on the features of the soil and the shape of the garden plot. All the space in the plot will be filled with assorted but fully organized plants and these are also interchangeably planted on different seasons. This method shall guarantee that all year round the gardener shall reap fruits and different types of vegetables.
2. Using the double-digging method. The soil is aerated and is more conducive to plant grow because the earth worms will be encouraged to reside in the garden plots hence in the long run the soil is sustain ably fertilized.
3. Use of compost and the use of organic fertilizers in the planting beds will ensure the nutrients supply needed by the plants. These will also help increase the volume of microscopic organism that are friendly to the plants, not unlike the use of synthetic fertilizers which will in the long run destroy the balance of the soil in terms of biodiversity of the microscopic organisms in the soil.
4. The use of indigenous cultivars; these are local vegetables that are resistant to pest due to their adaptability in the regions.
5. Sustenance for the balance diet of the family. Selecting the kind of vegetables that are highly nutritious and of good quality will ensure the source of nutrients for the whole family. It must include root crops, legumes, leafy veggies and fruit bearing crops.
6. Use of natural pest control without harming the environment and without side-effect to human health. This is done by planting crops that are naturally resistant to pest and also inserting plants in the garden rows that emits odors repellant to most insects, such as onions and garlic and ginger. In extreme cases where pesticide is necessary an organic component is used by utilizing the indigenous compounds. Pruning of the infected leaves of the plants is also manually done to suppress the spreading of plant disease.
7. The seeds of the plants must be collected from the matured crops in the garden to avoid unnecessary expense to buy the seed from the seed store. The gardener must reserve a certain plant for seed production, just a very small portion of the garden area. The cropping cycle must be ensured by creating a miniature seed bank of the indigenous plants.
8. Labor-intensive in the initial phase of gardening. But in the passing of times the method of bio-intensive gardening is not laborious anymore because it is not necessary to plow or shovel the soil for recultivation. This help a lot in the production of nutritious food for the small family and this is also practical for the poor family because they can resell the excess production of the veggies and at the same time almost all members of the family can help in gardening and eventually in reaping the fruits.

I can teach many kinds of classes, but it takes time to set them up. I'm definitely having a soft and hard cheese making class. Those are very popular. I hope to have a goat cheese making class this Fall too.
Future classes may include Beading jewelry, bread making, square foot gardening, soap making and City Chickens. I will keep posting so everyone can know what I'm offering in classes this fall and where.

Picture framing can be expensive. Not only do you have to buy the frame, matte, and print, you also have to pay for the labor of someone else. However, what if you could frame pictures all by yourself? You could design the perfect framing job for whatever memory you want to capture. The skill of framing pictures in not as difficult as you think. A small investment in a mat cutter up front and I'm on my way to save 50-100$ every time I mat and frame something myself. The money you save will pay for the mat cutter in no time. All I need is some instruction, and it could turn into a life changing hobby.I'm signing up for a class in Kansas City in September to learn how to frame my own prints and pictures. The class will show me everything I need to know to frame and matte my own prints. Learn how to take measurements, and how to cut mattes. Also, I'll learn tips for selecting colored and textured mattes.

New classes for the Fall.....

I'm trying to come up with some new interesting classes to teach at the MRC this Fall. I know I will be teaching soft and hard cheese making classes. I love teaching cheese making, but I also would like to come up with other classes since I learned to can this summer and I'm loving it.

1943 Poster. Artist: Parker, Alfred, 1906-1985. United States. Office of War Information.

Canning and freezing food cannot be thought of as chic and stylish but the trend does fit into the movements of going green, urban farming and local food eating and growing. People want to take back their food from factory food farms. They want to eat well and eat healthy. Sales of canning equipment is up 50% from last year. The U.S.D.A.’s strict guidelines for canning procedures, which have become even stricter over the last two decades. Blake Slemmer has written these guidlines in plain language for the rest of us on http://www.pickyourown.org/ Another trend in canning is the community kitchen or community canning event such as the ones on http://www.yeswecanfood.com/ . Everyone comes together at the time that a certain fruit or vegetable is ripe and cans together and then split or sell the proceeds. Canning has fallen out of favor since convenience foods appeared on the grocery shelves in the last fifty years. But if people only knew the chemicals and toxins they were eating to get those convenience foods, the inhumane treatment of animals we are supporting by using those foods, I think many people would think twice about using them all the time. The fresh taste of homemade strawberry jelly or orange marmalade is too good not to learn how to do it yourself, even if only for special occasions.

I'm wondering if there would be an interest in learning how to make a cheesecake? This is simple to do if you know the secrets. I've always had very good luck with my cheesecakes, attaining the holy grail of cheesecake making, a cheesecake without a cracked top, almost every time. Homemade cheese cake is good food. Very rich and flavorful, especially if you make it yourself, without preservatives and other extra ingredients.

Another idea I've had is a Gingerbread House party--great memories for the holidays. Get together for an old fashioned, pre-holiday festivity, complete with music and cocoa! What better way to welcome the holidays than by building a gingerbread house to show off for weeks to come! We'll have the "building materials" ready so all the parent-child teams have to do is choose from a variety of edible decorations and let your imaginations run wild.