Cheese!!

Ok, so in one of my previous posts, where I was waxing all poetic about the wonders of Ms. Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I mention that I was all fired up because I bought a kit to make my own mozzarella, but since then I haven't talked about it.
I kinda forgot and got all not fired up and I've been too busy.
But yesterday, the fiancé was coming home from spending 3 days in Vegas, and I was all excited to see him, and I had a bunch of tomatoes from the garden lining my kitchen window - so I stuck some chardonney in the fridge to chill and decided to make the cheese so we could eat a caprese salad when he got home.
Well, I tried to do it. It supposedly only takes 30 minutes. First off, let me tell you that it takes longer than 30 minutes. Though, if you don't screw up the first batch and have to wash everything, run out to the store to get ANOTHER gallon of milk, and then restart, it might take like 45 minutes to an hour. Took me over an hour and a half :P
I think I didn't dissolve the citric acid enough in the first batch, and then heated it too much, so it didn't hold together at all.
There's something wrong when your mozzarella looks like ricotta.
So, for the second batch, I was super diligent and careful. The curds will not be holding together after you heat the milk, but you have to try to scoop them out into a bowl and remove as much of the whey (liquid stuff) as you can. It took me like 15 minutes to just do that part.
Then you microwave, drain, knead, microwave, drain, knead, microwave, knead, stretch, microwave, stretch, shape - and then you drop it in ice water and you're done! It's when you microwave it that it starts to actually look like mozzarella. The ice water is key too. Gotta leave it in there for longer than 5 minutes (learned that one real quick).
So we dined on our most homemade meal to date - basil and tomatoes we'd grown along with mozzarella that I made and damn it was good! We drizzled some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper on it and I was so impressed with myself. It tasted almost like the store bought stuff, and I only ruined one batch before I got it right!
They also say that whey is pretty good plant food, so we strained it and dumped it on the plants in the hope that it will help them grow.
This weekend the fiancé's parents are coming down for dinner, so I think I will make fresh mozzarella since his mom always has to prove she can do stuff better than me - but she's never made her own cheese! HAH!
Yeah, it's petty, what can I say? It's the little things :P