I don’t have room for chickens. My backyard is the size of a king bed, and although it’s fenced in, it’s (unfortunately) nudged up against a highway with a seemingly endless stream of cars that would inevitably scare the you-know-what out of the chickens. I don’t have a garden in my bark dust-ridden backyard either, but when spring finally arrives, I’ll be working on building a vegetable patch in the twin-bed-sized side yard of my rented apartment — landlord permitting. For me, the inability to partake in some more traditionally recognized forms of eco-living forces me to think outside of the boundaries of my small living space.
I love, and eat a lot of, cheese. Being the quasi vegetarian that I am, cheese is my primary source of protein. It’s also one of the most heavily processed items I buy, and it stands out on my receipts as one of the most expensive, too. So, I made my own cheese. (Reducing your carbon footprint works best when you consider what you use a lot of, and when you rethink how you can make that commodity less environmentally taxing.)
It was fun. It was delicious! And it was fairly easy for a first-timer with little to no kitchen skills. The best part is that it required just a stove, a pot, a strainer, measuring instruments, a spoon, cheesecloth/string, milk and lemon. Altogether, the endeavor costs about $2 per fist-sized ball of locally-produced, non-imported, chemical and preservative-free cheese. By using local milk, from a dairy farm less than one mile away, and by producing the cheese (and eating it) in my home, I eliminated all shipping costs and emissions, and made the need for preservatives completely superfluous.
The recipe is as follows, and you can follow the above video for directions on how to make your own cheese:
1 quart (4 cups) fresh, local whole milk
1 cup active-culture buttermilk
2 tsp lemon juice or white vinegar, more if needed
3/4 tsp salt, or to taste
(Note: To go even greener, you can reuse the cheesecloth (boil it after use to get it clean) and you can even reuse the whey (the watery milk that’s left when you initially separate the curds). Just use the leftover whey and repeat the process to make more cheese — it makes ricotta!)
Join me each Wednesday for new suggestions about how you might live a healthier, safer, kinder life, one that will be feasible, and one that’s as sustainably yours as it is mine.
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