Formaggio Kitchen Food Community programs

So excited when both of these confirmations landed in my inbox

Greater Boston area fans of cheese, charcuterie, and delicious prepared foods are surely no strangers to Formaggio Kitchen. For 30 years Formaggio's flagship Cambridge location (and more recently their South End and New York City branches) have sold an impressive array of cheese, meats, prepared foods, and gourmet goods to a dedicated food appreciating customer-base.

A few weeks ago I saw that Formaggio had started the Formaggio Food Community program, dubbed at the time the Local Cheese and In-House Charcuterie CSAs. Formaggio prides itself on working with and supporting farms and cheese makers who uphold traditional production methods and put real food first. In this vein they have started the Formaggio Food Community program which has both Local Cheese and In-House Charcuterie options.

After reading the Food Community page and seeing what each option entailed I was sold!! After talking it over with Gail we decided to sign up for 6 month small shares of both the Local Cheese and In-House Charcuterie options. Gail and I both love cheese and think this is a great way to support New England cheese producers as well as expand our knowledge of some of the great cheese's this area has to offer. As for the In-House Charcuterie option- this one is pretty much all me as Gail is only starting to eat meat and I don't expect her to be on board with all the salty, smoked, and preserved stuff! Fine by me, Charcuterie is one of my favorite food items - so much so that if a restaurant has a charcuterie board on their menu there is a 90% chance I will order it.

We signed up for a small share of each as the Formaggio site said it would be appropriate for 1-2 people. 

For the Local Cheese program with each monthly pickup we can expect four varieties of cheese (1/4 to 1/3 pound of each) from different New England producers. Each month the pickup will have one example of the following: Strong cheese, soft cheese, and firm cheese.

For the In-House Charcuterie share it will be more of a surprise as the site only provided an example of what we can expect, but reading the example had me drooling:

You'll find four examples of Julie's handiwork in each installment. The list below is an example of what you'll receive. The contents may vary slightly depending on the offerings of our network of local farms, as well as Julie's creativity and inspiration.

Small Share: 2 fresh sausage links (lamb, pork, or chicken), 1/4 pound of pâté or rillettes, 1/4 pound of cured meat (bacon, pancetta, guanciale, etc.), 1/4 - 1/3 pound of a seasonally appropriate "surprise"

I'm extremely excited to see and taste all the delicious cheeses and charcuterie Gail and I have coming to us between June and November and cannot wait to share all of our goodies! Pickups will be the first weekend of each month. I will try and post a recap with pictures of each pickup, so stay tuned!

What to do with 5 gallons of Raw Milk?/Our Cheese Making Begins!

With all the raw milk we picked up from Farmer X, Gail and I formulated a cheese making plan. We would attempt to make Queso Blanco, 30-Minute Mozzarella, Fromage Blanc, Whole Milk Ricotta, and maybe even some butter!

Below I am going to share the recipe for the Queso Blanco. For the rest of the cheeses I'm providing some pictures and commentary, but no recipes. I encourage anybody who is interested in beginning cheese making to visit Ricki Carroll's website where there are some great recipes, tips, books, DVDs , and all the rennet, cultures and supplies you will need to get started. A tip for beginners: The website sells a few different kits for basic cheese making and are a great starting point for beginners!

We decided to start with one of the most basic cheeses: Queso Blanco

The recipe is pretty simple:

1/2 gallon of milk

1/4 cup of vinegar

Butter Muslin

Heat milk to 185 F (stirring constantly to avoid scorching). When the temperature reaches 185 F slowly stir in the vinegar and raise the temperature to 200 F. As you raise it you will see the milk begin coagulating. At 200 F the milk should be completely curdled and you will be able to easily see the curds & whey separating. Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. and the butter muslin filled with curds for a few hours until it stops dripping. When it's done dripping cut the curds into cubes or slices.

The cheese looks just like tofu, but tastes so rich and sticks to your teeth when you chew it. Like tofu, this Queso Blanco takes on the taste of the spices it is cooked with, making it ideal for something like stir fry.

You can see the process in the below 5 photographs including the final product - Queso Blanco cubes tossed in garlic infused olive oil with rosemary!

(waiting for the temperature to rise and stirring the curds)

(draining & hanging the curds)

(the final product!)

Next up we made a 30-minute Mozzarella.

Here are some pictures of the 30-minute Mozzarella process as well as the final product (which actually took closer to 45 minutes, but we are still beginners).

(draining the curds and testing to see if the Mozzarella is ready. it wasn't quite firm enough in this picture)

(final product: an 18-ounce ball of Mozzarella)

Next up was a whole milk ricotta. Another simple cheese: Citric Acid is the key to this one.

(Left: the curds being separated from the whey. Right: curds hanging and draining.)

Next up is fromagina, a wonderful combination of Fromage Blanc & Marscapone. This cheese was time consuming, but the time consuming part is in the wait. Once the milk is heated to proper temperature the culture is added and the milk is left to set at room temperature for 12-24 hours. After they set the curd is ladled into a colander lined with butter muslin and hung to dry for an additional 4-6 hours. Once dried to the correct consistency I added fresh chives from the garden to give this a nice spring feel:

Finally, Gail decided she would try her hand at making butter. She skimmed the cream off about a gallon or so of milk. If you look at the below photo you can see the cream has risen to the top of the milk, just at the bottom of the vertical lines on this plastic bottle:

(cream rises to the top in a bottle of raw milk)

She shook up the cream for a while by hand and separated some of the buttermilk off, after that she did most of the mixing with an electric mixer until she had a nice creamy consistency. At this point she separated out the remaining buttermilk and returned the whipped butter to a jar and briefly shook it until it solidified. She ended up producing about 5-6 0z of butter and nearly 12oz of buttermilk.

The first photo is of the clump of butter fresh from the jar perfectly formed. The second shows the startling difference in color between the butter and buttermilk!

All in all I would say our first attempt and cheese making has been a wild success!

Cider in the City - Allandale Farm.

Wednesday night was Allandale Farms antique apple event Cider in the City. The event was packed with lots of kids running around and filling up on apples, cheese, cider donuts, and cider!

Cider in the City featured some great apple related products:

Farnum Hill Cider was on hand offering samples of their Semi-Dry and Extra-Dry sparking ciders as well as Extra-Dry and Kingston Black Reserve still ciders. Located at Poverty Lane Orchards in Lebanon, NH they believe in the traditional meaning of cider, - an alcoholic beverage fermented from apples, similar to wine, but replacing grapes with apples. Gail and I preferred the sparkling ciders. I ended up coming home with a bottle of the Semi-Dry sparkling cider which I will be enjoying on thanksgiving.

Also on hand were cider donuts from courtesy of local bistro Vee Vee. I've never met a cider donut I didn't like. Though I prefer them warm and fresh the offering from Vee Vee was more dense then usual but utterly satisfying. The extra's made for a great companion to my morning coffee yesterday and today!

The real highlight for me was the Scott Farm (Dunnerston, VT) antique (heirloom) apples such as Ashmead's Kernel, Hudson's Golden Gem, and Roxbury Russet paired with savory cheeses like 2 year aged Grafton Cheddar, Valdeon Blue, and a truly delicious Chevre Noir from Fromagerie Tournevent of Chesterville, Que Canada. What is Chevre Noir? It is a goats milk cheese made in the cheddar style! Unique and delicious.

Speaking of cheddar, while at Allandale I grabbed a 7 oz. wedge of Ford Farm traditional farmhouse cheddar. While not local, Ford Farm cheese's are made using traditional slow production methods and bear the EU Protected Designation of Original seal.

Cider in the City obviously also featured both hot and cold cider as well as a cider press demonstration which many of the children were mesmerized by. Not to mention a delightful barrel fire which would have been nice to warm up next to had it not been a balmy 60 degrees all afternoon.

All in all it was an excellent way to wind down after work and enjoy a variety of cheeses and apple products. A wonderful celebration of the fall harvest, we came home with a bottle of hard cider, a bag of antique apples, a pound of cheese and half a dozen cider donuts.

"Life has been pretty good. Who am I kidding it's been grand." ~Al Schnier - moe.

How have YOU been celebrating the fall harvest season??