Adventures in Fresh Milk

My folks left for Cape Cod and a much needed vacay off the old farmstead yesterday. So, I'm holding down the fort with the help of my Aunt Sue. On Saturday, I went with my da to the farm over in Carroll county where they have a small share in a dairy herd, to pick up their fresh milk. Rich, tasty stuff. I had fresh cream in my tea yesterday morning.



These are weaned calves having their lunch, the mom cows were out in high pasture.



My madre does wonderful things with fresh, whole milk. Like making cheese!



We had homemade pizza with shiitakes, sundried tomatoes, homemade pesto and mozzarella Saturday night. My da's pizza had ground buffalo too. She left me with a nice sized block of paneer, so tonight I decided to try my hand at making paneer masala. As usual, I had to tinker with it a bit. I didn't have any tomatoes and I didn't want to bust open a half gallon can of chopped, so I used two small cans of tomato paste and added water and extra cream to get the right consistency. I used Once Again brand cashew butter and I would recommend using ground cloves. I also used some healthy olive oil instead of clarified butter. Don't forget to take out the bay leaf! My Aunt Sue can't have rice, so we ate it over whole wheat pasta. Pretty good. The paneer crumbled up, not as solid as what you get at a restaurant. But it was homemade, nutritious and delish!



Later on Saturday evening, I was out in the paddock filling the water trough and had to dash inside for my camera when I saw the clouds over the house catch the sunset. Gorgeous!