Edible DIY Project: Italian Cheese

It’s fun to re-purpose old furniture or create a funky light fixture out of mason jars, but how about a DIY project you can eat?
Cultures For Health is a web-based company that offers DIY starter kits to create homemade goodies such as yogurt, kefir, sourdough, kombucha and cheese. Since I have a deep abiding love for all things Italian and have never met a cheese I didn’t like, the Basic Italian Cheese Making Kit seemed like a match made in formaggio heaven.

The box contains everything you need to create mozzarella, ricotta and mascarpone (except the milk) and includes an easy-to-read instruction book.
You can use cow, goat, whole, reduced-fat, pasteurized or raw milk to customize your cheese making. The process to make ricotta and mascarpone is incredibly easy and takes about 30 minutes, plus time for the cheese to drain. Once it is finished you can literally dig in or use it in your favorite recipe.
The mozzarella, however, is a whole different beast. This is not that dry, rubbery block of mozzarella found in your supermarket dairy case, but rather the soft, buttery small-batch kind found in gourmet markets. It’s picky about temperature (and yeah I screwed up the first batch), but the second batch came out absolutely perfect.

I get a kick out of scratch cooking and when those cheese curds reached the correct temperature and started to stretch, let me tell ya, it was a thing of beauty! It’s that same triumphant feeling one gets after the successful completion of a tough workout or when you take those last few steps over the finish line.
Cheese is an excellent source of nutrition, especially when made from the milk of grass-pastured animals. It’s a great source of calcium and protein, too!
Stretch your culinary boundaries with an edible DIY project; support a real food lifestyle and feel good about the foods you eat!
How about it, are you up for the cheese-making challenge? I enlisted the help of my Best Foodie Friend for this kitchen adventure. —Karen