Making Mozzarella

Curtis, going to school and working where he does, has access to lots of things that normal people wouldn't.  Namely, all the supplies to make mozzarella cheese.  So, this weekend we decided to make some!  It was quite fun and exciting, and the resulting cheese was ridiculously good.

We used lots of milk... non-homogenized whole milk...yack! for drinking but perfect for making cheese!  We warmed the milk to a certain temperature, kept it there for a while and then added the magic ingredients.  

After adding the ingredients and waiting a little while, we had cheese curds!  Lots of cheese curds.  We let those sit too. 

Then we dumped out all the whey and just had the curds left.  Did you know that if you cook mozzarella whey you can make ricotta cheese?  We want to try it out next time.

Then we hung up the curds in some cheese cloth to let the rest of the whey drain out.  After a couple of hours we put the curds in the fridge because it was past midnight and we decided to finish the process the next day.

To turn the curds into mozzarella, we just cut up the curds into small pieces and then added really hot, salty water to them.  This cooks to curd and adds salt and flavor.

As the curds cook, you are able to pull and stretch them, making mozzarella cheese.  This was really fun to do even though the curds were pretty hot.

And that's all there was to it!   We ended up with delicious, fresh mozzarella that we used in lasagna.  And we have some left over that we plan on using for pizza soon.  Talk about yummy!  

Contact paper cover: a tutorial

I had this pink trunk that I got when I still liked the color pink.  Needless to say, my tastes have changed over the years and pink has fallen out of favor with me.  So, I had trying to think of easy ways to fix up this trunk.  While I was with my mom over Christmas, she gave me the great idea to cover it with contact paper.  So she got me some contact paper at her local pharmacy and when I got home, I got to work.

It was pretty simple to cover the trunk.  There were some trouble spots, but mostly it was easy, just time consuming.

The supplies I used were contact paper, of course, scissors, a scrapper, a measuring tape and an x-acto knife.

Then I just measured the trunk and then the contact paper, cut it and then put it on the trunk.  I started in the middle and smoothed the contact paper out towards the edges to avoid air bubbles.

Then, I just cut around the metal parts of the trunk with the x-acto knife and that's all that was to it!

Cutting around the metal parts took some practice and I messed up a few times but overall, the trunk looks pretty good and I am so happy with how it turned out.

And then, to top it all off, we decided it would make a great coffee table!  I have been wanting a new coffee table for ages and the new and improved trunk fits the bill perfectly and is totally our style.
What do you think?  Do you have anything you could cover with contact paper?  It's an easy and inexpensive solution to covering up something you don't like, don't you think?


PS: We're heading to Ikea this weekend....so excited!!!  Any fun weekend plans ahead for you?

Virginia is for Lovers

We spent our Christmas break at my parents's house up in Virginia.  We had such a good time and I had so much fun I stayed an extra week without Curtis!
Besides doing the Christmas/New Years stuff (which was a blast) we also spent a day doing some history stuff.  Virginia has so much history and I love going to places and doing things like this and I was super excited to go. We went to Yorktown and Jamestown.  I had never been to Yorktown before so it was really fun to see it, and Curtis hadn't been to either so I hope it was fun for him too.  And after feeding the seagulls while waiting for the ferry to cross the James River, I knew we were in for some fun!

Curtis and I thought we were all ready for war...

That is until they found out that Curtis was a plunderer and I was a gambler....

Giving George Washington bunnies ears didn't help our case either.  That's okay though because those guns they used were really heavy.  Doubt I would have been much good in the Revolution.

And now to go back even more in history---

Chief Powhatan set Curtis to work grinding up some meal while I just looked on.  It was nice to have him do all the cooking.

Then the Virginia Company decided to show up!  "In 1607, we sailed the open sea..."  And trust me, sailing across the Atlantic in these boats wouldn't have been as glamours as it looked in Pocahontas.  They are a lot smaller than you'd think.

Curtis would have been too tall for everything, even the beds!

But we did try some armor on and I was all set to go.  Curtis's however was a little small.  I guess that's what happens when the dress-up stuff is meant for kids.

And of course Curtis managed to find some form of bowling.  He can do that anywhere, even in Jamestown.

I like Pocahontas the best though, so I decided to go "Just around the river bend!"  Just like she would...

Replacements

Shortly after moving to North Carolina, my bike got stolen.  It was really my fault, since I never got another lock just for my bike.  So, when Curtis went to school, it was left unlocked.  Living where we do, unlocked things obviously get stolen.  Sadly, so do locked things.  About a month or so later, Curtis's locked up bike got stolen.  Since then, we had been bike-less and sad about it.
However, we are bike-less no more!  My parents got both of us new bikes for Christmas and we are loving them!  I love having a girl's bike instead of a boy one and Curtis likes being able to ride to school again.

We did quite a bit of riding in VA and are looking forward to being able to bike places instead of drive.  Hopefully the rain will stop soon so we can...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, friends!  I hope you are as excited about this weekend as I am, and I hope your day is as wonderful as can possibly be!

Christmas Cat

The other day, Curtis and I were wrapping gifts to send off to family and, of course, Scarlet wanted to help.  She just loves when we start curling the ribbon, and is oh-so "helpful" when she starts playing with it.....  After she had carted off some of the ribbon, I decided to decorate her myself.  Scarlet needs to be festive too, right?

PS: It's kind of hard to take a picture of a cat while she's playing...ha ha.  I thought this was a cool picture anyway.

She was a really good sport about it, surprisingly.  As long as she couldn't see the ribbon, she left it alone.  It was only when the curly part fell in front of her that she tried to chew it off.  I thought she was extremely cute but had to cut it off because we didn't want her eating it.

Are you all ready for Christmas?  I'm almost done with my gifts.  Just have a few more to make and a birthday present to get for Curtis...

Handmade Gift Exchange: the result

I don't know if you remember when I suggested signing up for the handmade gift exchange hosted by Linda over at Craftaholics Anonymous, but I did and I signed up for it myself.  And, crazy enough, it turns out that not only did I get paired up with a married student at BYU but Linda who puts this exchange together is actually in my parents's Branch...how crazy is that?

Crazy stuff aside, here's what my partner sent me---

It's too bad I don't have pierced ears, but I'm more than sure I can find someone who will love these earrings.  I love this pins though.  I put pins on pretty much every sweater I wear and so it's nice to have some more to add to the collection.


And here is what I made for her---

I hope she likes it!
This was a fun thing to do and I just might have to make a tradition out of it.