I don’t know if you’ve heard (ha), but I’ve been having quite the little fling with cheesemaking. It’s been about a year now, and Daisy keeps squirting out the milk (a whole extra gallon this morning: the fresh spring grass, maybe?) and the cheeses keep rolling out of the press and my stockpile keeps growing and growing and growing. 

The part of cheesemaking that has been the most confounding since the very beginning has been the aging — where to age them, and how. Up until now, I’ve been keeping most of them in the little wine fridge that my daughter-in-law’s father loaned me. We’ve kept the room cold enough all winter that I can store overflow cheeses on top of the wine fridge, or on the folding table that my husband set up for me. (I keep a thermometer in there and “regulate” the temp by opening and closing the door and windows, depending on what it needs.) Cut cheeses that have had sufficient aging, or that I wasn’t thrilled with, got shuttled out to the barn fridge — the regular fridge temps retarded the aging more than I wanted, but oh well. 

And still the cheeses kept rolling in and piling up. 

All throughout this process, my husband and I discussed options. We tried setting the barn fridge to high temps but it was still too cold. We tested a little college fridge — same problem. Friends offered their (perfect) root cellars/basements, but I’m still too new at cheesemaking to outsource part of the process. We talked about digging a root cellar, but the effort seems excessive (perhaps). I suggested we wall off part of our basement with insulation and a vent, but the basement’s too small. We both checked Craigslist and secondhand sites for wine fridges (expensive, and often far away), and I alerted some friends to keep their eyes open.

And then, when the cheeses had piled so high they threatened to bury us alive and my husband realized that I truly had no intention of stopping, he researched temperature regulator thingies, ordered one (pricey at a hundred dollars, but cheaper than wine fridges), installed it in the empty upright freezer that was hanging out in the basement, and then named it The Cheezer (a freezer for cheese, get it?).

He added more shelves and put in a thermometer that we can check from a monitor upstairs. With another thermometer, I tested the temps at different places inside the freezer.

For a couple days, we watched the thermometer obsessively. Would it regulate properly? It seemed to hold steady right around 53-54 degrees, once in a while plunging to 52 or spiking at 55. Satisfied that it worked, I decided to take the plunge, and yesterday I stocked my new cheezer.

I put the (corked) wines on the top two shelves — the screw-top ones we’re storing upright on the canning shelves.

And then I hauled trays (the first couple photos) and baskets and boxes of cheeses from the barn and the wine fridge and the cool room…

….and stocked the shelves, sorting the cheeses by type.

Top top: Cheddars (including Derbys and Lancashires) and Goudas
Top middle: Colbys, Swisses, Alpines, and Butterkäses
Bottom middle: Havarti, Cotswolds, and longer aging cheeses, like Parmesans, Gruyeres, Asiago, Sao Jorge, and Manchego
Bottom bottom: Caerphilly and Jack

In the door, I put the bum cuts of cheese that are to be used in cooking, and then dedicated the rest to Belper Knolles and ready-to-use wedges.

Now the wine fridge is mostly empty. I’ll fill it with the newer cheeses that need to be flipped every couple days, and maybe, now that I have room, I’ll try to age a cheese without vac-packing it, or play around with white and/or blue mold cheeses.

We’ll see.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. I have a bunch of milk that’s waiting to be turned into an Asiago…

P.S. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, What if the thermostat short circuits and the freezer starts freezing??? It’d only take a couple hours for a total loss. I hauled myself out of bed and went downstairs to check the thermostat in the kitchen (it was fine), but then back in bed my mind kept spiraling. This morning the cheezer was absolutely perfect — it’s working magnificently — but I can’t shake the worry. All that cheese…. So, today’s job: researching and ordering an alarm that connects to our phones and that we can program to go off if the temp dips to 45 or so.  

This same time, years previous: beef tamales, the quotidian (3.23.20), almond cardamom tea cake, the solo, what did you eat for lunch?, the tables are turning, the quotidian(3.23.15), an accidental expert, the walk home, oatmeal toffee bars.

Pop some popcorn and put your feet up. It’s the weekend! xo

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Let’s make supper! On the menu this particular night: Thai Chicken Curry, rice, roasted veggies, fruit salad, homemade vanilla pudding, and fruit bars.

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If only all mistakes ended this well, can I get an amen?

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And the videos for last week (because I neglected to post them here, oops)…

So you know how I’ve always said that large cuts of meat intimidate me? Well, no longer. Two (relatively) simple things have set me free: an instant pot (similar) and an excellent pot roast recipe.

Oh, and one more thing! Mushroom salt, my secret weapon.

I use the stuff all the time. I really must tell you about it soon.

Oh! And because I HATE searing meat — even with a high-sided pot, oil gets everywhere — so I finally bought a splatter screen and … it cuts back on the mess most magnificantly. I don’t know what took me so long.

Anyway, now on the regular, I’m transforming large cuts of beef — pot roast, steak, whatever — into tender juicy morsels in mere minutes. In the ippy, it’s all good.  

I’ve made pot roast several times (and I’m writing the recipe as such), but I’ve also used this method with seared, cubed steaks, which I then add to soup or turn into steak pot pies.

The recipe would be good with plain ground beef, too, I think. The flavors are neutral enough that it’s easy to eat on repeat without getting bored and exciting enough that you want to eat it on repeat. 

Like I said, magic.

Any-Cut-of-Beef Pot Roast Magic
Adapted from Amy and Jacky: Pressure Cook Recipes.

1 hunk of beef, several pounds
mushroom salt (or another seasoning salt, or plain old salt and pepper)
1 cup water (or broth)
2 onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine (or balsamic vinegar)
dried rosemary, a hefty pinch
dried thyme, a hefty pinch
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons water
potatoes and carrots, chopped up, optional

Season the beef on all sides with the mushroom salt. Pour a couple tablespoons of olive oil into a hot pan and sear on all sides — about five minutes per side. Trim and discard the fat, if you want, and then transfer the roast to the ippy. 

Add a little more oil to the hot pan, and sauté the onions and garlic until tender; add them to the ippy. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and then pour the liquid, including all the pan scrapings, into the ippy. Add the broth, soy sauce, fish sauce, bay leaves, rosemary, and thyme to the ippy. Close the lid and set the pressure cooker for 45 minutes with natural release: once it’s done, let the pressure release naturally for 25 minutes. Remove the roast to a platter and cover with foil.

If using potatoes and carrot chunks, add them to the ippy now and pressure cook for 5 minutes, quick release. Transfer the veggies to the same plate as the pot roast (slice the pot roast, if you wish). Add the cornstarch slurry to the juices that are still in the ippy and cook on the sauté setting until thick and bubbly. Pour the sauce over the meat and veggies and serve.  

If using steaks: sear, or lightly grill. Trim off excess fat and feed it to the dogs. Cut the steaks into bite-sized pieces, put them in the ippy, and then proceed with the recipe as you would for the pot roast: the only difference is that you pressure cook the meat for less time — about 25 minutes or so with a 20 minute natural release. Use the meat cubes in chilis, pot pies, sandwiches, stir fries, etc. 

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (3.18.19), all things Irish, the last weekend, the quotidian (3.17.14), no buffer, family time, our house lately, shaking things up.