I’m also acquiring a growing list of processed food ingredients that I won’t allow into our home for consumption…unfortunately these are found in just about EVERYTHING…even so-called organic products.

These two factors have culminated in my growing obsession to learn the food preservation crafts of old and today, I’d like to share with you, how I’ve learned to make cheese.

There are a lot of complicated sounding ways to get started on a simple cream cheese procedure. Most require adding some starter and heating the milk and all the yada yada….but I like to think like this….How did people do this before you could order a starter culture online? My guess is that each environment has it own mix of microbiology that would enjoy the chance to colonize my milk. My other guess is that culturing with local beneficial bacteria is a great way to aid the immune system in keeping bad bacteria in check.

So being a food rebel, and a wannabe scientist, I let my raw milk (I’m lucky to have a source for this from my friend and local farmer Kelly Hodgkin at Beeloved Farm) sit out for about two days.

It’s not how long it sits that matters, but what texture the milk turns into. I was looking for it to look kind of like yogurt. Once it clabbered into that jiggly texture, I took an old pillowcase and placed it over a wide mouthed mason jar. In around six hours, with the liquid in the jar and the solids in the case, I tasted my cheese (the solids).

Yuck! I’m not going to lie. It tasted nothing like sweet cream cheese. It tasted like sour milk. I nearly threw it away but got distracted before I did. I’m very distractable. Well that was a good thing because later when I went to the grocery store, I walked past the place where they have the various Mexican cheeses. I noticed the cojita and realized that my sour cheese, by adding sea salt, would taste exactly like that but creamier.

I hadn’t made bad cheese AT ALL. I just made something different than I had been expecting…and with the salt it was better than cream cheese. I made something that perfectly compliments beans, Greek salads, or is good nibbled plain at 11:00 pm (I’m such a mouse).

So let me review in a less rambly way the steps for creamy cojita or whatever you want to call it.

1. Let raw milk sit out until it’s jiggly (clabbered).
2. Strain through a pillowcase to separated the curds from the whey.
3. Mix solids left in pillowcase with salt
4. Enjoy!

Note; don’t throw out the liquid. It’s an essential ingredient for the next installment of Kitchen Rebel where I’ll teach you how to preserve food through fermentation.

2 1/2 CUP dried pinto beans
1/2 cup bacon saved up bacon grease (here’s why I chose bacon fat over vegetable oil like a normal person would do)
1/4 CUP Balsamic Vinegar
1 TB sugar (honey, maple, rapadura will work)
1/2 cup leftover pulled pork
3 TB Ancho chili powder (regular chili powder works too)
1 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp Cumin
2 TB sliced green onion
few sprigs of cilantro

I rinsed the beans, boiled them for 10 minutes, transferred them to the crock pot with half the bacon fat, and cooked them for 6 hours or until soft. Then I added the rest of the bacon fat to a pan on the grill and refried the beans while mashing them with a potato masher.

Then I seasoned with the pork, balsamic, chili powder, cumin, and garlic powder adding sea salt to taste….lots of salt. Once I got the seasoning right, tasting to test.

I then transferred the dip to a serving bowl and garnished with green onions and cilantro.

Serve warm with chips. If I’d had the foresight I’d have purchased sprouted spelt tortillas, cut them into triangles, fried them in coconut oil, and sprinkled with salt. This is because coconut oil is a very nutritious and delicious oil that can hold a high frying temperature making the chips extra crispy. Doing this myself is also the only way I can guarantee a trans-fat free chip. Sprouted grains are also far more digestible than unsprouted grains.