Homemade cottage cheese

"Whatever has happened—that’s what will happen again; whatever has occurred—that’s what will occur again. There’s nothing new under the sun. ¹⁰ People may say about something: “Look at this! It’s new!” But it was already around for ages before us." Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 CEB

What a treasure trove my mom and mother-in-law left me! I have their recipe files - boxes and boxes of news clippings, hand written recipes and whole recipe books. There are way too many recipes to keep them all, but as I look through them, I've found some really great oldies that are new to me which I plan to keep and pass on to my daughters.

This morning I found a wonderful recipe to make my own cottage cheese from ingredients
I already have in my kitchen. We are trying to live more frugally so cottage cheese is one product we don't usually have on our grocery list, though I really enjoy it.

To start with, you make a recipe of buttermilk starter. It's made with powdered milk, store-bought buttermilk and a dash of salt. Once you get it going, you shouldn't need to buy the buttermilk again.

To make it, start by making the instant powdered milk - usually about 1 and 1/3 cup of the dried milk and 2 and 3/4 cups of water. (Use 1 cup less of water to mix the milk than the box recipe calls for. ) Mix thoroughly.

Add 1 cup of the regular buttermilk and stir until well blended. Let stand at room temperature in the kitchen.

After 24 hours, you have a jar of buttermilk "clabber" which you can stir and store in a sterile glass jar in the fridge. It should keep for several weeks that way, according to the author. Use as you would use buttermilk in any recipe. It also serves as a starter for future recipes of cottage cheese or more buttermilk (much like you would use a sourdough bread starter.)

- OR for the cottage cheese -

You can let the buttermilk-powdered milk mixture stand in a jar on the counter without stirring for a total of 48 hours, until the bottom third of the jar contains clear liquid (the whey) and the top 2/3 of the jar contains curds.

Without stirring it, pour the mixture into a large strainer filled with cheesecloth or a large wire-mesh strainer. When drained, voila! You have cottage cheese. Refrigerate the curds and use as you would any store-bought cottage cheese.

The recipe went on to say that the next day, the author would show us how to make a low calorie, low-fat substitute for sour cream using the homemade cottage cheese - but I haven't found that piece yet! Guess I better keep looking... since I'm all about low cal, low fat goodies! LOL!

Thank you Lord for helping us revive old recipes to help live more frugally today! Amen.