Cottage Cheese

Not as successful. Alton Brown's recipe.

Ingredients

• 2c skim milk
  
• 1.5tbsp white vinegar
  
• pinch salt
  
• heavy cream / half and half / whole milk
  

Put the milk in a sauce pan and heat to 120*F. Take it off the heat and add the vinegar, stirring for a minute or two. The curd will separate from the whey. Now cover the pot and let sit for 30 minutes. When you're done, strain the curd and whey through a tea towel, catching all the curd. Wrapping the curd in the tea towel, proceed to rinse the curd (through the towel) in cold water, squeezing the curd (and excess water) periodically. Finally, dump the curd into a bowl with a pinch of salt and break apart into smaller curds with a spoon. When you're ready to serve, add a little cream/half-and-half/whole milk and stir together.

Thoughts: I'm not a huge cottage cheese eater to begin with, so this wasn't really for me. Claire didn't seem to like it too much. I mean, it has nothing to do with the stuff being home-made - that actually made it a lot more appealing - it's just that it was kind of bland. Not a lot of flavor. We used whole milk, so maybe heavy cream next time (if there is a next time). But store-bought is just fine for us. Another (minor) problem is that for a pint of milk you get out maybe 1/2c of cottage cheese. Something to consider.
Claire: as a hard-core cottage cheese fan, I had an issue with both the texture and the flavor. I don't know if there will be a next time. A fine recipe to try, for sure, but Alton Brown has failed us for the LAST TIME.
No, no, we'll still use him. But probably not for this. I'm also editing the disaster index.

Disaster Index: 9-10/10