Making Cheese In Less Than an Hour Dino-style!

I got an excellent book over Christmas from a friend full of recipes for making fresh cheeses in less than an hour called One Hour Cheese: Ricotta, Mozzarella, Chevre, Paneer - even Burrata. Fresh and Simple Cheese You can Make in an Hour or Less by Claudia Lucero.  

Pretty cool book, right?  

Well, I began to read the book one Sunday afternoon, and was inspired! The introduction literally said, if you are still skeptical about making cheese in less than an hour, stop right now, and try this easy, quick, first-timer recipe. So I did. I stopped and as I got the materials together, some of my house dinosaurs starting reading the instructions and also got excited about the possibility of making cheese. And before I knew it, THEY were the ones making the cheese!

First they put 4 cups of milk in a saucepan on medium high heat and began stirring as it slowly heated up. 

The T-rex got some apple cider vinegar out of the pantry, and when the milk was just beginning to simmer with tiny bubbles at the edges (but not boiling), he poured in about an 1/8 of a cup of apple cider vinegar into the pot. He deftly stirred it once, and watched in amazement.

At this point, I heard lots of gleeful roars and applauds as the milk and vinegar mixture formed curds. The T-rex was so pleased with himself, he couldn't stop strutting around the kitchen bellowing: "Cheese! Cheese! I made cheese!"

He promptly got out the slotted spoon. After giving the curds their 2 minutes or so to cook in the hot whey and after showing the Saltosaurus the proper way to hold a slotted spoon, he went to remove the curds.

The T-rex began to carefully and slowly remove the curds, leaving behind as much whey as possible, while the Saltosaurus looked on in amazement! THIS WAS CHEESE!

At last, with all the cheese in a bowl and as much whey drained off as they could manage, the two dinosaurs fluffed the soft cheese with a fork and added some salt and a seasoning mix (pepper, coriander, chili flakes, etc...). Before I even finished reading the introduction, these dinos had make their very first cheese.  

The T-rex couldn't stop smiling, and belting out "I MADE CHEESE! I MADE CHEESE!" for the remainder of the evening.