Violet Vinegar

My mom -Elderberry- and I decided to try our hand at Violet Vinegar. :)

1. Collect Violets

Collecting violets is a lot more fun when collecting with a friend. :)

 2.  Gather your items. 

Here I have the violets I collected & washed.  I am also using 

white wine vinegar and there is the glass jar.  I know there is

a no-no with vinegar and metal like the lid, but the vinegar won't come 

in contact with the metal in this project.

3.  Violets go in the jar :)

 Really, how gorgeous are they!!

I love the color!

4.  Fill jar with vinegar or at least until covering all the violets.

5.  Now this pretty concoction will go sit on my windowsill for two weeks.

I will post pictures as it progresses!!

:)

Experiment: Cheesemaking!

My mom got instructions to make homemade mozzarella cheese.  She tested the recipe out, then I came over to make my own cheese.  Fun Stuff!

1 gallon of milk heating after citric acid and rennet were added.

Slowly waiting for curds to happen.

Curds and whey!

Separating the curds from they whey.

Big old lump of curds.

Stretching the cheese after salt's been added.

Still stretching.

Mozzarella balls cooling in ice water.

At the end, after the cheese balls were done cooling, I packed them up in zip-lock bags with a touch of olive oil and a few herbs (oregano, basil, garlic salt).

Final result?  YUMMY!