Merry Mozzarella

With bitter cold temperatures and gusty winds keeping us inside we tried our hands at making mozzarella. Santa brought a kit that included all the necessary ingredients, except for pasteurized (not ultrapasteurized!) milk, and step by step instructions. The milk is the key ingredient. Modern pasteurization practices that heat milk to very high temperatures denature the milk proteins (for our geeky science readers) and render the milk unfit for making cheese. We bought milk from the Rhode Island farmers cooperative which worked just great as you can see below. We have dreamed of making mozzarella since reading Animal Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, who's description of homemade mozzarella makes your mouth water. We topped pizza with our own garden tomato sauce and the fresh mozzarella, paired with a Merlot we received for Christmas......mmmmm.