This is a Cheesey story......Making justo. Finnish squeaky Cheese

Corrected directions below.:

 Grandson Craig and Andrea came over to make Finnish Juusto yesterday
 squeaky cheese we also call it.

We had "Whey" to much fun...
Our history of Juusto.....
Now about this Cheese thirty some years ago we made it all the time.

Pouring curds in strainer

Finnish Cheese

When we  moved to the farm in the 70's we wanted a cow for milk. Lj wanted a Guernsey but we could not find one.
So we bought this Holstein cow. Have you ever heard of a Holstein for a family cow????  NOT
We were getting somewhere between 6-7 gallons or more of milk a day......Now that is a lot of milk for a family of five.

We made butter, made Yogurt....made ice cream, cottage chesse, and Juusto...
We moved into Finnish land  We had wonderful Finnish people all around us who were eager to share their Heritage

So since we have not had the cow for years.....(many years)  we have not made this for a long long long time.   Well really I did not think you could make it with store milk.

Talking with our neighbor next door.  Aunie shared with me that she made it all the time with her son for years with RED cap milk from the store.
RED CAP meaning whole milk.

I had a recipe yet we made on the farm but she told me how she made it and it was some what different.  So we made it her version.

Now on to Cheese.....

Fri night after a trip to town LJ and I thought we would do a run of it.  Now LJ loves loves loves this cheese.  He was beaming at the thought of making it.

It turned out great but it seems after making it once on Fri and twice on Sat it just keeps getting better.   We are getting this right.
Ok now on to the the Cheese

After it set for 45 min.  (my neighbor just keeps stirring hers at this point)

We put two gallons of milk in a stainless steel pan and let it get warm. Just lukewarm.  We are thinking 90 degrees was the best temp.  Put it on a plate warmer when you warm it on stove.    You must keep stirring.  You can not scorch the milk
 well you can.......
                       but then it is not any good for cheese.  Or anything else...

The last batch we put the cheese into a clean old white pillowcase...It worked "whey" better than the other two times . We squeezed it which was wrong.....   Once with strainer and once with Cheese cloth.   we did end up and put it from the pillowcase into cheesecloth.  It had lots and lots of "whey" over a gallon and 1/2.

Craig and Andrea scooping curds into strainer

Craig gently squeezing pillow case with cheese over a strainer and bowl which

caught the whey.  This is the step we did wrong  do not squeeze......... 

mmmmmmmmmmmm good...  Craig cutting some Cheese....  :)

OK now recipe we used

2 gal milk lukewarm...

In bowl put

4 Tabspoons salt

1 Tabspoon sugar

1 Tablespoon corn starch

 add 1 cup of Milk and stir in bowl till mixed very well. slowly add

to big pan of lukewarm milk. Stir very well

than take rennet tablet and crush it and add a little less than 1 tablespoon of water

In 45 min take a large knife and cut cheese curds in pan.

Like tic tac toe but many more.

Let sit a hour more.

Pour cheese in strainer, or cheesecloth and let the whey drain out. We put strainer in a big stainless steel bowl...take by handful and put in 10 inch pie pan...

We used a 10 inch cast iron pan  We used turkey basters, ladles to take out more whey.

We than put it in oven on broil  top shelf and watch it like a hawk. 

 Put broiler pan below cause the whey may run over into pan below.

Than we flipped it over buttered and salted the top and popped it back into the oven and browned it.......... it came out wonderful. You can sit down and eat a whey............:)

We love eating this hot......Our neighbor Arvo Hakkola used to put it in his coffee.

LJ likes it warmed up in Micro wave......Yummy

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Three gifts:

family

cheese

milk