Speaking of food

As I mentioned, a big reason we are here is our interest in food production.  Cooking our own food and eating family meals is also a priority.  (Especially after reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food.)  Now, while icicles are the only thing growing around our place, is a great time for using the oven, so I've been baking all our bread.

Meanwhile, after my creme fraiche success, I was eager to make more cheese.  Here is some cream cheese I made, spread on homemade bread. 

The jar with white stuff in it is the rest of the cream cheese, the yellow-green jar of liquid is the whey that drained off from the cream cheese.  (I have since used the whey instead of water in a magically delicious loaf of bread.)  The little hand is Forest's.  He loves cream cheese and was very eager for this snack.  Well, days later, that jar of cream cheese is still in the fridge.  Although Forest ate the snack, he announced afterward that he didn't like this cream cheese, and I had to agree.  It isn't bad, it just doesn't have that cream cheese tang and is plain old boring.  My next dairy experiment will be yogurt. 

Mr. Pollan notwithstanding, I go back and forth between feeling like all this food prep is a valid and important use of so very much of my time and feeling like I'm a nitwit for cooking my life away.