Goats and goat cheese

OK, I thought hubby had put up the pictures from last week, but apparently not ... so here are the first pics of the goat who is helping to keep me busy.  Meet Prim, and her buckling Harry Houdini.

little Harry Houdini nursing his dam, Primrose

Prim and her buckling Harry

While we're at it, here's a nice pic of four out of the five goats resting in the shade and chewing their cud (yes, goats are ruminants like cows).

relaxing in the shade

Prim produces a good amount of milk - between a quart and five cups a day.  This gives me a decent amount of milk to work with, although Prim's milk has a more pronounced "goaty" flavor than Chocolate's milk does.  Last weekend, I made my first batch of feta, and we finally tried it last night.  It has the flavor note from Prim's milk, and may need a little more salt, but is definitely feta and does taste pretty good.

Earlier this week, I made caramel coffee creamer from a recipe in the Raising Goats Naturally book I've mentioned before.  It's just milk, sugar, and a bit of baking soda to keep it from boiling over, then you simmer for however many hours it takes to get it to a consistency you want.  Hubby pronounced it good ... in fact, he had urged me to make it so he could find a way to appreciate the goat milk.  He says he really does want to find a way (this was before the feta was ready to try).

Now, I have queso blanco in the cheese mold - with pasilla peppers mixed in it.  My inspiration was here for a photo tutorial which used jalapeno peppers, which don't agree with me (but hubby loves).  Depending on how it turns out, we may fry up some for posole (Maria and Perla gave me the recipe last night!  Yay!) or just make tacos or burritos out of it, or pop it onto tortilla chips for nachos.

queso blanco with pasilla bajo peppers
(in the mold)