Chevre and Honey: What it's All About

Yesterday I had my first chevre with local Springfield honey dripping over the edges - wow it was good!  What an excellent way to kick off the day.

Really, cheese is the reason we got the goats.  Don't get me wrong - we absolutely love the goats (way more than the dogs shhhh), but using the milk to make food is a great bonus!

So far we have made ice cream, mozzarella, ricotta, and chevre.  Each thing we have made has been delicious!  And there are no preservatives or "extras" added in - its simply pure yummy-ness.

Goat's milk from the store doesn't taste anything like fresh.  Fresh goat's milk tastes much like cow's milk.  The butter fat content is higher - so it is better for cheeses and such.  Plus, unpasteurized milk retains many of the nutrients that the pasteurizing burns off.  And since we aren't transporting or storing our milk for great amounts of time pasteurization is unnecessary.

Another great thing about goat's milk is that it freezes well.  So if you are milking every morning but only have time for cheese making on the weekends or once/month, you can just freeze it until you want to use it.

The goats have been eating lots of fresh greens now that the weather has warmed.  As I am clearing out my garden, I have been giving them the broccoli and cabbages left from cooler weather and my neighbors have been bringing them their yard clearings (approved by me of course).  The goats turn all of this into good healthy nutritious milk that we turn into food for us - it is a closed loop.