Julia's Home Made Cottage Cheese

For cottage cheese, I buy Hood buttermilk 1/2 % fat cartons, I use 4-6 of them. The lazy version is to place them upright in a big pot with water. Open cartons to see what is going on. Place on very low heat and start watching the coagulation process. The water should never start boiling. The trick is not to let it over-coagulate or under-coagulate, not easy and comes with practice, so buy less buttermilk in the first few times. I normally sit and watch TV with timer in my hands and go see what's up every 10-12 min. It is ready when you clearly see appearance of the clear liquid on top of each carton. The white mass collects mostly at the lower part of the carton with a "crater" of clear liquid in the middle. Sorry, I cannot describe it better. Depending on how old is the buttermilk and the heat, it can take
40-55 min total.

After I see it is done, I turn it off and leave to cool down till morning. In the morning, I take a really big strainer, line it with double layer of cheese cloth and pour the coagulated buttermilk. The clear liquid goes through and the cottage cheese remains. You may have to let your first portion drain, then keep adding the mix. Once it is all there, I place the strainer over the pot to let it drain till the evening (put it in the fridge if it fits) or next day. The cottage cheese is ready, just take it out of the cheese cloth into a plastic container. It should be very soft, but keeps the shape if placed on a flat plate.