Anna's "No Whey" Creamery

  • Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 4

    Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 4

    Anna

    We hit the beach first thing in the morning again today, only this time we rented paddle boards!  We played with those all morning, until the wind started picking up and a slight rain started.  Then we went in for lunch.

    We dropped my brother off at the airport after lunch, since he has to go back to work tomorrow.  We intended to do a few outdoorsy things afterwards, but it was raining on and off at this point so we spent the afternoon at the Maui Ocean Center Aquarium instead.  They had several of the fish that we saw while snorkeling the other day, but they also had an entire exhibit dedicated to whales, dolphins, and other sea mammals.  They didn’t have any living mammals, however, due to a ban passed in 2002.

    As always, here are a few photos from throughout the day:

    Fish!
    More fish!
    Green Sea Turtles
    Pincushion sea stars
    Lobster
    Jellyfish
    Sea Horses
    Eel
    Coral
  • Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 3

    Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 3

    Anna

    We didn’t have anything planned for this morning, so I let myself sleep in … until 5:30.  I’m still waking up with the sun, even when I’m on vacation.  We spent the morning swimming at a couple of beaches that had been recommended to us. Then we got ready for today’s main event: the Grand Luau at Honua’ula.

    The luau started with a Hawaiian imu ceremony, where a whole pig was unearthed from the ground.  Afterwards, we enjoyed a feast with several traditional Hawaiian dishes. The luau concluded with a live performance detailing the history and myths of the Hawaiian islands.

    Here are a selection of photos from the day:

    Honolua Bay
    Watch out for coconuts!
    Chickens at Honolua bay
    DT Fleming Beach Park
    This bird wanted to join us for chips and salsa!
    Dressed up for the luau!
    Digging out the Earth oven
    They cooked a whole pig in the Earth oven
    Rainbow over the luau
    Hula dancers
  • Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 2

    Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 2

    Anna

    It’s a good thing we haven’t adjusted to the Hawaii timezone yet, because today we got up early to go snorkeling!  We went on a tour guided by the Pacific Whale Foundation, an organization dedicated to saving endangered species of whales from extinction.  Our first stop was at Molokini, a volcanic crater formed around 230,000 years ago.  We snorkeled for about an hour and then moved on to Maluaka Beach, nicknamed turtle town due to the large number of green sea turtles found there.  After another hour of snorkeling, they fed us lunch and then returned to Maui.  By the time we got back to our timeshare we were exhausted from a morning full of snorkeling!

    The rest of the day was more relaxing.  We hung out by the beach, grilled kabobs, and watched the sunset.

    Here are some photos taken during the day, mostly taken with an underwater camera that I rented:

    Maalaea Harbor, as seen from the boat.
    Molokini, a crescent shaped volcanic crater.
    My Mom on the boat on our way to Molokini
    Fish!
    More fish!
    A red sea urchin
    Some of the fish get really close!
    Obligatory underwater photo
    Boo!
    Just Kevin swimming on by…
    Frigatebirds circling the crater. They don’t live here, but they eat things that do!
    I saw a sea turtle!
  • Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 1

    Anna’s Hawaiian Vacation: Day 1

    Anna

    I’m in Hawaii this week for a family vacation!  We flew in late last night, and checked into a hotel near the airport to get some sleep.  Today we moved on to the timeshare unit we’re staying in for the rest of the week.

    We had a bit of time to wander around the hotel grounds this morning before checking out and driving to Paia to pick up my brother. Then we went up into the mountains for zip-lining shortly after lunch!

    Here are some pictures from throughout the day:

    View from the Maui Beach Hotel
    My Dad and I outside the Maui Beach Hotel
    Mom and Dad outside the hotel.
    View of Maui from up in the mountains
    Getting ready to go ziplining!
    On our way to the first zipline!
    There goes my Mom …
    My brother zips by
    My turn!
    I met some birds outside our timeshare unit
    Sitting with my brother on the beach
    Sunset on Maui

  • Asiago Pepato

    Anna

    Asiago Pepato

    Asiago cheese with peppercorns in the middle.  I’ll probably only age it for 2 months because I’m curious how it tastes!

  • Ocarina 6.4.3

    Anna

    I just released Ocarina 6.4.3!  My main project over the last several months has been converting Ocarina over to C, and as of this release one quarter of my Ocarina codebase has been converted.

    I have several reasons for this conversion, the first being that my natural coding style tends towards writing very C-ish code.  I don’t use a large number of classes or inheritance, and I find it easier to write a global function instead.  This can work in C++ or Python, but sufficiently large projects tend to get messy.

    Switching over to C also makes it easier to make an interface in GTK.  Glade, the GTK interface designer, lets me assign callback functions in xml, cutting out a lot of code to wire everything up.  This works great in C, but breaks in C++ due to how C++ code is compiled.

    Converting everything from C++ to C is surprisingly easy thanks to the extern keyword in C++, which I use to include C files in my remaining C++ code:

    extern "C" {
#include <core/file.h>
#include <core/tags/track.h>
}
#include <core/audio.h>

    I have enough changes stacked up that I can have an Ocarina release every other week for the next several months. This should give me plenty of buffer time while I work on GUI code.

    Ocarina 6.4.3 can be downloaded here!

  • Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

    Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

    Anna

    I’ve been wanting to post about cheesecake for several months now, and what better time than just after Thanksgiving? Rather than just posting pictures with a brief description, this post will walk you through my cheesecake recipe step-by-step.

    It takes several days to make a cheesecake, so I recommend planning ahead. Several of these steps can be performed in parallel, but I usually like to make the cream cheeses one at a time.

    Ingredients: Equipment:
    • 1 quart and one cup heavy cream
    • 2 quarts half-and-half
    • 2 packets mesophilic starter culture, divided
    • 4 drops liquid rennet, divided
    • 1/3 cup and 2 tablespoons distilled water, divided
    • 2 teaspoons cheese salt
    • 2 – 3 quarts water
    • 1 1/2 cups (12 cookie sheets) graham cracker crumbs
    • 1/3 cup white sugar
    • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
    • 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
    • 3 eggs
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 1 (10 ounce) package mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
    • 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
    • 1 quart saucepan
    • Thermometer
    • Spoon
    • Colander
    • Cheesecloth
    • Cheese press with mold and weights
    • 1 gallon stock pot
    • Electric mixer
    • Medium mixing bowl
    • Oven
    • Small mixing bowl
    • Large mixing bowl
    • 9 inch springform pan
    • Electric mixer
    1. Pour 1 quart heavy cream into a 1 quart saucepan and warm to 65°F. Sprinkle the contents of 1 mesophilic culture packet on top of the cream. Wait 5 minutes before stirring thoroughly.
    2. Dilute one drop liquid rennet in 2 tablespoons distilled water. Add to cream and stir with an up-and-down motion for 1 minute. Cover and let sit for 24 hours.wpid-wp-1448385850251.jpg
    3. Line a colander with a large square of cheesecloth. Pour half of the cream into the colander and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Pour the rest of the cream into the colander and sprinkle with the remaining 1 teaspoon salt.
    4. Tie together the corners of the cheesecloth to create a bag. Hang the bag to drain for 12 hours.wpid-wp-1448387538899.jpg
    5. Untie the bag and place the drained curd into a mold lined with a clean square of cheesecloth. Press at 10 pounds of pressure for 4 – 6 hours.
    6. Remove the cheese from the press, peel back the cheesecloth, and refrigerate until needed.wpid-wp-1448398040048.jpg
    7. Pour the half and half into the 1 gallon pot and warm to 85°F. Sprinkle the contents of the remaining mesophilic culture packet on top of the cream. Wait 5 minutes before stirring thoroughly.
    8. Dilute remaining 3 drops rennet in 1/3 cup distilled water. Add 1 teaspoon of the diluted rennet to the cream and stir with an up-and-down motion for 1 minute. Cover and let sit for 12 hours. The remaining rennet mixture can be discarded.
    9. Heat 2 – 3 quarts of water to 170°F. Add enough hot water to the curdled cream to raise its temperature to 125°F.wpid-wp-1448386002951.jpg
    10. Line a colander with a large square of cheesecloth. Pour the cream into the colander and tie the cheesecloth into a bag. Hang the bag to drain for 12 hours.wpid-wp-1448385866799.jpg
    11. Peel the cheesecloth off of the cheese and refrigerate until needed.wpid-wp-1448385897751.jpg
    12. Pour remaining 1 cup heavy cream into the medium mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer to whip the cream until it separates into butter and buttermilk. Discard the buttermilk and rinse the butter with cold water to remove remaining milk. Refrigerate butter until needed.
    13. Preheat oven to 300°F.
    14. Melt butter in the microwave or over the stove. Transfer to a small bowl and mix in graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and cocoa. Press mixture onto bottom and sides of the springform pan. Set aside.wpid-wp-1448503735323.jpg
    15. Add cheeses to the large mixing bowl and beat until smooth using an electric mixer. Gradually add the condensed milk, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until smooth.
    16. Toss 2/3 cup of the chocolate chips with 1 teaspoon flour to prevent sinking. Mix into the cheese mixture.wpid-wp-1448503762886.jpg
    17. Pour cheese mixture into the crust and sprinkle the top with remaining chocolate chips.wpid-wp-1448503775278.jpg
    18. Bake at 300°F for 1 hour. Turn off oven and let cake sit for 1 additional hour. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Refrigerate before removing sides of pan.wpid-wp-1448503781932.jpg

     

    Enjoy!

  • IT Department Woes

    Anna

    Certain on-line tools at work will greet me with a friendly “Welcome, Bryan” when I log in.  This has bothered me for a while, but updating my name in the system would involve talking to our IT department.

    I do not like talking to Corporate IT.

    I have filed support tickets in the past, and I always end up feeling like there has been a miscommunication before the problem is finally resolved.  They’ll sometimes call my phone, but I never feel like this helps anything.  Instead, I start getting embarrassed that I need to keep asking the person on the other end to slow down and repeat what they just said.

    So I’ve put off talking to corporate IT for a while, but being called “Bryan” against my will finally started bothering me.  I took a deep breath and filed a support ticket:

    When I try to use this tool, it displays “Welcome, Bryan” instead of “Welcome, Anna.”  Can you please update my name?

    I thought this was a simple enough request, and I received a reply later that afternoon:

    The services that you have requested fall under the Engineering Support Group.  We have submitted a request on your behalf to have this group contact you.  Since the reported issue does not fall under Corp IT scope, we are going to cancel the Corp IT ticket.

    Apparently we have two different IT departments?  Well, at least Corporate IT was nice enough to send my request to the right place!  Engineering IT took a look and replied with their solution to my request:

    Sorry, but this appears to be Single-Sign-On related.  This is a Corporate IT issue, but I will submit the ticket on your behalf.

    Okay … now it’s past 5 and I’m right back where I started, so I decided to call it a day and go home.  Corporate IT had replied by the next morning.  Maybe they were able to change my name in the SSO system?

    Hi Anna, please use this link to change your password: <link>.  Thanks & Regards.

    But … that’s not what I asked for at all!  I replied to I explain that I wanted to update my name in the SSO system.  This time they finally understood what I was asking for, and a day later I received an email asking me to verify if my name had updated properly.  Everything looks correct now, but I still wish it hadn’t taken three days to make a simple change.

  • Ruby and I went camping!

    Ruby and I went camping!

    Anna

    I went camping  with several of my friends last weekend.  Ruby came along too, and we had quite the adventure!

    You can click on the pictures below to see a larger version and to read captions.

    She climbed into my trunk while I was packing. I imagine she’s saying: “So. Where are we going?”
    Ruby in her car seat and excited that we’re finally about to leave!
    She dug a hole underneath the swinging bench, I assume so she could have a place to lay down in the shade.
    Ruby in her hole.
    Hole-in-one!
    She cooperated with the hat only until right after I took the picture.
    Ruby even took her chance to wrestle with Sam and Sadie!
    She could sleep on her bed, but no … mine was more comfortable.
    After a fun weekend, Ruby is exhausted and ready to go home.
  • Shaping Gouda

    Shaping Gouda

    Anna

    wpid-wp-1436467171154.jpg

    If you have ever purchased a wedge of Gouda, then you may have noticed that the cheese tends to have a smooth, round curve on one end.

    Standard cheese molds make flat, pill-tablet shaped cheeses with a corner and not a round edge.  I’ve heard there are tricks you can use to simulate a bowl-shaped mold, but they never really worked for me.  So I set out to learn how the Dutch cheesemakers shape their cheese.  The answer?  A special cheese mold.  So I bought one.

    The first thing I noticed during unpacking is that this mold included a mesh netting, meaning curds don’t need to be wrapped in cheesecloth while pressing.  This netting can be removed for cleaning, and I actually found it easier to work with.

    Mold and netting.
    Mold and netting.

    The downside?  This mold is 2 – 3 times more expensive than other cheese molds I’ve purchased.  I like to think that part of this cost was importing from Holland, but I justified it by reminding myself that this is a one-time purchase.  And it really does make beautifully shaped cheeses.