She's a future milk maker!

Meet Daloris Dairy’s Jersey Mule Calf

In 2015, we were blessed with many healthy heifer calves.  All of which were born with the gorgeous look of a newborn deer, which is typical of the Jersey breed.  With their black noses and soft tan fur, they could possibly be mistaken for a deer fawn.  But, one of our calves came looking a little more like a mule deer, than the rest.  We call her Daloris’s Doe.

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This is our Jersey heifer who looks a little special.

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Easy Five Minute Cheese Curds

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Do you like cottage cheese, cheese curds or feel adventurous enough to press your own little bit of farmer cheese? Or are you completely out of ideas of what to make with all your left over buttermilk after making all that delicious butter? Just make it into curd! All it takes is a little souring agent, like vinegar or whatever you desire, and heat. Simply place your soured buttermilk in a pan and heat it up while stirring and you can see the magic happen. Once the curds developed, they can be strained in a colander with a cheese cloth (or a cotton cloth will do) and rinsed with water. Add cream and salt to desired taste, if your goal is cottage cheese, and you are done!

*The picture above is just the curd after being rinsed, and maybe pressed a little too much but can still be crumbled for cottage cheese.

How to Make Butter at Home – One of Many Methods

Instructions for making
Butter
(As Suzanne Mortimer does it.)
Hard copies available in our store.

Use two Daloris Jersey Dairy bottles(one gallon raw milk).
1 – Let the cream rise to the top of the bottles in your fridge. It should only take a couple hours before you see the cream line near the top of the Daloris Dairy label.
*You may also pour the milk into your own large mouth jar. This may be easier to scoop the cream off the top.

2 – Using a turkey baster, suck the cream off of the top and put it into a mason jar. There should be nearly a quart of cream from a whole gallon of milk (or two Daloris Dairy bottles). It is okay to suck up some milk, it will not affect the butter making process.

3 – Once you have the desired amount of cream, set it out until it has reached room temperature. Butter won’t be able to stick together if it’s too cold, and if cream is too warm the butter will melt into the cream and won’t coagulate.
*Note: There is no set time it takes for your cream to warm, it all depends on the temperature of your kitchen.

4 – Place your cream in the blender and blend on medium for several minutes. The amount of time needed will vary depending on how fresh your cream is and the temperature of the cream. The older the cream, the thicker the consistency the faster it whips into butter. Most cream will become thick like whipped cream before it separates into butter and buttermilk. The sound of the blender will change and you will notice light yellow clumps spinning in off-white buttermilk. Stop the blender.

5 – Strain the butter out of the buttermilk by pouring out the buttermilk and hold back the butter with a spatula, or pour all blender contents into thin strainer.

6 – Rinse butter with cold water to remove all droplets of buttermilk. The buttermilk gives the butter a cheesy taste that isn’t preferred by those that are wanting just pure and simple butter. After separating the butter from the buttermilk, you can pour COLD water into the blender and blend again for a few seconds to agitate the buttermilk droplets out of the butter. That opaque water will need to be poured out, and new cold water poured in, and repeated until the water is clear. This may only take two rinses.

7- Mold the butter into a ball. Knead that ball of butter under cold water for one final rinse. If you want to add salt, add now by sprinkling the surface of your butter ball with salt and kneading it in. It doesn’t take much, unless you like very salty butter.
Yields approx one cup butter.

Feel free to call Suzanne Mortimer at (208)313-0816 or Doris Mortimer at (208)745-7779 with any questions. Both Mortimer’s welcome anyone who wants to come and be shown how to make butter at anytime. If you are coming for milk, feel free to give Suzanne a call and she can set out some cream and have it ready to show the process from cream to butter in just five minutes. Doris also holds classes for making butter, yogurt, and kefir. Information on those will be posted on our website, www.dalorisdairy.com

Helpful references:
http://www.cheesemaking.com/Butter.html
“The cream from Jersey cows produces the best butter because of its higher fat content milk, plus the fact that their fat is dispersed in larger globules than milk from other types of cows and tends to churn into butter more easily.”

Daloris Dairy on Local News in 2015

Daloris Dairy has been featured in the Post Register’s Farm and Ranch section as well as on Local News 8 for our raw milk.  Here is a link to the clip about us on Local News 8:

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http://www.localnews8.com/video/local-dairy-offering-raw-milk/30670738

Natalie Shaver did an excellent job making Dale look and sound good.  We appreciate all the recognition and will continue doing everything possible to keep the milk wholesome and delicious!

 

Frigid Winter Emergency at Midnight

It is a dairyman’s luck to have a cow go into labor in the middle of the night, on the coldest  and wettest night possible.   Around midnight last night, Dale was helping one of the ladies deliver her calf when it became apparent that she was going to need more help than what he could give her.  She was trying to push her calf out, but the calf had not brought it’s head forward and was crammed inside.  Usually, in this type of situation, Dale could reach in help rearrange the calf inside the womb.  But the cow was pushing so hard that there was no chance the calf could have the room to be lined up.   So, Tyler had to call and wake up the vet in the middle of the night and get that cow to the clinic.

A little over an hour later and much work on the mens’ and the cows’ part, the little calf was born and she was alive!  In previous experiences, a calf in this type of stressful situation usually didn’t make it.

IMG_5311 As she got acquainted with her feet, her mom was having a hard time recovering and was suffering from Hypocalcemia(also called “Milk Fever”).  Milk Fever happens when a cow gives birth and her body gives too much calcium to making milk for her calf and doesn’t have enough for her own body’s functions.

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Here, Dale and his grandson are helping her stay in a sitting position after she had received some calcium through an IV.  She stopped breathing a few times and we were afraid we had lost her.  But, thanks to Dale’s quick “Cow CPR”, she stayed with us to fight another day.

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Though she looks pretty ragged in this picture, it was a big relief when she finally got up and could go home.

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Just one of those nights with dairy cows, thankfully this one had a great outcome.

New Winter Hours

Due to the changing season, our new winter hours will be 4 pm to 7:30 pm. Keep in mind we still do appointments outside our hours so please contact us ahead of time. We deeply appreciate getting to know everyone who enjoys milk fresh off the farm.photo

We encourage everyone this Thanksgiving and Christmas season to buy local! So when you are feeding family and thinking of gifts, be sure to support your local community and visit your friends/neighbors local businesses first! Blessing their business, blesses their family and in turn blesses you and your family.

Making Yogurt with Doris

MMmm Peaches

MMmm Peaches

You have all the power when you make your own yogurt, whether you like it thick greek style or thinner smoothie style, you can experiment and find exactly what you want.  Doris Mortimer has mastered yogurt making to fit the tastes of her family.  The secret to all the best yogurts is using the best ingredients.   We, of course, start with raw milk from Daloris Jersey Dairy.  Here’s how Doris makes her yogurt:

Ingredients:
1 Quart Daloris Dairy Raw Milk (I use my buttermilk after making butter)
1/4 Cup Powder Milk (I prefer older powdered milk, but either works)
2 Tablespoons Cream (Optional to make a creamier yogurt)

Directions:
1. Heat milk and cream uncovered over low heats, stirring occasionally until 180 degrees F  (Do not let boil).  If milk is brought up to temperature too quickly the bottom will scald.

2. If a skin has formed, remove it and then let the rest cool down to 110 or 115 degrees F.

3. Add powdered milk and 1 teaspoon yogurt starter to the milk.

4. Transfer yogurt into glass or plastic containers and let sit with towel around it in a cold oven (Or any insulated container like a cooler) to maintain temperature of 100 degrees F for 4-10 hours (the longer it sits the stronger or more tart your yogurt will be.)

5. You can eat warm, or put it in the fridge and let it cool down and serve cold, approximately 8 hours.

*Notes and tips
– Doris prefers not to use any metal utensils or containers besides the pan she heated the milk in.  The metal may interfere with the bacteria cultures.

– Here is a link to making greek style yogurt in a crock pot   http://www.granny-miller.com/how-to-make-foolproof-crock-pot-yogurt/

 

Butter Making Lessons by Doris!

One gallon of milk yields about one quart of cream, which yields on cup of butter!

No, you don’t have to churn by hand. Blend up your cream and you’ll have butter in a couple minutes.

With the recent increase in butter prices at the grocery store (Approximately $2.50 per lb!) we feel we need to help educate people how to make their own butter. One gallon of our raw Jersey milk($4.24 on the farm) yields around one quart of rich cream. Each quart of cream yeilds about one cup of butter, that’s over a dollars worth of butter! The benefits of making your own butter go beyond the financial aspects, but even more important is yours and your family’s health.
Come to the preparedness fair Saturday, September 13th, from 10am-4pm where Doris Mortimer is teaching how to make butter from our fresh raw cream! She will be teaching a few different methods, and will be teaching a “class” starting new every hour.

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There will be plenty of things to see and learn at this fair. Doris will also be teaching about keifer and some of the benefits of cooking with raw milk products.

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