Raw Milk Cheese, Veldhuizen Texas Farmstead Cheese

Yet another "Crunchy" story and our family's quest in eating raw food to obtain better health. This one is really neat, I promise. Last summer we went on a field trip.... you know us homeschool moms use any opportunity to keep the education alive! This one was at the suggestion of a friend. Her family had recently visited the Veldhuizen Farm and after she told us all about it and shared some of the cheese with us I just knew that we'd have to go someday. So, when I suggested that we make the long trek to visit the Veldhuizen's farm a few weeks later my children were more than agreeable. And to make it even more fun, we invited our friends from Life on the Hay Farm to join us. The farm is located in Dublin, Texas, so it was a good poke from the Ft. Worth area.

When we arrived at the Veldhuizen farm, which is in the middle of nowhere, we were greeted by Stuart Veldhuizen. He and his wife Connie, along with their children (they're homeschooled too) operate the farm. Stuart had just started making some cheese and wanted to make sure the vat was just perfect before he took us on a tour of the farm.

This building looks a little "out of place" on the farm, but it is the store where they sell their cheese. They also sell some hormone-free, grain-feed meats too.



This the vat of cheese that was being made while we were there:



Just one of the adorable calves at the farm:



And then some of their chickens:



My budding photographer took this picture of a weed:




The inside of the "cave" where they age the cheese:
(And BOY, did it smell of cheese...and mold)









Redneck is a true Texas cheese! This cheese is finished off by brushing the rind with beer, which imparts a slight yeasty flavor to the cheese which is unbelievable good!



If I remember correctly this was a cheese that they were experimenting with and brushing with a red wine:



In this picture the whey is being drained off. You can see the yellowish liquid on the floor. I was sure thinking I wished I had drains in my kitchen floor!



At the end of the tour we sat down at the table in the store, ate samples of most of the cheeses, watched the Veldhuizen family place all the cheese curd into baskets, and critiqued the different cheeses that we sampled. This was one of the critique sheets. Do you think we liked the raw cheese?



One of the best things about the day, in addition to the fact that the cheese was delicious, was to hear the story of how and why the Veldhuizens started making raw cheese. I'm not much of a story teller, so if you'd like to know the rest of the story, you, too, will have to make the trek to Dublin to visit with the Velhuizens. And if you do, let me know because I'm out of good raw cheese ;-)