Living Free in Tennessee - Nicole Sauce

Mar 17 2025 49 mins 19

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Episode 1017: The Power Of Starting Strong: Make Your Own Mesophilic Culture

Today, we talk about how to make your own mesophilic culture at home so you can reduce save money and develop your own cheese flavors over time. Really having a strong start in cheese is as important as doing so in life, isn't it? And nurturing your starts in life is as important as hitting things hard ever day. We will also cover our usual Monday segments.

Member Webinar: Building Small Scale Events On Your Homestead, Sunday, March 23 at 3pm Central: https://www.livingfreeintennessee.com/courses/creating-small-scale-events-on-your-homestead (Members you know what to do!)

Sponsor 1: AgoristTaxAdvice.com/LFTN
Sponsor 2: DiscountMylarBags.com

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Tales From The Prepper Pantry

No progress on floor
Spring Cleaning - Processing meat: Bacon, scotch eggs, grinding lamb, scotch eggs
Tomato seedlings planted and germinated
Looking to purge the grains from storage
The tunnel

Weekly Shopping Report from Joe

Dollar Tree was the usual first stop. I noted again that the Health aisle was stuffed. In particular.

We didn’t go in, but the price of a 2x4x8 stud at Home Depot still shows $3.85 online.

Aldi was next. We found everything we wanted, but there were only a few bars of my preferred chocolate (70% cacao) left. Staple prices were: bread (20 oz. white): $1.39; eggs: $5.97 (limit 2); whole milk: $2.92 (+); heavy cream: $5.29; OJ: $4.09 (+, and very little); butter: $3.75; bacon: $3.99; potatoes: $4.39; sugar: $2.99; flour: $2.35; and 80% ground beef: $4.59.

Food City for a 22 lb. Bag of Meow Mix (that our cats ask for by name). Pet foods were well-stocked.

Untainted regular gasoline at Weigels is still $3.59/gallon.

Frugality Tip From Jordon

St. Patrick’s Day is upon us, it’s a fairly big day up in Maine since there is a large Irish population here, so cabbages are on sale for the boiled dinner feast! Tonight we snagged 3 juicy cabbages at the grocery store for 39¢ a lb. Made 3 half gallons of sauerkraut for $5!

Hope you have a lucky 🍀 Monday!

Jordan

Operation Independence

GSD Weekend March 29 & 30 in the Holler - Staining, building a composting outhouse deck, hauling off construction debris, building a new humanure barrel, setting up the classroom, hanging the presentation tv, etc.

Main Topic of Today's Show.

What is a Mesophilic Culture and Why Should You Care?

Mesophilic culture is a bacterial starter used for cheesemaking, cultured dairy, and fermentation. 70-85 for fermentation.
Used as the base for feta, cultured cream cheese, chevre, farmer’s cheese, mozzarella, etc.
Why: Saves money, adapted to your environment, adds resilience, it’s fun

How to Make It Making a Mesophilic Starter

Find Culture
Prepare the milk
Inoculate & Ferment:
Store & Maintain:

What If I Cant Get Culture or Cultured Buttermilk?

Quality Raw Milk
Leave at room temperature
Smell/taste
Treat like a cultured buttermilk starter

Thought Of The Walk On Cheese Culture

This process is a perfect analogy for life.
You get out what you put in—a weak start leads to weak results.
Just like a good mesophilic culture ensures better cheese, a good mindset, strong habits, and the right influences ensure better outcomes in life.
Sometimes we forget to nurture ourselves and those things that are most important to is, resulting in weak starts – and what do you do with a weak start?

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce.

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