DIY -- perfect example

Lectures aside, I have to walk the talk.  Perfect example: dairy products.
If I want to get beyond yogurt cheese, I have to make some purchases.
I also have to follow instructions.
All the online instructions for cottage cheese, ricotta, paneer, and cheddar start with at least a gallon of milk.
I don't have a pot big enough for that.
Except my blanching/bagel boiling pot.
But to blanch vegetables, I can't put milk in that pot.
Otherwise, in my kosher kitchen, I would have to eat my frozen vegetables only with eggs, fish, and dairy products.
So I would have to buy a huge pot.
If I had a family, it might be cost-effective to buy the pot.
But it's just me so it's not.
Cheddar cheese is more extreme.
At some point, you have to press the cheese fragments with up to 50 pounds of weight for 24 hours.
The pressure has to be even all over the cheese.
They sell presses for this, and the presses cost about $300.
The alternative is standard weights for a dumbbell set, but again, that's buying something for the project.
I might save $2 a pound but I only eat 10 pounds a year so the press won't pay for itself in less time than I have left to live.  YMMV.
Butter is even more extreme than cheddar cheese.
It's illegal to sell raw milk in my state, even if the cows live in the state.  The state has not set up protocols for dairies to follow if they want to sell raw milk, probably because the cows would practically have to live in a laboratory and that's too expensive.
I would have to buy 20-40 acres of land and a couple of jersey cows and a bull and equipment for haying and make sure there was water on the land and have a kosher butcher on call if I didn't want to keep the two calves the cows would have to drop every year to keep producing milk and....
Oh, yeah, and a churn.
I'm not asking for crowdfunding to start a dairy farm.  When I was a teenager we lived in a dairy area and watched from a distance; I have some idea how hard dairy farmers work.
I'm saying that I'm walking the talk.  I got into DIY to save money, not spend it.

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