Sunday, July 25, 2010

Making Yogurt Cheese

We were very lucky last Thursday to have a delivery of fresh, raw Jersey cow's milk delivered to our neighborhood. I had 4 gallons of it, and was looking for a way to use it. I ran across a cheesecake recipe in a magazine, and was inspired.

I had already made the yogurt, so I just needed to strain it. Looking around my kitchen for somewhere to hang my cheesecloth, I started thinking about the inevitable bugs. We are processing tomatoes/other garden produce like crazy, so there is bugs in my kitchen for sure. It is just part of summer, but not my favorite part.

So here was my solution, and another use for my fermentation crocks, producing a cheese that is just like cream cheese in consistency, but with a yogurt flavor. It worked in the cheesecake recipe just perfectly too. The whey, if used as the liquid in bread dough, makes the softest, sweetest, fluffiest bread.

This towel over the whole thing really effectively kept all bugs out of the cheese.
The yogurt is poured into the cheesecloth "hammock"
whey filters through, the curds are trapped in the cloth hammock
lid holds cheesecloth hammock in place, keeps out bugs
tucked up the cloth, it wicks the moisture and I HATE bugs...