Home Cheese Making

 My friend Heidi and I attended a cheese making class last weekend put on by Kookoolan Farms, a local farm in Yamhill that raises chicken for eggs and meat, sells raw milk, and grows vegetables. They have a store that sells the largest (and only) selection of home cheese making supplies on the west coast.

At the demonstration Kookoolan owner Chrissie showed us how to made fromage blanc, a soft white cheese. It is very easy to make and only requires a gallon of whole milk and a small package of culture (that can be purchased at the Kookoolan store for about $6 for 5 packages). The cheese is really great mixed with garlic and herbs (tasting similar to boursin cheese).

Chrissie then showed up how to turn the fromage blanc into coeur a la creme, a sweet cheese similar to creme cheese or the inside of a cheesecake! She placed this cheese into heart molds--in honor of Valentines Day--to create a very cute dessert! Heidi and I decided we needed to try to make this cheese on our own so the next weekend we set to work on creating a few varieties of this soft cheese (you can view Heidi's blog post about this cheese adventure here). The first variation we made by adding garlic, Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to the plain fromage blanc. Heidi and I ate it with rosemary triscuit crackers and it was DELICIOUS! We also used the plain fromage blanc to make a cherry spread, by adding chopped canned cherries.

We then made some of the fromage blanc into coeur a la creme and added lemon curd. We put it in cute molds and let it set a little bit in the refrigerator (not quite long enough as we were very impatient). This lemon curd coeur a la creme was very easy to make and we could not get over how delicious it was! I could have ate a whole bowl of it!

Here are the recipes from Kookoolan Farms:

Fromage Blanc

• 1/2 gallon milk, do not use ultra-pasteurized 
• Fromage blanc culture

Warm the milk to 86 degrees F.  Add the culture. Let stand 12 hours at room temperature or until the curd is set (like yogurt). Gently pour into a colander lined with butter muslin or cheesecloth. Tie up the corners and hang about 12 hours, over the sink or into a bowl. (The translucent yellow-green fluid that drains is whey, which may be kept in the refrigerator up to 3 months, or frozen up to one year. Whey can be used in orange juice, lemonade, or in many lacto-fermented vegetable recipes, or for soaking beans or grains.) When drained to your texture preference, transfer the cheese to a covered dish and store in the refrigerator up to 10 days. Fromage blanc is great with garlic and herbs, or with smoked salmon, or with dried cranberries and walnuts, or used to make Coeur a la creme.

Coeur a la Creme

• 1 cup finished fromage blanc 
• 1 Tbsp granulated white sugar
• 1 Tbsp heavy creme
• 2 egg whites, beaten until stiff

1. Combine cheese, sugar, and creme. Fold in the egg whites. 
2. Spoon into individual heart-shaped mold lined with butter muslin. Place the molds on a baking sheet and chill in the refrigerator 6 to 10 hours.
3. Gently pull up the butter muslin to remove the hearts from the molds.
4.  Serve with fresh fruit, syrup, or melted chocolate.

One Can Never Have Too Much Cheese...

The day had started as what I had thought would be a lazy Sunday--Lydia and I were still in bed at noon, still in our pajamas, and playing around on our computers--when we came up with what we believed was a genius idea: drive to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, snag a few cheese samples, wolf down a chocolate peanut butter waffle ice cream cone and come back home. We used the common excuse: "It's for the FOOD BLOG!!!"

So, we quickly took our showers and jumped in the car immediately. We drove 1 hours and 45 minutes until at last we saw our destination in the foreground, the beautiful blue sign saying "Tillamook Cheese!" We ran inside with as much enthusiasm as most of the 5 year-old's we saw and immediately got in line to get our ice cream cones (Lydia decided that way she would be perfectly content and would not be rushing me through the self guided factory tour). We got very excited in line because they had three new ice cream flavors: peanut butter pie, sticky bun, and cake batter. The cake batter was excellent and very sweet, and the sticky bun really tasted like a cinnamon roll! I had a scoop of the peanut butter pie (peanut butter desserts are my biggest weakness), but I have to say that the chocolate peanut butter is still my all time favorite.

We sampled some cheese, went on the cheese factory tour (which is very fun and informative), I bought a loaf of garlic cheddar and we headed home. I would say our spontaneous cheese adventure was a great success!