Yogurt Cheese

I love eating clean (aside from when I secretly gorge on the salt and pepper organic chips in the drivers seat of the car on my way home from grocery shopping)

And I love stuff that spreads onto other stuff. With so many 'spreads' options at the grocery store and even more freaky chemicals added to them to give them a longer shelf life, I resolved to take the matter of an over-priced tiny tub of spreadiliciousness into my own hands and make my own.
Here's how I made some yogurt cheese recently:

You need:
medium glass bowl
a strainer that fits in it but leave room in the bottom
cheese cloth
plain balkan yogurt that contain no gelatain

Dump your yogurt into the strainer which has been lined with cheesecloth.

Leave it in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours. To get a thicker, cream cheese like consistency, leave it to drain for a full 24 hours. You can see in the pictures above that the liquid has drained and there's quite a bit of it, once removed from the cheese cloth, it should look like what's in the bowl picture.

A friend of mine uses this as a base for icing! Yes ICING! her blog is http://www.laundryontheline.wordpress.com check it out! She rocks!

On it's own, yogurt cheese can be kinda bland, but with only a few things added, I was hooked. slurp, yum.

For a savory variety, add dried herbs such as oregano, basil, thyme, garlic powder, sea salt and pepper. The longer it sits, the better it's been infused with flavor.

For a sweeter variety, try pure maple syrup or agave nectar (will make it a bit thinner in texture), cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pure vanilla bean guts :D

 So delicious, I leave you to salivate while I go make a bagel....mmmmmm :)