Yogurt Cheese..............

Have you ever tried Yogurt Cheese??

Yogurt cheese isn't really cheese, but more like the popular Greek yogurt you hear so much about these days. We were making yogurt cheese long before the 'Greek yogurt' fad of the past few years, so I guess we were just being 'country before country was cool' so to speak :}
You can make this with either homemade yogurt or store bought, of course homemade is going to be tastier, but when we don't have homemade we like it made with Dannon plain yogurt with active cultures.

All you need to make your Yogurt cheese is
a quart of yogurt (you can use any amount, but there is going to be a lot of shrinkage-a quart of yogurt will yield about 2 cups of yogurt cheese)
a strainer/sieve
cheesecloth or coffee filters
a large bowl
time

To make it :
line your sieve with a double layer of cheese cloth or coffee filters ( I prefer coffee filters- works great and you can just toss them after)
place sieve in a bowl, making sure there are a few inches under the sieve (it should not touch bottom of bowl)
place a small clean plate on top of the yogurt and put something heavy on top of it (another quart  container of yogurt works quite well)
Place in refrigerator overnight.

In the morning you are going to have a nice tight ball of "cheese" and a bunch of whey under it in the bowl. ((You can save this whey and use instead of buttermilk in pancakes, biscuits, cornbread  and muffins as long as you use it up in the next couple of days. ))

Peel off the coffee filters and toss, now you have a nice creamy lump of yogurt cheese.
Use as is, to dollop on fresh fruit, spread on toast or bagels. You can sweeten it with a little bit of honey or sugar if you want. We love it with fresh herbs tossed in , chives, parsley, mint, and garlic are especially good.
Mix in your favorite flavoring and keep in a covered dish in fridge for up to a week.
You can also cook with this substituting for cream cheese, sour cream, or regular yogurt.
 Will be sharing some of our favorite ways to use it with you soon .

                                                         Y'all come back soon, ye hear?