Made yogurt cheese for the first time ever, after watching my housemate do it once back in the 1980s.
After the whey had drained (24 hours), I made up two batches: one with beau monde herbs (dried onions, parsley, dill and beau monde mix, which is basically celery salt); and one with salt, pepper and garlic powder. A quart of yogurt (the big containers) makes 2+ cups of yogurt cheese. It's softer than cream cheese, and more tart.
I am hoping that this will be a good spread for sandwiches, pitas and bagels. I avoid cream cheese (which I LOVE) because of the lactose. Supposedly the yogurt bacteria have eaten all or most of the lactose in yogurt. So we'll see how it works out.
This is part of my effort to have healthy, tasty, easy-to-snack-on foods around the house, so that I don't eat chips and salsa, potato chips, and B's pistachios.
If anyone has other ideas for using yogurt cheese, I'd love to hear them.
Posted by otto0114 at June 10, 2005 02:09 PMI just finally recently made homemade yogurt cheese, too!! Very yummy and SO easy :) It's a great alternative to cream cheese, which I love and cannot eat either :( I put in some fresh herbs from my container garden on our balcony (dill & parsley) along with some kosher salt & pepper. The fresh herbs give it tons of flavor, but I think next time I'll add something like celery salt or garlic salt to give it a little more "oomph". I always watch Food Network and they seem to have cool recipes on their website. ROCK HARD :)
Posted by: RamonaRamona at July 14, 2005 11:25 AMMy wife Nikki Goldbeck and I have written a cookbook and guide for yogurt cheese (which we call YoChee). The book is called "Eat Well The YoChee Way" and has 275 recipes. You can learn
about the book, see a slide show on making YoChee, get free recipes, learn about (and purchase) YoChee makers and more at HealthyHighways.com
Happy draining,
David