Homemade Probiotic Cream Cheese and Whey

My Cream Cheese

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

You might be asking, what is whey? I wondered that every single time I heard the nursery rhyme "Little Miss Muffet". First of all what the heck is whey, and why in the world would Little Ms. Muffet eat it? Reading Sally Fallon's Book Nourishing Traditions, as well as reading multiple other traditional food prep blogs, has provided me with the answer! Despite Little Miss Muffet's fear of spiders, which always made her seem a bit of a wussy, she is BOMB because she knows what is good for her. Whey is a protein that is "whole" because it contains all 9 amino acids. Anyone who has recently studied nutrition will know about amino acids and how vital they are to the body. And, normally a food will not contain all 9. Amino acids help build and repair muscles and tissues, so pretty much they make you like Wolverine. YEAH BABY! Curds and whey come about when you let milk ferment, which can be done in a gross nasty whey or very healthy whey (get it? I crack myself up). Either way, you end up with curds (cottage cheese) and then the whey. But, this post is on cream cheese and whey which is what you get when you do the following:

What You Need:

1 Quart Plain Regular Yogurt-a good brand preferably

1 Cheesecloth

Glass or Plastic bowl

Directions:
Take the cheese cloth and lay it over the top or inside of the bowl. Take your quart of yogurt and dump it into the center of the cheesecloth. Pull up the sides of the cheesecloth into a bunch and find a handle to hang it off of. Cabinet handles are good, or microwave handles if you won't be using the microwave often. If you don't have a good handle to use, you could always use a strainer and just lay the bag of yogurt inside, but it will take much longer for the whey to separate. Place the bowl underneath it, and let it strain overnight, or throughout the day. Once it has stopped dripping, take the whey from the bowl and store it in a glass container. Then, do the same with the fresh cream cheese and store them both in the fridge.

Note: When I did it, I let it hang overnight, but when my husband went to get the cream cheese out, he said that the bottom was hard like cream cheese but that the yogurt on top still had quite a bit of liquid. So, he emptied out the cream cheese textured yogurt and put the yogurt that still had some whey in it back in the cheese cloth. Then I let that sit for a while. Now, I have a little more than a half a pint of whey(which you can use for so much!) and about two cups of cream cheese :) Try it out! This cream cheese (yogurt cheese) beats out store brands because of the probiotics still in it from being yogurt, which aid in digestion, and it hasn't been processed at all. Yay for real food :) Let me know how it turns out!

The whey stores up to six months in the fridge, and the cream cheese one month.

And PEOPLE, this stuff literally almost tastes just like the stuff from the store. You can eat it on a bagel or bake with it just like regular cream cheese! Check out my photos below.

If you are interested in learning more on cooking traditionally, buy this book by Sally Fallon and check out all the recipes I use and more! It is seriously amazing.