For some time I have wanted to try my hand at making cheese. It's such a varied product and unfortunately, artisan cheesemaking isn't something you see much in the US. It'd be fun someday to create my own type of cheese and have a cheese cellar chock full of the stuff. But that isn't going to happen tomorrow.

Starting with David Fankhauser's wonderful cheese pages, I read a lot about the theory of cheesemaking. So far, so good. I decided to try labneh, which is a yogurt chese. To sum up the recipe, you salt some yogurt and hang it out until it turns cheesey.

The last part is where I had difficulty. Wanting to not waste food, I opted to use a 1/2 pint of yogurt rather than a full quart, as called for in the recipe. I think that's where I went wrong. Normally it should be set after 24 hours, but mine sat for 72 hours and was still pretty gloopy. There just wasn't enough weight to force the whey out.

I did get a bit of cheese out of it, though, and that little bit was good. Really good, actually. I tried it on some tortilla chips and that was delicious too. So I think I'll give it another try sometime soon.