Bondon Cheese

Bondon cheese is a French cheese from the Normandy region. It can be made with either cow or goats milk. It is a mild cream cheese, with a greatly reduced fat content to normal cream cheese as it is made from milk rather than cream. Great with crackers, or mixed with herbs. Melts nicely into a white sauce as well ;)

Ingredients

• 2 litres of full cream milk
• 4 drops of calcium chloride diluted in 2 tbs of non chlorinated water (unless you are using milk straight from the cow/goat!)
• one dose of MO 030 meophilic starter culture
• 2 drops liquid rennet diluted in 2 tbs of non chlorinated water

Instructions

• heat milk to 20^oC 
• remove from heat source, add the calcium chloride and stir well
• add the starter culture and mix well
• ass the rennet and mix well
• cover and let stand for 24 hours in a warm place so that the milk mixture does not drop below 20^oC 
• line a colander with cheesecloth. ladle the curds into the cloth, and drain for 5 minutes. 
• Tie the colth and hand to drain for 6-8 houirs.
• Press the cheese for 5-6 hours either in a cheese mould or in between two cutting or cheese boards with a 5kg weight on top. 
• remove it, place it in a bowl, and add salt to taste.

Staisa's Sousy Scallywag Pudding

This was my mums signature dessert. Every year she was asked to bring it to work Christmas functions, and she would also make it for New Year's Eve. It is simple, but really really yummy. This year I made one for Christmas eve dinner with friends, and was forced to make one again for New Year.... not so much of a hardship, really.

Ingredients

600ml bottle of cream
A packet of scalliwags*
1/3 cup icing sugar
sprinkles and other sugar decorations as your heart desires
1/2 cup Tia Maria (rough estimate)** 

Method

This was for a news year dinner;
using kahlua instead of tia maria

Whip the cream with the sugar and the vanilla till stiff. You don't want the cream too sweet, as the rest of the dessert will be very sweet, so use less sugar if you wish but don't add more.
dunk a scalliwag into tia maria. Slather it with cream. Stand it on a serving tray. Take another scalliwag, dunk it into tia maria, slather it with cream and sandwich it to the previous biscuit. Repeat until you have run out of biscuits, and have created a long log of creamy little scalliwags.
Cover the entire log in cream. Decorate to your taste.
Cover and chill for at least 6 hours.

Cut, serve and eat. Is yummy on the day, better the next day, and awesome on day 3. It never makes it to day 4, so I can't tell you how long it would actually last ;)

Notes:

* Scalliwags are thin chocolate biscuits shaped like scalliwags, which is to say politically correct golliwogs.
** You can experiment with other alcoholic beverages here- kahlua, schnapps, frangelico all work well.

This was our Christmas version

Disclaimers:

Alcoholic, so not for the kiddies.

I really like the word scalliwags

Queso Blanco (White Cheese)

This is a mexican curd cheese. It is remarkablly bland and mild in flavour, and is a great carrier and complement to other flavours. It is great used as a base for dips - adding in fresh herbs, garlic, etc makes for a really lovely spread for crackers. It is a fantastic complement to spicy foods, and makes a nice white cheese sauce.

Ingredients

2 litres of milk

1/4 cup of vinegar

Method

• heat milk to 60C - note to those who don't have a thermometer: this is when the milk starts to achieve a slow boil.
• take off the heat, pour in the vinegar and stir for a minute.
• leave for 20 minutes for the curds to form
• line a colander with cheesecloth, and place this over a saucepan or bowl to catch any liquid
• pour or ladle the curds into the colander
• leave for 5 minutes, then tie the cheesecloth and suspend over a bowl for 2 hours on until it has stopped dripping.
• Salt to taste