Nonfiction: The Home Creamery, Kathy Farrell-Kingsley

The Home Creamery
Kathy Farrell-Kingsley
ISBN: 9781603420310
Nonfiction: cheese history, and recipes for soft cheeses, butter, cream-cheese, yogurts, and more.
Read July 2015

This was a prize for our Summer Reading Program, and it was a lovely fit.  I have family that makes and sells cheese, and when I was young, my mother was big on colonial life and back to basics living, so we suffered through some overly enthusiastic and much less organized bouts of butter, yogurt, and cheese-making.  I remember it being complicated, smelly, and generally resulting in failure, but the clear tone and reassuring directions in this handy guide make me want to give it a try once more.

The only thing I would have liked would be some pictures.  There are a few very stylized illustrations, but an actual photo or a lifelike drawing would be a great help in determining if I'm doing things right.

Overall a lovely book, with clear descriptions of the tools needed, and directions for making all of the following: yogurt, kefir, butter, Piima butter, buttermilk, creme fraiche, quark, sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese (also farmers cheese and pot cheese),ricotta, goat cheese (feta), mozzarella, and marscapone.

There are also some really nice recipes in the back.  Highlights for me were the Cheese Blintzes, the Wasabi Rice Crackers, the Marinated Feta, and the Marscapone-Stuffed Dates (although I despise dates and stuffed the cheese into strawberries instead..., Penne with Herbed Goat Cheese and Tomatoes, and the Chicken Curry with Yogurt.  Yum.