Cheese extravaganza

Last weekend I was invited to my friend Michael's birthday party. The theme was a wine and cheese party ). The invite suggested that everyone bring a bottle of wine or some cheese. And there would be prizes for the most rare and obscure bottles of wine and cheese.

This is the full table spread of cheeses:

This is a fabulous cheese plate put together by Brooke (a friend of the birthday boy). There was a tag with cute and enticing descript for each item on the plate. It's hard to read the tags in this photo so here is an example:

Medjool Dates

Remember that dark-haired cutie that you never had the nerve to ask out in grade 10? Well, trust me, even if you had managed a date with him/her, it wouldn't have been half as sweet as these.

This is the cheese that my sister Brianne and I brought. We got a bit competitive and wanted to bring the most rare cheese so we decided to make our own. It was impossible for anyone else to bring OUR cheese and unlikely anyone else would make some too. We had never made cheese so we did some researching and stumbled across a video for a simple Fromage Blanc. Here is the link to the video:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPYopcoeqs

It was actually very easy to make and had lovely delicate curds.

We heated the milk to 175F (75C). Then added buttermilk and lemon juice. Let it stand for about 10 minutes until it separated into curds and whey. Then strained it in cheesecloth and let it continue to strain for over 30 minutes.

We made two batches and put our own spin on the recipe by adding lemon peel, chives and salt to the first batch. See below:

We added fresh chopped rosemary, slivers of sun-dried tomato and salt to the second batch. We drizzled them both with olive oil. Here they are:

And here are the devoured cheeses from the end of the night: : I'm so glad I wasn't around for the cleanup.