Make cheese! Make cheese now!

The annual opportunity to have cheesecake is almost upon us (yay cheese!) and for this opportunity I highly - HIGHLY - recommend you make your own cream cheese. Why? Do I really have to explain why? It's delicious, it's about a million times cheaper when you make it yourself, and it might have fewer preservatives. That's why. Also, it's easy.*

*So as I do not become one of those irritating Pinterest Liars I have formerly spoken out against (and whose very existence was the inspiration for this blog), I am going to put a gigantic qualifier on 'easy.' It is easy IF you have cheesecloth or something that can double as cheesecloth. Now, I highly recommend you get cheesecloth because if you have cheesecloth you can make your own ricotta, paneer, labaneh, and cream cheese. BUT, if for lack of time or resources you cannot get a cheesecloth, you can use:

• a random piece of thin cloth like muslin. Fairly cheap to buy at fabric stores,
• a baby's burping cloth-  LIE. I have tried this. It didn't work. The cloth was far too thick. If you find a thinner cloth and it works for you, let me know.
• panty-hose? Maybe? I don't see why not, it's a thin enough material. Haven't tried though. 
• Actual cloth diaper that was used on actual babies? Maybe. Sounds kinda gross to me, but that's probably just my silly 21st century sensibilities.

Anyway, I highly encourage you to get an actual cheesecloth if you can find it.

Then, this recipe. It once was found, but then I failed to bookmark it, and then it was lost, and finally refound, and bookmarked on every single device I own. It was surprising, actually, how difficult it was to find a simple DIY cream cheese recipe on the internetz. Many websites claim you can't actually make cream cheese from scratch, and that you need rennet and other specialty ingredients to make it work. I don't know what they are talking about. I've made this several times before, it's amazing, and you can then make cheesecake out of it.

Have I mentioned yay cheese? Yay, cheese. Also, yay cheesecake.

 Homemade cream cheese
From More Quiche, Please

Yield: About 1 cup

take recipe, multiply X5 for cheesecake

Ingredients

• 1 container sour cream = 200 ml = 0.423 US pint (you could probably round up to 1/2 a pint. Sh! I promise not to tell.)
• 1/4 tsp salt

You will also need:

• 1 cheesecloth (a thin burping cloth works perfectly - LIES! NO IT DOESN'T! )

Directions

1. Mix salt and sour cream in a bowl.
2. Put into cheesecloth, tie it up somewhere it can drip (ideally into a bowl or something that can catch the drips), and let it drip - yes, outside of the fridge - overnight or for 8 hours. 
3. Scoop it out, put into a container in the fridge. 
4. The end. The recipe claims it keeps for a week, but, really, why wait? Make cheesecake. 

Well, yeah, it kinda looks gross now. But ... cheesecake!