Once again I found myself with a gallon of fresh milk and not much time to make cheese, so I decided to try G. Caldwell's "developed-acid drained soft cheese" recipe (aka fromage blanc, since making with whole milk). I have made this cheese with different recipes before, but not this one. I followed the recipe exactly, and was pleased that everything happened the way the recipe said it would!
Then, what to do with it? I started playing around...put some plain, salted in a patterned basket mold, then layered some of the cheese in other plain-sided molds with tomato-basil and basil-walnut pestos. (I keep large batches of these pestos in the freezer, in cubes). The layered one came out "company-good", taste tested A-OK by some friends (of course, you have to like pesto in order to think so). Next time I will be more careful in the layering to make it look prettier.
