Mascarpone

I had been meaning to make this for a long time, I ordered tartaric acid from NE cheesemaking a long time ago. Finally did with a little push from this guy's awesome cheesemaking page. I essentially followed his recipe to a T so won't repeat it. The only difference was I used a coffee filter to strain it instead of a sanitized handkerchief. Gonna do the hanky next time as the coffee filter clogged up a bit. He calls for mixing cream and half 'n' half for the dairy, so when the co-op had bottles of the two from Straus 1/2 off I went to town and made 2Q worth of it.

Using the stuff was a little difficult. The most often recommended use is a dollop with fresh fruit. I didn't like that much as yogurt works just fine for that, and is easier. When my brother was in town we did a pasta with red sauce and collard greens and mascarpone that was excellent. It was also pretty tasty on bread. Though honestly the best might have been just eating it straight up out of the container as an afterschool snack. But an awfully fattening snack! So I don't know how often I'll be making it, as there are plenty of substitutes, but it was a fun experiment.