Thrifty Thursday.....tips to save you dinero!!!

Today's tip is about cheese. I don't know how it is in your home but in ours we use a lot of cheese. I use sliced cheese for sandwiches, shredded cheese for burritos, eggs and ricotta cheese for macaroni, cream cheese for bread and well you get the idea.
   Cheese is pretty expensive in all its various forms so I got to thinking how can I save a little money in this area. The very next week while grocery shopping, I decided to compare net weight prices for shredded and sliced cheese. I was disgusted when I looked at how much these rices were. Shredded cheese was $7.99 a pound per weight and that was the store brand and i was only getting a few ounces. Sliced cheese was a little lower coming in at $5.99 a pound for 8 slices.
   To me the answer was simple. Try making my own cheese and invest in a good cheese grater. While looking at these prices, I took a second look at block cheese. Thought to myself here is some savings. Big blocks of cheddar cheese came in the lowest at $3.99 a pound. Well it was settled, I would shred and slice my own cheese for sandwiches and mac n cheese.
    But what about spreadable cheese? All I had to do was look to some of my homesteading books for really easy recipes. Yogurt cheese seemed the easiest to make and buying a large tub of yogurt would have dual purpose. Some yogurt would be used for fruit smoothies and snacks and some for cheese.
    For basic cheese all you need is whole milk or low fat milk plain flavor yogurt. Whisk up 1 or 2 cups depending on how much you are going to use it as it only keeps in the fridge for a week. Line a strainer or colander with cheese cloth, drop in your whisked yogurt and put strainer over a bowl. Set bowl in the fridge and wait at least 4 hour or up to over night. Drain the liquid or whey and you got your self some plain, spreadable cheese. For a added kick, you can add herbs, dates, raisins, honey even cucumber and make your own flavored cheese. Now doesn't cinnamon, raisins and honey cheese sound yummy on a slice of homemade baked bread??