Farmer's Cheese -- not quite tvorog, but not quite not.

I'm not going to lie: this isn't the best way to make tvorog. In fact, it can hardly be called tvorog at all because it's really more like a paneer or a farmer's cheese than tvorog -- it lacks the tang of a true tvorog. Still -- if you're in a hurry, or if you have a gallon of milk that's about to go bad, or if you like your soft cheeses to be milder and sweeter this is a perfectly good method. Traditional, proper tvorog depends on live cultures from kefir, cultured sour cream or buttermilk (or in the case of raw milk, you can culture it by simply letting it sit out and go sour). As demonstrated here, you mix warm milk with your culture and let it sit for a day. Heat again, separate the curds and there you have it.

This is faster, and while the flavors are decidedly less complex, it's still a good cheese.

You need:
Milk - 1/2 gallon
Vinegar - 1/4 cup


1. Heat your milk just short of boiling. Stir to avoid burning the milk.
2. Reduce heat to low and add vinegar. Stir for about a minute, then remove from heat. Your milk should have curdled, like this:

 3. Drain in a cheesecloth (finally use that for its intended purpose!). If you're going to be eating it like tvorog -- that is, as a filling for blinchiki or as a replacement for cottage cheese, you're done. If not, read on. 

 4. For a firmer cheese put your tvorog, still wrapped in its cheesecloth, on a plate and put something heavy on top for a few hours. Your end result is a firm pancake of cheese that you can then roll in herbs and spices -- we recently fresh sage with chopped pecans and it was heavenly. 

Tasty, tasty blank slate.