Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is Utopia Kitchen Flour Sack Towels.  I am going to tell you that really any quality flour sack towel I have used has been fine, these are just the best price per towel I can find and they are on prime.  The key word there though is quality.  Can you find them for less than about $2.20 a towel?  Yes, but when you do read the reviews.  The common theme will be “very thin” and “gets holes after a few uses”.  These don’t do that, they last a very long time and due to that, they pay for themselves.

Utopia Kitchen Flour Sack Towels have over 5600 reviews and 4.5 stars.  In other words they are top quality.  Remember a key tenet of my philosophy is “always be frugal, never be cheap”.  To be blunt, something is only a “good deal” if it both works and lasts.

Lot’s of people like these because they are lint free and dry dishes nicely, etc.  Some people use them for embroidery.   Also some see them as the perfect cloth diaper.   That is all great but what I use them for is as an alternative to cheesecloth.  In that use they make a much better alternative when making yogurt cheese or separating say buttermilk from fresh made butter.

Cheese cloth wears out fast and doesn’t really offer any advantages for this use, where as flour sack towels last a very long time, you just wash and dry them and use them over and over again.  I am a huge fan of getting good bacteria like lactobacillus into your diet in many different ways and none are more awesome than yogurt cheese.  In fact it may be the easiest and most delicious way to up  your probiotic game.

All you need to do to make basic yogurt cheese is take one of these towels and dump plain yogurt with “live and active cultures” into it, stir in a bit of salt, put it in a metal strainer over a bowl and wait 12 to 24 hours.  You will than have something akin to tangy cream cheese.  But I have never made it so bland.

While your yogurt is still very soft is the time to stir in herbs and seasonings.  Here are a few of my favorite things to add to it.

• Fresh Basil and Fresh Garlic – this is the universal one everyone likes
• Chopped Jalapenos and Garlic
• Cracked Black Pepper, Rosemary and Thyme
• Cracked Black Pepper and Almond Slivers – Add the Almonds at Serving, See Video below for why.
• Lemon Zest and Chopped Walnuts

Honestly if you think it might taste good with cheese it will likely work.  How much, well as in most things I do it by eye, just remember you can always add more but can never take it out.  Here is a save if you ever over do anything, make a plane batch and blend it.

Also if you want your yogurt cheese a bit firmer, try this, take a large heavy can of something, put it on top of the towel and it will help expel a bit more of the whey.  Oh the whey that stuff is probiotic gold.  You can drink it and you will also find that your animals will like it too.

So if getting more probiotics into your diet is in your plans, and it should be, give Utopia Kitchen Flour Sack Towels a shot.

Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com

P.S. – I realize that some times just being told it is okay to do something like let yogurt hang in a bag refrigerated overnight can be a bit intimidating to people.  We have been so brainwashed by the almighty dot gov alphabet departments.  ie, never let dairy get over 45 degrees and if it does throw it away.

In the words of Steven Harris, “what fricken temperature do you think it was when it came out of the cow”?!!!

Foods like yogurt, cheese, butter and lebneh (essentially thickened yogurt we call yogurt cheese) were invented before man ever conceived of the idea of refrigeration.  Specifically they were invented to extend the life of milk, which they are all made from.  If making lebneh, yogurt cheese etc. were dangerous, every Lebanese and Greek Grandmother would have poisoned their families long ago.  Hence here is a quick video of me whipping up some of my favorite yogurt cheese, jalapeno, garlic and black pepper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~