Farmer defined page.
Using the milk from our herd of Nubian and La Mancha goats, we produce French influenced cheeses that have their roots in our deep dark prairie soils.
Our fresh chevre is as fresh as it gets—hints of lemon and luscious mouth feel.
Our two bloomy rind cheeses, “Angel Food” and “Little Bloom on the Prairie” have traditional white mold rinds. Angel Food is a ladled curd cheese with a thin rind and deliciously gooey interior. It is aged about three weeks.
Little Bloom on the Prairie is a cut curd camembert-style, with a dense creamy core. It is aged 4-5 weeks.
Moonglo is a raw milk tomme-style cheese with a washed rind. In addition to ripening cultures, we wash the rind with a “tea” made from Moonglo Pear leaves. Aged three to four months. Slightly nutty with notes of ripe fruits and truffles.
We offer other cheeses seasonally as well. Our Prairie Blazing Star Banon is an "all Illinois" banon. We take a soft ripened cheese like Angel Food and wrap it in a sycamore leaf from our farm that has been soaked in an illinois Chambourcin wine. Red dawn, pictured below, is a soft-ripened goat milk round that is aged for about three weeks, and then the rind is dusted in smoked paprika. Customers tell us "it tastes like bacon."
We are also experimenting with mixed milk cheeses. We have made a sheep-goat geo-rind cheese that is aged for only two weeks. It starts out using the same process as our chevre, but we add some geo white mold to the milk to get a delicate white mold rind. It has a creamy mouth feel, but it is drier and more crumbly than our chevre. Try it on a pizza or just cut a slice and pop it in your mouth.
In addition to our "regulars." we make a whole milk goat ricotta once per month. It is made in the traditional Italian style using basket molds. The texture is much more firm and dry compared to the ricotta you would find in the supermarket. Several of our chefs in Chicago who buy this cheese say it makes the most perfect ricotta gnocchi.
For availability of these cheeses, check our website under "what's new."
In addition to our repertoire of french inspired goat milk cheeses, we are now making some wonderful sheep milk and goat-sheep milk cheeses. We get our sheep milk from a small Amish sheep dairy in Arthur Illinois, about 45 minutes south of our farm. Eldin Plank's East Friesian-Lacon sheep are raised sustainably and humanely. They are pastured for most of the year.
Krotovina is a soft-ripened pyramid shaped cheese with an ash layer in the center. The name is inspired from Leslie's soil science roots. Krotovina is a soil taxonomy term for a buried darkened layer in a soil profile. This cheese contains a layer of goat milk cheese and a layer of sheep milk cheese separated by a thin layer of vegetable ash. Aged for 4-5 weeks, it has a very delicate bloomy rind with a firm paste.
Ewe Bloom is another soft-ripened cheese made from sheep milk. The technique for making this cheese is similar to a camembert. The flavor is sharp and somewhat pungent.
Roxanne is a raw sheep milk cheese made in the style of a “brebis.” Although, Brebis cheeses are made in the French Pyrenees region, our brebis has the character of its namesake “Roxanne,” one of our La Mancha X Nubian does. T The cheese is aged about two months and has a rich grassy and nutty flavor.
Kaskaskia: Another raw sheep milk cheese made in the styles of a Manchego or Parmesan. This cheese is aged for approximately seven months. It is hard, dry and nutty and makes an excellent grating cheese.
Most of our cheeses are sold direct to our customers at farmers' markets and select retail stores. If you are interested in wholesale prices of our cheeses, please contact us at prairiefruits@gmail.com or 217-643-2314.
