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.
Dent de Leon takes it name from the puffy dandelion heads prolific on our farm in spring. We take a fresh chevre and coat it with ash and let it age for about 3-4 weeks, allowing natural molds to colonize the rind. Excellent for crumbling or grating if left to dry a little longer.
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.
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."
NEW IN 2009 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. Leroy Planks 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 Cooperband'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. The rind starts out as an ivory white color and as the season changes, the rind becomes darker. 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.
