A few weeks ago my husband brought home 20 pounds of labneh from the Middle Eastern grocery store. I love labneh. But as much as I love it there is no way I can eat 20 pounds in a week. But wait, what is labenh? It is made from yogurt that is strained in cheese cloth. Salt is added and then it is rolled into 1" balls. At the point it is either packed into glass jars or sprinkled with herbs such as thyme, oregano, mint or red pepper. Once in the jar, olive oil is poured over the balls to preserve it. Now the labneh can be stored for 6 months up to a year. Labneh is a traditional Syrian breakfast or snack food which is eaten with bread. It is very nutritious and delicious. I love to eat it spread on toast with sliced tomatoes, capers and black pepper. When Sam first brought home the labneh we laughed about the different ways we could eat 20 lbs of the stuff. Joking aside, we both knew what we had to do. We set out an afternoon a few days later and begin the task of rolling balls of labneh. We raided our herb pantry. All of the herbs were raised here at Via Verde. We got a little "out of the box" with our decision to use Herbes de Provence, chives, and lemon thyme. We did go with the traditional flavors of mint, oregano, thyme, marjoram. However, my two favorite flavors ended up being chive and Herbes de Provence. Sam took the photos of our hard work. We have enough labneh to get us through the winter and maybe even into summer. I definitely will try this again and maybe push the flavor envelope a bit further

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