A few months ago we began to get milk delivered at home. I found a good company that gets us whole milk from local dairies that is very minimally pasteurized, so as close to raw as we can easily get. Many weeks we go through quite a bit and since I never seem to remember to log into their system and change my delivery, every few weeks we have a surplus.
What do you do with this kind of surplus? We began to experiment in cheese making. I had heard that mozzarella is very easy and so we started with that and it is wonderful. Last weekend we found ourselves with a milk abundance, and decided to make lasagna. Always looking to try new things, I looked into different recipes for ricotta. As it turned out it is even easier than the mozzarella and it is so amazingly good, that I have vowed never ever to get store bought again!
We have our Tastebuds dinner club on Saturday, then an egg hunt and light luncheon on Sunday and for both occasions we are looking at recipes that include ricotta. I guess that I will have to remember to log in this week, I will need to order extra milk!!
Easy Amazing Ricotta
1/2 Gallon whole milk
2 C. heavy cream
1 tsp. coarse salt (I used Kosher)
6 Tbsp. lemon juice
Combine milk, cream, and salt in a saucepan and cook until it reaches 190 degrees. Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and gently stir until well combined. Let sit for 10 minutes. Strain through cheesecloth lined strainer over a bowl and let sit straining fro 1 hour, this separates the curds and whey. Transfer to a container and refrigerate or use immediately.
I have wanted to try cheese making ever since I read, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". Yours looks like it turned out great!
ReplyDeleteif you've got stinging nettles, make a ricotta-based nettle gnocchi. serve it with nettle pesto. it's heaven. and don't forget to use your whey to make bread! yum. it's 8 a.m. and i should be leaving for work, but instead i want to cook!
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