Homemade Ricotta Cheese

[Deleted]

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Makes about 3 cups

2 quarts whole milk
1-cup heavy cream
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (Meyer lemons if possible) (need 2-3)
½ teaspoon salt

Rinse a large stainless steel soup pot in cold water.

Pour the milk into the pot. Add the cream and salt. Slowly bring the mixture to 200F on a candy thermometer. Do not let milk boil. Slowly stir in the lemon juice. Maintain the temperature and allow the curds to form.

Have ready a large fine mesh colander lined with several layers of damp cheesecloth over a large bowl.

Scoop the curds as they form with a slotted spoon into the cheesecloth-lined colander and allow the cheese to drain for at least 2 hours. Transfer the cheese to a container and refrigerate for up to three days. Or scoop the ricotta into plastic cheese baskets as seen below.



Maryanne Esposito website.

[clarencebunsen]

I've made cheese. The experience taught me to appreciate real cheese makers and I've never since attempted to appropriate their jobs.

[kit]

True, it's much easier and faster to go to the store any buy a container of ricotta cheese, but if the kitchen is one of your favorite rooms to spend time in, and you don't always trust the ingredients in the store-bought products, it's very satisfying and fun to make your own.

I really enjoy middle-eastern foods, especially those from Lebanon, and I make my own yogurt, then make that into yogurt cheese called 'Labneh.' It's not a true cheese, but a thickened yogurt that makes a great dip for hunks of Lebanese bread or can be used to make a sauce called Tzatziki which is great in a wrap.

Both cheeses are easy to make and the dishes each of them are used in are delicious. I love homemade ricotta when I make a lasagna.

[Clipper]

I attempted cheese making only once. I made a batch of mozzarella once, many years ago. I remember it being a huge and messy project for a small yield, and decided right then that it was not fun and that I would not bother with such a mess ever again. We simply purchase Breakstone Dairy's ricotta in a tub on the isolated occasions when Kathy makes cheesecake. lasagna or stuffed shells.

[Deleted]

I eat a lot of ricotta. I like it as a dessert with a teaspoon of jelly on top. I also like it on warm Italian bread. I also love it stirred into pasta with a drizzle of olive oil on top and some minced up parsley somewhat like American Mac and cheese. It is a lot of work to make but I will try it once maybe twice a year coinciding with when I wash the kitchen floor.

[Clipper]

I have used left over ricotta mixed with a little vanilla and some sugar to spread on a bagel or English muffin. I bet it IS good with jelly on top. Probably even better with a quality jam mixed right into the cheese. Sort of like and "over the top" version of Philly flavored cream cheeses. As I age, I lose some of the enthusiasm for projects like that. I haven't made sausage in quite a while. I bought sausage in Utica when we were there last summer and still have a small amount in the freezer, and I also have found that Kroger's makes a decent Italian sausage and sells it both cased and loose. I love a patty on a kaiser roll with sauteed bell peppers and onions. I no longer have to make breakfast sausage either. My friend Charlie, the meat cutter at a local market, makes sausage twice a week. When I want a batch, he holds out ten pounds of his mix, adds a little more black pepper and sage for me and I have my extra spicy sausage to make into patties, vacuum package and freeze in packages with 3 patties each. Charlie has been a lifesaver since we moved here. There are no meat markets to speak of and he is the only one I have met that will custom cut thick steaks, or a roast of a certain size for me. He also cuts round steak in thin strips for me to make jerky, and I pay him for the added labor in jerky whenever I make a batch. Haven't done that in a while either.

[kit]

I usually don't make my own cheese any more either. As is the common feeling, for the yield, making it is a pain in the butt compared to buying it in stores.

Yogurt and labneh, however, are soft and very versatile when it comes to adding other ingredients to make dips and sauces that add to one's culinary arsenal, and it's easy to make your own. For me it's really worth the effort money-wise, time-wise and health-wise to tinker with it and come up with new and different uses.

One other interesting thing is that most people who are lactose intolerant can eat yogurt freely because it contains its own enzyme that digests it. Win-Win.

[clarencebunsen]

Nov 23, 2014 7:36:38 GMT -5 kit said:

True, it's much easier and faster to go to the store any buy a container of ricotta cheese, but if the kitchen is one of your favorite rooms to spend time in, and you don't always trust the ingredients in the store-bought products, it's very satisfying and fun to make your own.

I really enjoy middle-eastern foods, especially those from Lebanon, and I make my own yogurt, then make that into yogurt cheese called 'Labneh.' It's not a true cheese, but a thickened yogurt that makes a great dip for hunks of Lebanese bread or can be used to make a sauce called Tzatziki which is great in a wrap.

Both cheeses are easy to make and the dishes each of them are used in are delicious. I love homemade ricotta when I make a lasagna.

I understand how you feel. I feel the same when I'm in a bread making phase. I enjoy experimenting with the physics and chemistry and even if it doesn't work out as I plan the result is good

[Clipper]

Kathy has made bread for so long that she has a routine and it doesn't seem to take her long to put together the dough. Then she lets it rest, punches it down, puts it in pans, lets it rise again, and bakes it. I have not been eating as much bread lately, and try to do whole grain varieties. She doesn't care for whole grain breads, so she hasn't tried baking any of that variety. When I WAS eating white bread, there was nothing better than fresh bread, still warm from the oven, with peanut butter, or a couple of nice thick slices with fresh cold cuts sandwiched between them. She used to use the bread machine to make bread, but in recent years, she only uses it when she wants to make a heavy and dense herb bread to eat with Italian food. I was never a real fan of bread machine bread, as it didn't seem to be as airy and light as when baked in the oven. The dense and heavy variety is very conducive to slathering with garlic butter to soak up sauce from spaghetti or to make an open faced meatball sandwich smothered in sauce.

[dave]

Damn! I'm getting hungry just reading this thread. Of the activities mentioned above, all I've ever done is make yogurt. And I'm sure my method would make you laugh. I start by putting a dab of store-bought or homemade yogurt into each cup in my yogurt maker and then I add whole milk (although 2% works, but not very well) and flip the On Switch. My yogurt maker is nothing but four cups sitting in a heated tray.

Mrs. Dave has often lamented my lack of taking after my father. He learned to shop and cook during a five year stint in the Utica Fire Department, where his teachers were strict and his judges were merciless. ("Hey, John, that's my roast you're ruining. I chipped in for it.") But he always loved to food shop and cook and continued to do so at home long afterward, although I never remember anything more original than meat and potatoes. He evidently never thought to cut a roast or other beef up for Stroganoff or Sauerbraten. (My mother did make a goulash of cubed pot roast, potato quarters and a red sauce. And of course there were a number of hamburger dishes ... , loose cooked, meat loaf, etc.)

[Clipper]

I know how you feel Dave. I am drooling just sitting here at the computer. Kathy is baking two pumpkin pies. When they come out, a meat loaf, and root veggies will go in. Parsnips, chunked up carrots, turnips, celery and onions, drizzled with olive oil and dusted lightly with garlic powder, sea salt, and fresh cracked pepper. The smells wafting from the kitchen are going to be wonderful for the entire afternoon. Pumpkin pies for us to eat here at home, seeing as how we are not doing the entire meal here this year. I love the pie for a couple of days after Thanksgiving, but it looks like I hit the jackpot this year, because the pies are going to be available for slicing TODAY! Woohooo! I will pick away at them, a small, diet sized sliver at a time, while she is allowed to have her pie in a SLAB with COPIUS AMOUNTS OF WHIPPED CREAM! Yep. She isn't on any diet programs, but she may be by the time the holidays are over with, haha.

[Deleted]

The Bosnian's here in my building make Kifir. It is a sour milk drink very similar to yogurt and is delicious. I bought a quart of it at Walmart--Blueberry flavored. I don't like the plain taste. It is only $2.50 and it is an excellent probiotic. The people here make gallons of it at a time. They let it ripen In there cloths closets off the kitchen, haha.

I had a landlord who every winter season made his Italian sausage which he hung and dries in the attics. Then it was placed in big jars filled with olive oil. Sausage in the can. It was very good. He would buy whole pork butts and make sure he removed just about all the fat.

[Clipper]

I bought some of the sausage dried and canned in oil while we were there last summer. I was not crazy about it. Someone on here had discussed it at some point in time so I went by the Italian meat market just east of Culver Ave on Bleecker St and bought some. It was called Soppressata. Is that what you are speaking of Alan? It was okay, but simply not my cup of tea. I guess you have to be Italian to appreciate the work that goes into making it and have to have a taste for it.

Pork butts do make the best sausage. When I was more ambitious and made sausage in larger quantities than I do now, I would buy about 30 pounds of bone-in pork butts, trim them well, setting aside some of the fat to grind back in if the sausage looked too lean after the first grinding. I usually ended up with a yield of about 12 or 14 lbs of Italian sausage and about that same amount of breakfast sausage, more or less. Now I buy two good sized butts and make it in smaller batches. My cholesterol was a bit high when I ate sausage at every breakfast and ate sausage sandwiches or pasta with sausage a couple of times a week. We had spaghetti tonight for supper. Kathy has learned to make just enough for the two of us with no left overs. She makes a couple of meatballs each and a four inch length of Italian sausage. We are still working on some sausage that we brought back from Utica. I bought it at Pulaski Meat Market on Lenox. Not as good as Chanatry's but acceptable when compared to Johnsonville, haha.

PS: I did try making sausage once with boneless pork loins when they were on sale. Loin is too lean and you definitely have to add fat. I found the breakfast sausage that I made with pork loin to be very dry. I had to add oil to the pan when I cooked it.

[kit]

Whether making cheese, yogurt, bread, sausage, or building a delicate sauce, I'm happier spending time in the kitchen constructing something real than opinionating on politics, sports or religion, none of which I'm qualified for anyway. Some people like that sort of thing, which is fine, but I don't see the point because nothing productive ever seems to come of it, whereas making a delicious food yields something useful and positive. I guess that's just me... different strokes and all that.

Now, Clipper, about Kathy's meatballs... will she provide her recipe, and then will she have to kill me afterwards?

[dave]

Well, Kit, after all there is the concept of the complete person. He or she who cooks, eats and argues the issues of the day. You may be right that some activities don't produce anything useful to use or eat, but to voice opinions is to be human. There, I just did so.