Cheese Whiz! Make Your Own Ricotta. Yes, It's That Easy.

   So I've been going a bit cheesy around here lately. Maybe it started when I threw that Castello Cheesefest, maybe it was just the price of store-bought Paneer, (crazy expensive.) Maybe it was reading about all the stuff that goes into dairy animals and products nowadays, either way I decided to take control of my cheese. My cheese, my way. No additives, no strange milk, no GMO mysterioso. If anybody around my house was going to be a cheese eater, they were going to get the best cheese I could get, and that would be homemade.

   Granted my cheese monger skills are nascent. It's not like I've gotten myself a milking bucket and a couple of farm animals... yet.  This is totally beginning cheese making. This is cheese making  that anyone can do anywhere, from an apartment kitchen to the classiest state of the art set up. If you've got milk, cream and a couple of lemons, you can make this cheese. No kidding.

   Growing up in an Italian family we did get quite a lot of cheese but the one cheese that I always loved was ricotta. Creamy, fresh and clean smelling, homemade ricotta is a lot different from what one can get off the supermarket shelf. Think of it as the difference between canned cranberry sauce, and homemade. Canned cranberry sauce is okay, I grew up with it. I loved the ring pattern after my mom would de-can it and it would stand there shivering on the plate. I loved that  canned stuff and my mom would even get the whole berry cranberry sauce so I had no idea what I was missing until I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner and made my own fresh cranberry sauce.

   Ricotta in a container from the dairy case is just fine, in fact I've used it a lot over the years. It's firmness makes a great  substitute for Paneer or Chenna cheese in some Indian recipes. I was used to the firm plop with which it would un-mold from it's container. it tasted fine. That was before I tried making my own. I went trawling the internet looking for promising ricotta recipes and don't kid yourself, for such a simple thing there are a lot of methods out there. I came up with two of them that seemed easily doable. Neither of them is conventional.
 
   Traditionally ricotta is made from the whey left over from making mozzarella. The word ricotta is the Italian for recooked. Since I'm still wearing my cheese training wheels I haven't gotten around to mozzarella yet, but it's coming. Most of the ricotta recipes to be found out there don't require the making of mozarella first which was why I gave it a try. Even though I grew up Italian, I've been cooking Indian for 23 years and mozzarella and ricotta haven't exactly been part of my kitchen repertoire. The way I see it, is if I can make this stuff, anybody can.

   So, a few weeks ago I settled in to whip up some ricotta and test the recipes I'd chosen. One was a big waste of time and I wound up frustrated. The other worked like a charm and that's the keeper. The recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen, and boy howdy does it work. Try this and you will turn into a veritable ricotta-making machine. I have. Anyone who finds me on their doorstep lately finds me bearing a pot of homemade ricotta. You will be hooked.

Ricotta Cheese

Here's What You Need:

3 cups of local organic milk, cream top non-homogenized.  I use our local milk from Straus Family Creamery
1 cup of organic whipping cream
1/2 tsp of Kosher salt
3 Tbs of fresh lemon juice
A candy thermometer

Here's What You Do:

Mix the milk, cream and salt together in a heavy bottomed pan.

Stir the milk on a medium low temperature so that nothing sticks. When the milk reaches 190 degrees take the pan off the heat and add in the lemon juice.

Stir the lemon juice in slowly, a couple of times.
Let it sit off the heat for 5 minutes. Don't touch the cheese while it's sitting there.
Line a colander with a couple of layers of cheesecloth and set it on top of a bowl to catch the whey.

Pour the curds and whey into the cloander.

 Let them drain for at least an hour.

After an hour the ricotta will be soft, creamy and very spreadable. That's when I stop the process.
If you let it go another hour, you'll have more of a cream cheese type texture. The ricotta firms up as it cools, so what's in your cheesecloth is not the final texture.

   You can eat the ricotta warm on crusty bread or drizzled with honey or... whatever you may desire. You can also put it in an airtight container in the fridge for use later. As for the whey, if you know any of the zillion uses for it you're all set. Just refrigerate and store it in an airtight container, if not you can get rid of it. I served my ricotta cool,  two ways. With fresh heirloom tomatoes from the Farmers Market, crusty French bread fresh basil , and  California Olive Ranch Oil with a grind or two of fresh pepper.

I also made a dessert with Sonoma figs, local honey, and some walnuts.

   I gave a batch to my friend Jane and she whipped up pasta with some left over ratatoullie and a topping of fresh ricotta. As you see there's a lot one can do with fresh ricotta, and it's only limited by ones' imagination. I have a batch on my stove right now as I'm writing this, it's that easy to make.  Coming up next, back to Indian food, follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Quick and Easy Summer Squash Salad

   This last weekend was one of those crazy weekends. House guests visiting from LA. They were on a work trip to Skywalker Ranch when their car had a meltdown. After repairs and getting their work done at the Ranch, it was on to our house where things did not exactly get better. It was up in Sonoma that their car finally decided to die.

   This is everyones' my worst nightmare. To be trapped 500 miles from home with a thousand pounds of equipment and a dead vehicle. After a hurried consult with mechanics, it was decided that the cars' best days were long gone and it was time for a new whip. So the weekend became a search for a way back to LA.
 
   With all the stresses of work, travel and then car buying, one wants life to be a little simple and it seemed that the easiest and simplest thing I could do for everyone was to just cook. It was also a warm weekend here in NorCal, so cooling, soothing foods were wanted. Plus easy, 'cause when a trip to the dealership is in order, who knows when anyone is coming home and what kind of mood they're going to be in.

  A couple of Indian, spice-rubbed chickens was my go-to entree, along with black eyed peas and mushrooms,  fresh corn has just shown up at the market, so my favorite easy spinach and corn dish, and of course a nice, cooling summer salad made with what used to be the most hated vegetable my mom ever served us, Summer Squash, aka Patty Pan squash, aka The Devil.
 
   Every kid has a most hated list of foods and I was a weird kid. I loved most of the stuff my friends hated. I don't know whether I was like that just to be contrary, or because I didn't want to give my parents the satisfaction of being able to torture me with vegetables. Either way, I loved the green stuff. Except for that round, flat UFO-looking squash that had a tendency to turn all watery and grey once it was on the plate. YUCK. Even now, I really don't care for it. However this time of the year, it seems to be everywhere and it's really, really, really cheap. So in the interest of frugality, I started to experiment with it and sure enough, the Indian Kitchen had a way of making the unplatable (to me) desirable. Mixed with fresh mint and spices, and wrapped in good quality yogurt, all of a sudden I was eating this stuff again and liking it. The hated hot squash had become a cool summery Indian salad.

 

Indian Summer Squash Salad

Here's What You Need:
 
1 and 1/4 cups of steamed, mashed, cooled summer squash
1 tsp of cumin seeds
2 tsp of chopped fresh mint
1/8 tsp of paprika
1/3 tsp of salt
1 cup of good quality plain yogurt
2 Tbs of sour cream

Here's What To Do:

Wash, quarter and steam the squash until it's tender (about 15 minutes or so).
Let it cool, drain any excess water away from it and mash it up.
Dry roast the cumin seeds in a small pan and grind them up.
Mix the ground cumin with the squash.
Add in the chopped fresh mint

Pour the yogurt into a bowl. I like to use an local organic yogurt.

Add in the sour cream and blend it together well.
Add the squash mixture to the yogurt sour cream blend.
When everything is well mixed together, decorate with a bit of chopped mint.
Check for seasoning and serve it up.

   This is one of the easiest summer salads to make. It works well with both Indian and Western dishes.The important thing to remember in making this dish is excess water. You want to keep any excess water out of it or you will wind up with a soup. Also, this is a dish which needs to be blended together at the last  minute and served immediately. Trust me. It turns grey if it's not, and there will be all sorts of traumatic childhood memories either formed or reawakened.  Who wants the therapy bills getting over squash? Save the money for the really big stuff.
  
   Coming up next, the weather is turning warm here in Wine Country and I'm putting on my cool cooking shoes. Fast salads, and quick breads for company meals. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori