My mother-in-law gives me inserts, coupon pages, comics, etc. from her daily paper. Last week I found a recipe for making ricotta cheese in one of the inserts. It called for a gallon of whole milk and a quart of buttermilk. You cook it until it reaches 180 degrees, and then you strain it through (what else?) cheesecloth for an hour or so.
I've never made cheese before. I always thought it was very complicated. I thought you had to have scads of immense copper kettles and a bunch of big brown jersey cows in the backyard. I lack both. It has been easy, so far, I just kept checking the temperature every 10 minutes.
I found a bread recipe that uses the whey. There's A LOT of whey. I should be able to make several loaves from what I've got left. Now to find a recipe for cannoli...that uses ricotta cheese for the filling, doesn't it?
The cheese finished cooling to room temp and I put it in the fridge in a plastic bin about half an hour ago. I had a taste and it's kind of buttery, and very mild.
