How do you use homemade Ricotta?

[Dace]

My middle school cooking class would like to make cheese :/ and I am thinking this is an easy one, but I am not sure how we would use it...can we season it and eat on crackers (think Chevre log) or is it mainly used to cook with?... Lasagna etc.

 

[keljonma]

You could make cottage cheese pretty easily out of the ricotta. We've drained and rinsed the cheese and then stirred in some cream or half and half.

Drain and press it to make a cream cheese spread for veggies or crackers.

Make mock mascarpone cheese by adding some whipping cream and butter for a tiramisu, or add a bit a sweetener and chocolate for a dessert crepe filling.

Make yogurt in one class and in the next, make cheese out of the yogurt.

Make fillings for blintz with any of the cheeses.

 

[freemotion]

You can also sweeten it and maybe add a little cinnamon or vanilla, which the kids might like. Think canolli's. Why not make flavoring it part of the class, experimenting with various flavors?

No rules, in my book. Follow your instincts, and teach those kids to experiment and tolerate "failures" as part of the learning process.

It is such a mild cheese, it seems to me you could do anything with it that you would do with any mild, soft cheese. But the texture won't be creamy, more like cottage cheese......oh, why not mix in some fruit and eat it like yogurt? Or some preserves?

 

[Dace]

Ok, how does this recipe look?

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...berries-with-ricotta-cream-recipe2/index.html

The ricotta goes into a blender with the honey etc...so it should cream out a bit

Keljon...I have never made yogurt...how long does it take?

 

[freemotion]

Oooo, yummy, except the balsamic vinegar....with strawberries????

I usually make my yogurt overnight, so 10-12 hours, but sometimes it sets up in less time, 6-8 hours....but I wouldn't know, since I don't check it then. I use the picnic cooler method. It is sinfully easy!

 

[keljonma]

Oooo, yummy, except the balsamic vinegar....with strawberries????

I usually make my yogurt overnight, so 10-12 hours, but sometimes it sets up in less time, 6-8 hours....but I wouldn't know, since I don't check it then. I use the picnic cooler method. It is sinfully easy!

I know it sounds strange, free, but balsamic is *wonderful* with strawberries!

 

[keljonma]

Ok, how does this recipe look?

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...berries-with-ricotta-cream-recipe2/index.html

The ricotta goes into a blender with the honey etc...so it should cream out a bit

Keljon...I have never made yogurt...how long does it take?

I think the recipe sounds good. At the cooking school, we had an entire class about balsamic. The whole menu was made with balsamic.


Dace, this is how I make yogurt. I usually double or triple the yogurt I am making, since I bake with it and we feed it to the flock.

Clean and rinse 4 - 6 quart-sized canning jars with hot water. (I use very hot tap or boiling.) Set aside to drain.

Heat the oven to warm. After it comes to temp, shut off the oven. Put clean jars into oven to stay warm. I also put into the oven 1 kitchen towel per quart jar and 2 extra. Keep the jars in the oven until ready to fill.

Put a clean metal spoon or whisk into a large bowl or pitcher and pour boiling water into the bowl. Dump the water. This helps warm the bowl or pitcher and the stirring implement.

Ingredients:
3 3/4 c very warm water (about 110F)
1 2/3 c dry milk powder
4 T plain yogurt with active cultures

Combine water and milk powder, stirring well. Let it sit a few minutes and stir again to ensure the powder is completely dissolved. Stir in the yogurt. Let it sit a few minutes and stir again to make sure the yogurt is incorporated too.

Take a jar out of the oven and pour the yogurt mixture in, then close the lid. Put the filled, capped jar back into the oven to stay warm while the rest of the jars are filled.

Then after filling the jars with the yogurt starter/milk mixture, I wrap them with the warm towels and put them into one of those hot/cold bags that you can get at your grocer's. (The kind that says it keeps food hot/cold for up to 3 hours.) I put one warm towel on the bottom of the bag, one around each quart jar, and one on top of the jars before I seal up the bag. The large hot/cold bag will hold 4 quart jars.

Then I leave it on my kitchen counter for about 6 to 8 hours, but sometimes, I leave it over night. Most recipes will tell you not to let it sit that long, because the yogurt can become too tart. Since the majority of our homemade yogurt gets used for baking or fed to the chickens, I'm not worried about how tart it gets.

Your homemade yogurt should be thick like store bought yogurt. If there is some whey, you can drain it off and feed it to the chickens. Or you can drain the yogurt and make yogurt cheese. Add herbs and spices for spreadable yumminess.

Some other ways to incubate the yogurt:

1. Set oven to warm and after it has reached temperature, shut the oven off. Place in oven for 6 to 8 hours. Overnight is good too.

2. Pour the yogurt mixture into heated quart-sized Thermos and set in non-drafty area for the incubation period.

3. Place the glass container filled with yogurt mixture in a picnic cooler. Add 2 or 3 jars filled with boiling water to the cooler and shut the cooler lid. After 4 hours, check to see if the boiling water needs replaced and do so if needed. Remove yogurt after 8 hours.

4. Set the glass container filled with yogurt mixture near the wood stove or radiator or hot water tank.

Yogurt will last refrigerated for about 2 weeks.

NOTE: Instead of water and dry milk powder, you can use any milk except an ultrapasturized milk. Warm the milk before adding the yogurt. You may still need to add some dry milk to help thicken the yogurt if not using only dry milk to make the yogurt.

 

[patandchickens]

Whole-milk ricotta, which is probably what you're talking about, will not come out quite like "real" ricotta (from the store, or made at home using whey from a cultured cheese you've made). It is coarser, less smooth, and a bit blander. I have tried using homemade whole-milk ricotta in a ricotta cheesecake recipe and do not recommend it. It is not bad in lasagna.

You can blend in herbs/garlic and use it as a spread for putting on crackers.

My best recommendation if you ahve time would be to go one step more and make ricotta salata ('search' this forum, I've posted the recipe somewhere on another thread). It is super easy, you just drain the whole-milk ricotta a little more and press overnight in something homemade, then salt the outside and keep turning and salting it once a day for like a week, at which point it can be eaten. It is mild but IMHO very tasty (sort of creamy-buttery tasting, and of course a little bit salty though not as much as you'd expect). It doesn't melt well but is good sliced and eaten alone.

If you want to try a hard cheese (I don't know what time frame you're working with) there is a good simple recipe at http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese98.htm . When newly made it tastes pretty buttermilk-y (that's what's used as the culture) but a month later it tastes sort of like a sharp cheddar and is quite useful.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Dace]

Thanks Kel & Pat....I may try those both...the ricotta salata sounds yummy!

For my class though I only have 1 1/2 hours. Pat is there a cheese I can make using just grocery store ingredients or should I just do a seasoned ricotta to spread on crackers?

Not sure if you read the recipe that I posted but you blend the ricotta, honey and vanilla extract until smooth then refrigerate for an hour or so before layering balsamic berries on top....do you think the homemade ricotta would work if it is being doctored up and blended smooth?

 

[keljonma]

patandchickens wrote:
I have tried using homemade whole-milk ricotta in a ricotta cheesecake recipe and do not recommend it. It is not bad in lasagna.

I tried making cheesecake with two different recipes with the whole-milk ricotta I made.

The first recipe just had the cream cheese and ricotta blended together in the mixing bowl. The whole-milk ricotta did not work well in this recipe at all.

However, our family cheesecake recipe calls for the ricotta and cream cheese to be pressed through a sieve. I found that the whole-milk ricotta worked well in this recipe.