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I’ve been making my own ricotta lately because it’s easy and has so few ingredients. I also like the taste very much better than store bought. Why is it different? I do not know. I’ve used it in lasagne, cake, and as a condiment for pancakes and crackers.

• Ingredients: Yield apx. 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1 quart whole milk
• 1-1/4 cups heavy cream
• 1/8 cup cider vinegar

Stir the milk and cream together in a saucepan. Set over medium heat and bring almost to boiling. This is very important, it has to be hot enough. Remove from heat and pour in the vinegar. Give two swirls through the pan with a spoon and then let it sit until cooled to room temperature. The milk will curdle–that’s good.

Using cheesecloth or a jelly bag or some type of fine-mesh strainer, pour the mixture through. This will mostly be whey. I save the whey to feed my sourdough, but you can discard it or search Google to find more uses. Once the remaining cheese is a dryness that seems good (overnight), either use it or place it into a covered dish and pop into the refrigerator for later. I don’t know how long it will last. Seems like the longest I’ve kept it is around ten days.

Notes: You can read a lot about this not working with pasteurized milk, but I’ve had no problem. I didn’t let it get hot enough one time and I stirred it too much, so it didn’t separate into milk solids and whey properly. I re-heated the whey the next day and as soon as it got hot it separated before my eyes. So, that was a learning experience.