cheesy-goodness

I love Chatelaine magazine - love it! I have a subscription; have for years.

Today we made Ricotta cheese and it was super easy and we had lots of fun... 

I'm going to share the recipe but you should go buy Chatelaine for all the other cool stuff or check it out from the library - I got some great ad ideas for my 2013 magazine.

You will need:

Cheese cloth 

2 litres of 3.25% milk

1/4 tsp of lemon juice

1/2 tsp of kosher salt (we ended up using sea salt and it was fine - didn't want to buy a giant bag of kosher salt for this one recipe)

2 tbsp of 35% cream (bought whipping cream, tried to open it and found out that some other ass at the store had done that for us so we didn't use this part - but that actually makes the recipe better for you... )

Put the 3.25% milk into pot and boil it - it needs to get to 185 degrees on a thermometer.. no thermometer - well you want it to be on high on the stove for 5 good minutes... it will nearly start to stick to the bottom of the pot... remember - stir it over and over again

So once you've hit the 185 or the 5 minute mark you turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and salt and let it hang out together for 2 minutes - the milk will be pissed off that acid has joined the party and start to curd... it was AWESOME!  

Then once the liquid is yellow-y and it has been 2 minutes... you pour it into the cheese cloth and let it drain - it should drain for five minutes... 

And then - guess what... you've got Ricotta cheese - fantastic!

Here is the cheese all finished - we spread a little bit of this on some toasted baguettes, then topped them with the following:  cut grape tomatoes in half, toss with about 1 tbsp of thyme, 2 tbsp of olive oil plus salt and pepper - this little bunch of goodness hops in the oven at 425 and cooks for 5 minutes and then I just put 2 halves on each piece - it was super good.  The cheese on its own was lemony, but good... and what.. what... the no-cheese girl eating cheese??? what..??? Well I tried it because I cooked it... my body continues to be ok with the cheese tonight... 

And this is me and David... it was a great day - we are going to send in our photo to Chatelaine and show off our 'mad' cooking skills :)  Can't wait to show the guys how to make cheese too!  They are in Vancouver for a few days - but home on Tuesday - so I'm looking forward to seeing them and having fun this week and coming weekend.

Plus we made regular lasagna, a chicken vegetable lasagna (no cheese), and about 150 cookies... if you are in Quesnel I'll happily bring you some - they are monster variety - peanut butter, chocolate and no flour :)

And now.. off to the store to grab a few things :) 

xo - my love to you!