Week 12: Cheese - Fresh Ricotta

I am a little late in posting this, since this was last week's post, but I was deathly ill last night and the mear thought of food sent me to the bathroom. Not from making cheese. No, I made this on Monday night. Yes. I made fresh cheese on a weeknight. You can too.

This is the second time I have made this recipe that I picked up from food52. It is pretty simple. The hardest thing about it is finding the cheese cloth at your megamart.

Don't need any fancy cheese-making magic, just buttermilk.

DO NOT WALK AWAY AT THIS STAGE. Unless you like burned milk and big messes.

When they say curds start to develop, here they are.

As suggested, I scooped out the curds instead of just pouring through the cheese cloth.

Just wrap it up and let it drain and there you have it.

Broke the grill out and grilled some sausages up with our springtime "pasta."

When I make this, I like to let it drain for at least half an hour. This does leave a much drier cheese that crumbles, but it can also be spread on toast the next morning.

I made this springtime pasta using our fresh ricotta, with a few minor changes. As you can see, I switched out the fettucine for a whole spaghetti squash that I halved, seasoned, and microwaved for ten minutes (in a bowl covered with plastic wrap). It was all very delicious.