Over the holiday break, my wonderful friend Andrea gave me the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm not going to lie, I'm a reader of Barbara Kingsolver. I've read "The Bean Trees" & "The Poisonwood Bible" and enjoyed both works immensely. Of course, those were fiction too, and what woman doesn't love reading a good fiction book?
"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is actually a nonfiction work, written in conjunction with her husband and daughter about transitioning from an urban life in Tuscon, AZ to Appalachia and farming to feed themselves for an entire year. It's a book that talks a lot about nutrition, the growing cycle throughout their one year, all the crap that goes into your everyday conventional food (Genetically Modified foods anyone?), and the carbon footprint you leave when you eat those raspberries in the middle of winter.
Reading it, along with just being/wanting to be more health and environmentally conscious, really wants me to just grow my own garden and have my own cow. Of course, living on the 16th floor of a high rise in the windiest city on earth.... not so conducive to gardening. I've also managed to go, for the most part, refined sugar free! It is so difficult, but I have to say, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I've pretty much eliminated it, but some days, I can't resist having a little bit of cake or chocolate.
OK- so why the ricotta? I'm currently in preparations for making an entirely from scratch lasagna. Ricotta, Mozzarella, sauce, pasta noodle, all made by me. In "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", Camille had a great 30 min mozzarella recipe, which I made once. First attempt = success, Second = fail. Ricotta, oh! what an amazing cheese. So inexpensive to make, and soo easy! I read various techniques and found a great recipe via Simply Recipes and changed it very slightly in directions to make a seemingly perfect ricotta for my lasagna.
The interesting part about all of this, is 1 gallon of whole milk was a mere $1.99 and the most expensive was the 1 quart of whole milk plain yogurt, which was $2.99. Yikes. Next time, I'll most likely go with the organic (across the board: whole foods, conventional grocery, Trader Joe's, it seems to be about $5.99 for a gallon of organic whole). But for trial and error purposes, and on the graduate student budget, $1.99 seems to be the way to do it.
NOTE: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT when purchasing milk, purchase whole, pasteurized milk. NOT ultra pasteurized Ultra pasteurization is a process that allows milk to last longer so that it can be transported further. This process also breaks down the milk proteins much more such that it can never be reconstituted into any other dairy form. So, if you go for the organic, and don't pay attention to the pasteurization process, and end up with the ultra, then you can expect cheese= FAIL.
And for my photo set up, well I haven't made the lasagna yet, so I just had the cheese pose it up. Surprisingly, it was quite delish on naval orange slices with slivers of fresh basil.
Ricotta Cheese
ingredients
1 gallon, whole pasteurized milk
2 cups whole fat, plain yogurt
4 tsp white vinegar
2 tsp salt
instructions
1. in a heavy large pot, pour in milk and yogurt. mix well
2. set over medium low heat
3. in a small bowl, mix together the vinegar and salt
4. slowly stir in vinegar and salt mixture
5. let the solution slowly heat up to a boil. refrain from stirring all the time, but you can stir... just sparingly. It's really important to do this step slowly. Sure, it might take 20 or so minutes, but the outcome is worth the wait!!!
6. while the mixture is heating up, line a colander with cheese cloth
7. when the mixture reaches about 180F (it should be just about steaming), pay very close attention. As it comes to a rolling boil, curds should become visible. Let boil for about 2 minutes.
8. Take off heat and ladle out curds into cheese cloth.
9. Let drain to desired moisture content.
10. Enjoy in lasagna (like me), or make yourself some cannolis, or spread it over, warm over some fresh fruit. Yum!
makes about 4 cups
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