In yesterday’s post, I talked a bit about the From Scratch Club (http://fromscratchclub.com/) that I discovered while Bill and I wandered about Honest Weight Co-Op’s fall festival (http://www.hwfc.com/). Almost as soon as we got home from the harvest fest, I joined GoodReads (http://www.goodreads.com/), clicked “Groups” heading at the top of the page, found FSC Book Club, and clicked. Bingo! Just in time to participate in their second book challenge, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making by Alana Chernila (Clarkson Potter Publishers, imprint of Crown Publishing, division of Random House, 2012). Today’s blogpost is about my meeting the first challenge. In fact, blogging about it goes along with part of the assignment!
Participants in the FSC Book Club are challenged every other Monday to read a portion of The Book and then to complete at least one or two tasks. Always, they’re asked to make at least one of the recipes from the chapters, and then something else – such as inviting someone over to share your cooking/baking, or posting a picture of your product. On September 24th, we were directed (gently – there’s no pressure to do any of this) to read the first two chapters of Homemade Pantry (“Dairy” and “Cereals & Snacks”) and to make at least one recipe from either (or both) of them. In addition, we’re to take a photo of the finished product “in action.” We’re to upload pictures to the Group’s page and perhaps also to Facebook (Guess I’ll create a separate album for FSC food pics) and Twitter (not sure if I’ll bother with this one—I don’t Tweet very often). As I said yesterday, my choice was Ricotta from Chapter 1 (Dairy).
I putzed around for a few days with one excuse or another not to get to it. Good excuses: (1) not enough time in a solid block to concentrate on doing something so new (heaven forbid I should screw it up!); (2) had to get better equipment (after all, none of my bowls were deep enough to easily use my chinois [a/k/a huge, upside-down, cone-shaped, very fine sieve]); (3) thought I had all the ingredients but didn’t (oops! when I shopped, didn’t buy lemons – and then realized those two citrus fruits in the green bag in the frig were oranges).
When things settled down time-wise, and I’d bought a deep, wide-mouthed, glass canister, and a trip to the grocery included purchase of several lemons – well, it became clear that Excuse #4 was the one that truly held sway: despite the apparent ease of ricotta creation per the author’s recipe, I was nervous about attempting it. (I’m not Italian so how could I even think I can make this? Hell, growing up we never had ricotta in the house, I mean NEVER. My mother was in her 40s before she even tasted lasagna. And watching that temperature and timing it- OMG, I’ve owned one of those “attach-to-the-pot” thermometers for a few years and it had never been taken out of the package. Then too, why would I want to make it when I could buy decent ricotta?) So the only thing to do, finally, was to Just Do It.
It turned out heavenly. Once refrigerated, the texture (curds) was firmer, less creamy than the store-bought stuff but it tasted so much better. Just a hint of the lemon sneaks through when it hits the tongue (which made me wonder, once I went to the author’s blog to ferret out a link for folks to find Chernila’s recipe, about versions that use vinegar instead of fresh lemon juice). I saved the whey (liquid that dripped through the chinois) and used it in the pasta water for the Ricotta with Nutmeg and Peas that I made the same night and yesterday in the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes (topped with confectioners sugar and fresh, raw-sugared berries) we had for dessert. There’s still a little of the liquid left, which will go into a creamy soup tonight or tomorrow.
All in all, a terrific experience. Before posting the pictures (which will make up the remainder of this blog entry), here are links to author Alana Chernila’s two ricotta recipes: http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/2009/05/curds-and-whey/ and http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/2009/12/ricotta-again/. Her Homemade Pantry version indicates you could simply use a half-gallon of whole milk and fresh lemon juice, with the option of adding heavy cream and/or salt as well (I took both options). On her site, the “Ricotta, again” post comes closest to the book’s recipe (it lists both the cream and the salt, but not as options).
My batch made about 1½ cups of the stuff, as the author promised.
As the expression goes: Try it – you’ll like it!
kitchencauldron 