Homemade Ricotta Cheese - Doing the Impossible?

This past week I have been busy making new things (or at least new to me) such as goat’s cheese, my own vegetarian rennet, different types of sourdough bread. It has been quite a learning curve to say the least.

And I am enjoying every minute of it, as per usual. I wanted to make one tiny comment on my learning/education however….and that is this:

Just because someone says it can’t be done, perhaps this is true for them. But, don’t let someone else’s experience colour, cloud or dictate your own. The things you are meant to learn might be quite different and besides you are your own unique person.

One of the reasons I am saying this is mainly because I want people to explore all possibilities and angles of an issue. That is my general approach, especially when it comes to food and cooking.

The other reason centers around some ancient wisdom carried in our cells – going through these motions (life lessons, learning, trial and error) often enables cellular memories to awaken.

Case in point – this week I was reading up on cheese making and kept finding the same thing being said – you cannot make ricotta cheese using whey from acid cheese making processes.

What this means is you won’t be able to make ricotta cheese from the leftovers of cheese making – when you make a cheese using lemon juice or any other acidic type of regulator to make that cheese.

So, for half a day I looked at my whey sitting in my pot and wondered what to do with it. Knowing in my gut that I still thought I could make some cheese….there are also many other uses for it apparently. Such as making soups, stews, soaking beans, adding to pet foods, washing hair, pouring on roses and so on. It is a useful product. And I did add some to my stew I was making….

Then I threw caution to the wind and went ahead and followed the directions for making ricotta cheese. Heating the whey to 190F while stirring and then cooling slightly before pouring the mixture into the muslin cloth again and allowing it to strain through for a couple hours.

Of course, I only started out with 1 litre of milk at the outset, I had already made some cheese – I was not expecting to get much in the way of ricotta. But I did want to see – what, if anything, would happen.

Right now I am sorry I never took a photo of it! Because I got an even better tasting cheese then the one I made earlier. This one was very much like a ricotta, it was only a little bit, but enough for us all to have a taste – and spread it on some bread.

What was different about this one is that it was so spreadable, slightly richer in taste and when I added some fresh herbs and sea salt – it was glorious.

The lesson this week – never give up trying, always listen to your gut, don’t let anyone else’s good or bad experience interfere with yours and do it anyway. I mean, the worst that would have happened is nothing would have happened and I would have not been able to make ricotta cheese.

Instead – it was the best part of my cheese making day!

April

Our goat Marigold and her kids....