ricotta II

This is the second batch of ricotta, in which I am quite proud, made from the the whey of the third batch of mozzarella, which is gone. The first batch of ricotta was used up in salads where it became coated and blended with the dressings and took up its flavor. I'm thinking of using this batch to stuff omelets, or to fill pasta ravioli with spinach, although I'm not feeling the urge for ravioli right now sufficient to justify the effort and the shamefully extravagant carbs of the pasta. There's a time for all that, but now is not the time.

I've been reading web pages on cheese making and watching YouTube videos. Turns out mozzarella is considered not all that easy to make. Funny, all this time I thought it was a beginner cheese. Silly me. But I'm feeling a strong urge to branch out to blues, cheddars, ard and bries. I think I know what's involved, but best to read a book first. So I ordered one and it should be here tomorrow. I think I can make my own molds. Why not? I made my own chocolate molds, and that's more artistic and a lot more involved.

The web sites seem perfectly willing to sell you things you don't need, presses, strainers, PH meters, infused cloths, draining mats, containers, thermometers, for example. If you think about it, all these cheeses were discovered by mistake, by necessity, and by the need to avoid wastage, basically, by abject poverty and desperate need. So I feel I'm in good company here. How's this? Cheese sites sell bacterial cultures to start the molds for specific blue cheeses. Fine. But, cheese producers sell it too in the form of finished cheeses. I can remove a portion of the mold from my favorite blue cheese and blend it with milk and use it to inoculate my own curd -- a savings of some $16.00 right there, plus I get to eat the cheese from which the sample was removed. Shirley, this was how it was done through the ages, no? And yes, I just called you Shirley.