How Cheesy!

I made my first cheese yesterday! It is so easy! I'm not sure how cost effective it is, but it really isn't hard and takes 30 min. or less. I learned how to make mozzarella string cheese using instant dry milk and a kit at my recent cooking class, but I figured there must be a way to make cheese without a kit you have to buy. So I spent some time online and found a super easy ricotta recipe. My mom was interested in how to make it so she helped me out. Here's the process. (Just know, I only made a half batch and it still came out good and made about 2 cups of cheese.)

For a full batch, pour into a pot 1 gallon 2% or whole milk and 5 cups of buttermilk.

Heat it to 170 on medium heat stirring seldomly so as to let it curdle. Use a candy thermometer to guage temperature.


Once it gets to 170 (which is pretty quick) let it sit WITHOUT stirring at all until the temperature reaches 190 (which also doesn't take long). Then take it off the heat.


Using a slotted spoon, skim off the curds and put in layered cheesecloth in a strainer (sorry forgot this picture). There will be lots of whey left in the pot. Tie the cheesecloth together and squeeze out all the whey that you can. We even let it hang on the faucet until it stopped dripping.

Then get all the curds out of the cheesecloth and add some salt and fork stir it.

Tada! It's ricotta cheese! And ready to use, just cool it off a bit. As for all the whey... There's a lot and I didn't want to waste it. I don't know of any good recipes using whey except that you can substitute it for water in things like pancakes and such. I used it to cook the noodles that I would use in my lasagne. I was so proud of my lasagne tonight. I cooked my noodles in whey, had homemade ricotta cheese in it, and even made homemade tomato sauce using the tomatoes that I just canned. My sister Alisa called me a Suzy Homemaker, and you know what? I guess I was with this meal, and it felt good to know I could do it.

Mmmmmm