Homemade Ricotta

The concept of making my own cheese always made me uneasy.  Cheese is aged in dark caves in France, not made on my kitchen counter!  However, recently I've seen a few references to "house-made ricotta" on restaurant menus, and even heard a chef reference how she always makes her own ricotta at home.

When I was planning my Thanksgiving weekend food extravaganza, I suddenly seemed inspired to at least look into making my own creamy delicious ricotta, if it was really as easy as it sounded.  And you know what I found?  It's is easier than it sounds.  In fact, I'm still blown away that I made something so creamy and delicious with such little effort.



Rich Homemade Ricotta
recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Equipment:

Candy or deep-fry thermometer
Cheesecloth
Large mesh strainer
(I ended up buying the cheesecloth and strainers online through Amazon as linked to above).


Pour the milk, cream and salt into a 3-quart nonreactive saucepan. Attach a candy or deep-fry thermometer. Heat the milk to 190°F, stirring it frequently to keep it from scorching on the bottom. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice, then stir it once or twice, gently and slowly. Let the pot sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.

Line a large mesh strainer with 3 layers of cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl (to catch the whey). Pour the curds and whey into the mesh strainer and let the curds strain for two hours.  Discard the whey (liquid in the bowl), or, if you’re one of those crafty people who use it for other things, of course, save it.

Eat the ricotta right away or transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use.

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For my Thanksgiving appetizers, I decided to make two types of crostinis: ricotta with roasted beets and arugula, and ricotta with tomatoes and basil.  In both cases, I toasted some fresh baguette slices, then rubbed them with garlic cloves before spreading the ricotta on top.  With the roasted beet crostinis, I roasted the beets ahead of time, diced and chilled them in the fridge, and then assembled and finished with a sprinkle of black pepper and a light drizzle of olive oil.  For the tomato crositinis, I simply halved some beautiful multi-colored small tomatoes and finished with a pinch of coarse sea salt and of course another drizzle of olive oil.

What I loved about this ricotta recipe, compared with others I looked up, is that it uses lemon juice instead of other acids like vinegar.  You could definitely taste a very, very faint touch of lemon, which I thought really took the flavor to a whole different level.

Give it a try!

Served with Caramelized Onion Dip (and veggies) and Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas.

Homemade Ciabatta Rolls

Last weekend, as Chris and I were thinking of something new to try in the kitchen, an idea came to mind: how about trying our hand at some homemade bread?  We don't have a breadmaker so we've never gone that route, but we love fresh bread (always drop by our local bread shop each week) and we generally have yeast lying around, so hey, why not?

Sifting through ideas for a type of bread to make, we stumbled upon a wonderful ciabatta recipe, with the most amazing pictures, I just knew we had to try it.  It wasn't going to be easy - it was going to be a two-day affair involving making a "biga" on day one and then completing the actual bread on day two.  But I could tell already how it was going to be all worth it.



Homemade Ciabatta Rolls
recipe from TheKitchn.com

Biga - Day 1

4 ounce (1/2 cup) water
1/2 teaspoon active-dry yeast
1 cup all-purpose flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the flour and stir to form a thick, gloppy paste. Give it a good fifty or so brisk stirs to build up the gluten. Cover and let sit at room temperature eight hours or overnight.

By the next day, the biga will look soupy with many big bubbles dotting the surface.

Ciabatta - Day 2

17 ounces (2 cups + 2 tablespoons) water
1 teaspoon active-dry yeast
Biga
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Dissolve the yeast in the water in the bowl of a standing mixer. Scrape the biga into the water and break it up with your spatula or squeeze it between your hands. You don't need to completely dissolve the biga; just loosen it up and break it into stringy blobs.

Add all of the flour and the salt. Stir to form a thick, very wet dough. Let this rest for 10-20 minutes to give the flour time to absorb the water.

Fit your standing mixer with a dough hook and knead at medium speed for 15-18 minutes (Level 5 or 6 on a KitchnAid). Keep a close eye on your mixer as it has a tendency to "walk" on the counter at this speed.

The dough will start off sticking to the bottom and sides of the bowl. Around the 7-minute mark, it will start to pull away from the sides of the bowl, collect around the dough hook, and regularly slap the sides of the bowl. If it doesn't, nudge your mixer speed up a notch. Also, if the dough starts climbing the dough hook, stop the mixer and scrape it down again. By the end of kneading, the dough will look smooth and creamy with a glossy shine. It will puddle back into the bowl once you turn off the mixer, and this is fine.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise at 70° - 75° for 2-3 hours, until tripled in bulk.

Dust your work surface heavily with flour. Set two sheets of parchment near your work surface. Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the flour, taking care not to deflate it too much. Dust the top of the dough with more flour. Using a pastry scraper or pizza wheel, cut the dough in two pieces for loaves or into 16 pieces for rolls.

Brush your hands with flour. Working gently but swiftly, scoop the the loaves (or the rolls) one at a time from the work surface to the parchment. Press your fingertips about halfway into the dough to dimple the surface and slightly flatten the loaves (or rolls). Let the loaves (or rolls) rise, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes. When ready to bake, they should look pillowy with many big bubbles just beneath the surface.  We decided at this point to sprinkle them with a little flaky sea salt, as the ciabattas made at our local bakery are made this way and the salt crystals on top are absolutely divine.

Preheat the oven to 475°F while the loaves are rising. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven now.

When ready to bake, slide the loaves, still on the parchment, onto a pizza peel or baking sheet. Transfer them to the oven to cook, either on the baking stone or directly on the baking sheet if you don't have a stone. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Slip the parchment out from under the loaves and cool completely before eating.

To be honest, we didn't wait for them to cool completely at all.  It took every ounce of our willpower to avoid steam burns and wait maybe 5 minutes before breaking through the crusty exterior to expose the airy soft center.  Even though we had planned to use the rolls for barbecue pork sandwiches, we couldn't help but eat one right away to just enjoy the delicious fresh hot ciabatta.

Master Bedroom

One thing I've learned since buying a home is that you are never, ever done.  Once you finish one project, you find another one to do.

You may remember that back in February, my wonderful parents flew out for a long weekend to help us paint the all the ceilings, walls, and floorboards, as well as install all new lighting downstairs.  It was an incredible help, and made a huge difference.  But that couldn't possibly be the end of it.  Next came a new rug, a custom piece of art from an awesome Etsy artist, new carpeting for upstairs, and a giant tree vinyl decal that reduced me to a weeping pile of tears.

Yet with all those changes, our bedroom was pretty neglected.  Our inspiration was drained by all the other changes throughout the house, so our bedroom remained plain with light grey walls, light grey carpet, and hideous brown window treatments that covered the beautiful arched windows.

contrary to how this picture looks, we did have bedding...
I know, pretty terrible.

But the past week, all that changed.

Thanks to a few days off from work, I tore down the horrible brown window treatments to make my own plum-colored curtains, and played with stripes on our bedroom wall.

Almost done, but one more finishing touch:

Crown moulding!

We ordered crown moulding and decided that we would first test it in our bedroom, and the outcome is incredible.  It was the perfect finishing touch to our master bedroom makeover!

Roasted Cauliflower, Potato, and Red Bell Pepper Soup

Nice to see you again! It's been a while!

...ok. A long while.

You know how it is, life gets in the way. I've still been cooking, but the past few hectic months, the food hasn't really been inspired, not worth posting. Just not special.

Well, yesterday, that all changed. Looking through my fridge, I had a sudden epiphany: I was going to make roasted cauliflower soup. The weather is starting to turn cool, which means pureed soups are making their reappearance. The problem was that I had only a quarter of a head of cauliflower, which wouldn't make very much soup.

And in a moment of eureka, my roasted cauliflower, potato, and red bell pepper soup was born.


Roasted Cauliflower, Potato, and Red Bell Pepper Soup
with homemade croutons

Recipe below is double what I made, since I was making it for two and we ate ALL of it, easily. Feel free to even double again if you're making for more than 4 people.

1-2 tbs olive oil
1/2 head of cauliflower
2 red bell peppers
10 small red potatoes, peeled
6 cloves of garlic
2 tbs butter
1 yellow onion, diced finely
4 cups of chicken stock
2/3 cup milk
Salt & Pepper
Homemade Croutons (optional)
Chopped Basil (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

To prepare the vegetables, cut the cauliflower into thick slices to get as much flat surface as possible; quarter the potatoes; cut the peppers into large chunks. Toss the three veggies with the peeled garlic cloves, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



Spread out the veggies on a baking sheet, turning them with a flat, cut side down. Bake for 15 minutes, then flip the veggies, and bake for another 15 minutes. Look for a dark, caramelized color on the veggies. Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.


While the veggies cool, warm the butter in a large pot until melted. Add the onion and sautee until the onion starts to brown. Once the onion is slightly brown, add the chicken stock to de-glaze. Bring the onions and stock to a light simmer, then turn off the heat and let cool for 5 min.

Next, put all the veggies into a blender, and add the stock/onion mixture. Because I made such a small batch of soup, I was able to do this all in one step, but if you make the full recipe (or especially a double recipe) you may need to do this in batches.


Puree the mixture completely until smooth. Pour the puree back into the pot used for the stock/onions, and put the heat on low to get warm again. Add the milk and stir to incorporate. If you feel the soup is too thick at this point (it may be depending on the size of your potatoes or cauliflower), add a little more milk or stock.

Serve topped with homemade croutons and chopped basil.