Continuing with my being “thrifty” (equals CHEAP), I sometimes don’t go through all of my milk before the expiration day. I hate waste. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember reading about how easy it to make ricotta. I searched and came upon The Kitchn’s version. It may not be as flashy as other sites but The Kitchn always delivers with thoughtful, interesting content.
Basically you heat the milk and add lemon juice or vinegar. I had white vinegar on hand so that’s what I used. It worked! I had the idea that I wanted a firmer ricotta and let it drain an hour, with plates as weights. I wouldn’t do this again. I think I prefer a moister ricotta.
There is a lot of liquid whey leftover. For my “lifestyle” it feels like waste. I don’t make smoothies, I don’t bake bread often and I don’t have a dog, so I do have a large pitcher sitting in my fridge waiting for its second act.
Now, I can make this great flavored ricotta spread for the beans. You can also make a Euro version with rosemary and garlic.
I can’t wait to so this again.
I find whey works really nicely in quick breads – cornbread and muffins and the like. Particularly if it has some acid in it, you could probably substitute it for buttermilk. I particularly like the Outlaw Cook’s version of skillet cornbread (added plus: it only makes 4 servings, so you don’t have a lot of cornbread hanging around).
Freeze the whey and use it the next time you make mashed potatoes, I make ricotta all the time but I use the recipe that uses a little buttermilk and heavy cream.
Hi,
I’ve recently been trying my hand at cheese too. I made a ricotta last week (added some garlic chives at the end during salting). Today I made some from age blanc and have a great deal of whey. I used it for bread and for some of the soup I was making. I see that people also use it to soak beans. What’s your take on that?
I just checked out the Kitchn recipe for making ricotta, and she has a link to drinking the whey (http://www.thekitchn.com/whey-tasty-whey-yes-whey-the-cheesemonger-183749) – in the comments there are a number of suggestions for using the whey including using it to start lactofermentation. I know you’ve gotten into that – so that might be the perfect thing to use your whey for.
In things coming full circle, I’ll actually cook white beans in the whey. It adds a nice creamy tang to the liquid, perfect for soup.
My understanding is that whey is so dense in it’s protein content that it is often added to packaged foods such as cookies to fulfill a government requirement for protein content. I probably read this years ago in Prevention Magazine!
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