A friend made Barefoot Contessa’s Ricotta recipe from How Easy Was That and suggested I try it. Growing up in an Italian Family I will honestly say I have never seen any of my family members make this from scratch. I will confess that since moving south and not having speciality shops around, I have been buying the grocery store brands which taste much different than the deli versions my mother and grandmother brought home.


I read the recipe and not too surprising that Ina Garten made something so complex so easy.


It literally takes 40 minutes from start to finish. I could almost not contain myself at the result. I have never made cheese or even yogurt before so this was quite a treat.
And only 4 ingredients:

• For the ricotta recipe
• 4 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons good white wine vinegar

It tasted amazing and if I had some Italian bread I would have spread it on some toast and eaten it just like that. We made a baked ziti out of it.


The best part of this concept is that you can control the ingredients in your ricotta. I used organic milk and cream. I also used 2 percent instead of whole milk.
 I am not sure what the whole milk might have looked like but this felt and looked right.

Curdling

Finished product

So if you have a hankering for fresh ricotta don’t be afraid and skip all the sodium and chemicals in the packaged brands. It really is Easy.







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