Ricotta Orange Pound Cake with Strawberries

Another tasty treat to make with my homemade ricotta; too bad I don't have enough left!
Suggestions abound in the user comments; from adding different liqueurs to draining the ricotta a little extra. I guess there is a video posted that you can watch for more tips too.

Ricotta Orange Pound Cake with Strawberries
1 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature, plus more to grease the baking pan
1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 orange, zested
2 tablespoons Amaretto
Powdered sugar, for dusting
1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered or 3 oranges, cut into supremes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir to combine.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, ricotta, and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the machine running, add the eggs 1 at a time. Add the vanilla, orange zest, and Amaretto until combined. Add the dry ingredients, a small amount at a time, until just incorporated. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 45 to 50 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Using a mesh sieve, dust the cooled cake with powdered sugar.

Meanwhile, place the strawberries (or orange supremes) in a small bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Let sit until the juices have pooled around the strawberries.

To serve, slice the cake and serve with a spoonful of strawberries and their juices over the top of the cake.

Making pizza

I don't know about you, but when I have three cups of homemade cheese staring me in the face, I think pizza. Luckily some people are open to everything I suggest and just roll with it once I arrive at my latest destination/plan/scheme/recipe.
The ready made pizza dough at Whole Foods was actually really good and easy to use, though not whole wheat. :o(
Sorry South Beach - it's full fat cheese too.

Two bags of dough and a couple other odds and ends and I was ready for one of my favorite savory pizzas, and a just made up sweet pizza. I swear, some day I'll photograph my food with something other than my iPhone, but until then. . . .

Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza with Homemade Mozzarella
Sauce:
one small can of San Marzano tomatoes
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 tsp dried basil (fresh would be awesome if you had it)
Open the can of tomatoes into a bowl, add the crushed garlic and basil and then squeeze with your hands to make a sauce.

Pop your pizza stone into the oven and head it up. Roll out the dough, sprinkle the stone with cornmeal and drop the dough onto the hot stone.
Spread the sauce all over, and top with mozzarella and prosciutto (I used just under 1/4 lb). Bake until done.

Toss the arugula (around 2 c) with basil oil or olive oil (1 tbsp) and salt, and top the hot pizza with it. Let pizza sit for a moment before cutting, and then whammo - enjoy your insanely yummy pizza.

Pear & Ricotta Pizza with Balsamic Onions
Thinly slice one onion and set about caramelizing that bad boy. Once the onions are cooked through and sweet and yummy and brown, stir in 1-2 tsp of balsamic vinegar (I used a fig balsamic) and set aside.
Thinly slice a pear - I recommend bosc over d'anjou since I think the bosc just has better pear flavor.
Again with the stone and rolling out of the dough and the placing of the dough onto the hot stone.
Top with 1 - 1 1/2 c of ricotta and drizzle with honey.
Spread the balsamic onions on top - quite honestly, if you wanted to go with two onions and spread them on first like delicious onionjamsauce, you'd probably be a very happy camper.
Lay out the pears and drizzle with a little bit more honey. Bake, nom, repeat.

** an interesting bit of trivia thanks to Wikipedia. . . . even though the bosc pears taste more like what I'd call "juicy pear jelly belly," it's actually d'anjou puree they use to make that flavoring. Who knew?? **

Cooking for Little Miss Muffet

That's right, it's curds and whey time. Who knew cheesemaking was so easy? A couple of gallons of whole, pasteurized milk, some buttermilk, a dash of rennet and a pinch of citric acid, et voila! Mozzarella and ricotta, just like that. I mean really - just. Like. That.

Thanks to Ready Made for placing the wild hair that got me all worked up in the first place; and then thanks to Kitchen Nightmares for making those restaurateurs go milk cows and make their own mozzarella, for really lighting the fire.

A quick spin around the interwebs led me to eatdrinkbetter.com, which led me to chowhound (of course) hunting for rennet & citric acid suppliers in SF, which led me to Mollie Stone's (which didn't have either), which led me to Rainbow Grocery, which is always an interesting stop. (on that note, I'm not sure whether or not I recommend this, but I think not) Another quick stop at Soko for a candy thermometer, some clean kitchen gloves and some cheesecloth and I was ready to get down to business.
I'm already ready to start experimenting with lower fat milk and goat milk, but first things first.

I doubt it gets any easier than the ricotta recipe from Ready Made - a gallon of milk and 4 cups of buttermilk over heat? I mean really. I drained out a lot of the why from this cheese to make it firmer; I think next time around I'll leave a little more liquid in the mix since it was really stiff after refrigeration. It was delicious, and fresh tasting, and made about two cups of ricotta.

The mozzarella was a bit more complex, especially since some of us can't tell which side of the thermometer (C or F) one should be looking at and inadvertently watches the C side when they should be looking at the F side. * ahem * But it still turned out! Aside from completely ignoring the "sweet spot" temperature of cheesemaking I still managed to extract some curds, though this only yielded about one cup of finished cheese. It was a little denser and on the chewy side, but probably due to my inability to read and comprehend directions. 
Speaking of directions:

Besides rennet and citric acid, the only other ingredient that you’ll need is whole milk.  You’ll need to read the label carefully and make sure that the milk is NOT labeled “ultra pasteurized”.  Ultra pasteurized milk has been heated to a high temperature that kills the bacteria and cultures needed to make cheese.  Raw milk or pasteurized milk is OK, and milk from an organic local source is ideal.

• Over medium low heat, bring one gallon of whole milk up to 55 degrees and add 1.5 tsp of citric acid (dissolved in 1/4 cup cold water), stir in thoroughly but gently.
• When the mixture gets to 88 degrees add 1/4 tsp of liquid rennet (dissolved in 1/4 cup cold water), stir in gently for about 30 seconds.
• Over medium heat, bring up to 105 degrees and keep it there for five minutes or until curds begin to form and separate from the side of the pot.  The whey should be almost clear, if milky white, allow to heat longer.
• With a slotted spoon, scoop out the curds.  Don some rubber gloves and gently squeeze out as much whey as you can with your hands forming balls of cheese.
• Place the cheese balls in the microwave (this is the faster method) for 30 seconds and then knead it, just like you would bread, squeezing out whey as you go.  Repeat this step several times, until the cheese has a slightly glossy sheen to it and can be pulled like taffy.  Add salt after the second kneading.

Maybe I'll try these directions (with helpful photos!) next time. It should be noted that my curds and whey looked like The Evil UP Milk That Should Just Be Thrown Away Curds and Whey of Death; but I still managed to make mozzarella out of them.

All in all, Cheese Day was a total delicious success, and led to the amazingly yummy Homemade Pizza Night to go with Open That Bottle Night. (Chupacabra and Pride Viognier if you were curious)