Category — Cheese

Friday rolled around and the fridge was nearly bare.  I thought I easily had enough veggies left to make a decent pizza, but alas, I didn’t even have enough in the fridge for a pizza!  Here’s what I had on hand: two leeks, a bunch of celery and some left over feta and blue cheese and a very very old package of phyllo pastry.  Yikes.  I didn’t even have a can of chick peas in the pantry.  No chick peas!   We always have a can lurking in the back of the cupboard, but not today.  I figured I could make a very random phyllo pie using the cheese and veggies and cooked rice for the “filler”.

Into the fry pan went the leeks and celery.  Then I threw in some herbs: dill, oregano, basil, thyme and some salt and pepper.  I mixed the veggies into the cooked rice and stirred it all together.  I threw it into the baking pan, crumbled the feta and blue cheese on top and then folded the sheets of phyllo over the whole thing.

Thirty minutes later out came the fridge-buster phyllo pie – and you know what, it was really good!  It didn’t taste completely random at all.

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5 “Surprisingly good for simple ingredients.”

I’ve said it before – this quiche is a miracle worker.  So easy and so delicious – it seemed the perfect comfort meal to usher in the new year.  With the cheese pre-grated during a baby nap yesterday, it hardly took ten minutes to whip these two pies up and scooch them in the oven.

This time I used up our leftover roasted 40 clove chicken (which was excellent though I still prefer lemon chicken).  Using up leftovers is my new “thing” – be it the call of these “economic times” or the Scottish influence in me, but throwing out food is my definitely my super ’09 pet peeve.  (Today  we had to throw out our St. Andre cheese as it had grown fuzz – that was PAINFUL.)

I was cutting out recipes from a stack of cooking magazines this weekend and came across Donna Hay’s method for making your own ricotta. I had also cut out a recipe from Martha for a grilled asparugus and ricotta pizza. Why not try to make the ricotta for the pizza?

Now, Donna Hay’s version seems to call for 6 cups of whole milk – because I guess down in Australia they sell milk in 1.5 litre bottles?? Who knows… but I know I didn’t feel like buying two litres just to please Donna.

To make the ricotta, you place your 1 LITRE (take that Donna) of milk in a saucepan and heat until it reaches 80 degrees Celsius. Remove the pan from the heat and add vinegar. I used 1.5 Tablespoons of cider vinegar. Of course, if you’re following Donna’s recipe, she uses 2 tablespoons.

Donna’s version calls for white vinegar, but I didn’t have any on hand. I must have used it all when I was cleaning our windows in the spring. (I bet Donna doesn’t have to clean her own windows!) Anyway, I used cider vinegar and as you can see, it still turned out.

Next, you need to carefully scoop the curds out of the saucepan into a strainer lined with muslin. Donna makes it very clear that you can’t just POUR the curds into the strainer – no no – this will ruin their delicate curdiness. So we scooped. But you know what? We totally poured the last bit into strainer.

And it strained. *whistles*

And now we have about a cup of homemade ricotta just waiting to get smeared onto a pizza.