Joint Inspiration: Making Homemade Ricotta from Leftover Milk

So we’re not milk drinkers in this house hold. I ended up with a nearly-full half gallon carton of milk after making my hubby a birthday cake (first cake I ever made, but that’s a story for another time). I looked at him and just threw it out there: “what can you make with milk? ” and his response was to Google that exact question. The two top options were dulce de leche and ricotta. Well that started my creative cooking juices flowing. ..I had left-over pasta sauce and also a half box of lasagna noodles. ..why not make ricotta stuffed pasta? But first, could we pull off homemade ricotta?

Using the first recipe we found online we gathered these items:
1. 1/2 gallon milk
2. 1 and 1/2 lemon
3. 1 tsp salt

I brought the milk up to “just before” boiling when it’s steaming with a few frothy bubbles

Then I removed it from the heat, poured in the lemon juice and salt, stirred gently with a slotted spoon and waited 10 minutes. ..though you can start to see it curdle almost immediately. At this point my baby started to cry for the food only mommy can provide so hubby took over.
Using cheese cloth laid into a strainer set in an empty pot to catch the whey, he scooped the curds into it and let it sit another ten minutes.

Then all that was left was to fill the pasta with the ricotta. We were so amazed by how easy it was to make. Literally anyone could do it. No doubt we’ll do it again. So glad we found this solution rather than letting the milk slowly go bad and eventually dumping it out.