TWD - Pizza Rustica and cheese

I'm king of the world! I can fly! I'm too cool for school!

I made cheese :)

Cheese making in action! It's very thrilling watching things drain.

This is how I felt today, I felt like the most awesome person because I made ricotta cheese. Now for those of you pro cheese makers, yes, ricotta is the newbie of cheese making. But I did it! I curdled my milk and made cheese! When you say cheese it makes you smile, when you eat cheese it makes you smile and when you make cheese it makes you smile.

I made cheese :)

I'm pretty exited, even more excited about the cheese than the Pizza Rustica really. Although it was good and a nice recipe to make (it did cost a small fortune though). Containing ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella and prosciutto for the love of money.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon the idea of making ricotta, it certainly wasn't suggested in the recipe by Julia or Dori. I must have come across it in my blog reading, so for those of you reading this blog go ahead and do it, make some cheese.

Now let me point you to the recipe I used by our man, David Lebovitz:  http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/homemade_ricotta_cheese/

He keeps it simple and it came out great. I did use a thermometer and checked the temperature of the milk as it was boiling. I had read somewhere that 165 degrees was good enough, but for his recipe it seemed like 180 degrees was the magic number.

I have come across another recipe that I'll try next time, it's for a lemon and basil version. Which sounds spectacular! I also read that buttermilk can be used as the curdling agent, but it does lend a different flavor to the process.

Here's a nice explanation of the different curdling agents and the effects they have: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/02/how-to-make-fresh-ricotta-fast-easy-homemade-cheese-the-food-lab.html


Now on to the recipe.

It's a nice a pie.

Pizza Rustica, as many of you realize by now is not your "traditional" pizza. Which according to wiki has been around since 997 AD. So where did the recipe get calling this pie a pizza? Well all I could find was that it might be Sicilian and it might need to be made for Easter. And the recipe says in Italy it's served as an appetizer. I will need to travel to Italy to solve this mystery.

I invite you all to join me.

First make this recipe, view-able here and here and then meet me at the airport.