oceantheorem | Foooood

Something weird has happened to me recently, and I've been super-motivated to cook. I don't know what's come over me (nope, not pregnant).

Last week I made cookies and a lemon yogurt blueberry loaf in the same evening, and took them into lab the next day (that went over really well - coworkers love baked goods!). Then I heard something on the radio about making your own creme fraiche and became obsessed with doing it, so I bought heavy whipping cream and buttermilk and made the attempt. I'm using it tonight to flavor some pork chops I'm currently brining. Yeah, I'm not just marinating something before I cook it, I'm brining it. Something is definitely weird with me. (Recipe link)

Also, since I had so much buttermilk left over after the creme fraiche fiasco (the fiasco being that I bought buttermilk and heavy cream in the opposite proportions from what I needed, resulting in a half gallon of buttermilk hanging out in my fridge), I started looking into recipes that called for buttermilk. And somehow I stumbled across a recipe for making your own "ricotta" cheese from a gallon of milk. Dude! You can make your own cheese?? That's so darn cool. So I bought a gallon of whole milk, poured half of it into a pot, tossed in some heavy cream, cooked it, strained it, and whoa. I have something vaguely between yogurt and ricotta-consistency, which tastes AMAZING. So then I realize I have about half a gallon of whey left over, and did you know "ricotta" really means "twice-cooked", and is traditionally made from the whey from making other cheeses? So hey, I made "ricotta" and now I have whey. I will take the whey and make ricotta! And I did. And it came out much much thicker than the first batch, which was amazing, but I added too much lime juice, so it's got this interesting lime-y flavor I THINK I like but I'm not quite sure. After mixing the two batches together and letting them sit in the fridge overnight, I am absolutely thrilled with the finished product and addicted to making cheese.

Except now I have a half gallon of whey sitting around (well, minus the two cups I put in the pork chop brine). And a half gallon of buttermilk still (um, didn't the cheese thing start with looking for a use for the buttermilk? how did I end up with twice as much liquid I need a use for?). It's okay though. I'm gonna add the whey and some creme fraiche to a stew I'm gonna set up in the crockpot tonight. And the buttermilk sounds like it might want to be muffins...

I wonder if I could use the "ricotta" to make cheesecake...?

What has come over me??