Home Made Fat Free Ricotta Cheese

I have not found a smooth tasty fat free Ricotta Cheese. As I like to use it in my snacks and cooking I looked up a recipe by the famed Vegetarian Food expert, Deborah Madison. I have been following her recipes since the 80's. She wrote a book with Edward Espe Brown when she was working with him..called the Tassajara Recipe Book in 1985. It is a wonderful little book of recipes from the Zen Monastery at Tassajara who among other wonderful things ran the Green Gulch Gardens where Alice Waters originally sourced her vegetables for Chez Panise.

Her Ricotta recipe is ridiculously easy to do and a lot of fun to make. I took the recipe and used skim milk and found you could get an altogether acceptable product..far better than the commercially available fat free ricotta I rejected as grainy and unpleasant..name withheld!

I used the commercially produced skim milk but think the better quality the ingredients the better the outcome. Also I used a big porcelain lined cast iron stew pot which when I let the curds form I left in my microwave. Since the microwave is insulated and small it kept the curds warm perfectly. I used white vinegar and would imagine that using the other options would change the quality of the resulting product. finally I whipped a small amount in my mini prep to see what would happen. It resulted in a ricotta cream which I am sure to use instead of custard sauce once flavored. maybe I will play with a recipe she has for floating island dessert..more to come..

Deborah Madison's recipe can be found on the link to www.about.com shown below

http://homecooking.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/bldairy48.htm