Recipe makes about four cups of cheese.
Ingredients:
One gallon of milk (whole or skim)
1/2 cup vinegar (white or apple cider)
~In large pot,heat the milk until foam forms around the edges and the milk is steaming, almost to boiling. (If you don't heat the milk sufficiently, the curds will wad up and resemble mozzarella.)
~Remove from heat, pour in the vinegar and stir until the curds separate from the whey.
~Drain curds in a colander.
~You may use the curds as they are, whip them in a blender to make them smooth (adding a little of the whey back to get the right consistency), or shape into a ball to serve as table cheese.
~I like to salt my curds. Ricotta also freezes well. You can add herbs/spices to your liking to make a nice cracker spread from the Ricotta cheese.
Edited 4/24/2010: It recently came to my attention that in spite of the fact that this recipe was listed as "Whole Milk Ricotta" and that I have been calling it Ricotta for over a year now, it is actually Queso Blanco. I have also read where folks use lemon juice instead of vinegar to make this cheese.
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