Making Ricotta Cheese

I am loving being back home, and cooking for my family. We (I) have decided we are going to eat more of a vegetarian diet and much less meat. Aarahi doesn't seem to mind, he's been telling me for awhile now that we should eat more meatless dinners. He doesn't care a great deal for vegetables though.
Our first vege dinner was a pasta bake type thing. It was going to be lasagne but I couldn't be bothered making the pasta sheets. The recipe called for Ricotta cheese. I didn't have any but had read somewhere that you could make some. It just so happened that I had all the ingredients.

Here's how it all went down.

900ml milk
1 C cream
Pinch of Salt
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

In a LARGE saucepan slowly bring the milk,cream and salt to a rolling boil over a medium heat

Add the lemon juice and stir until it curdles

Lay a cheese cloth/muslin cloth/tea towel in a large sieve/strainer over a large bowl

Pour the curds into the cloth to drain for about an hour. The longer you leave it the drier the cheese will be.

Note: I didn't have a sieve large enough so you tied the cloth to the tap, with a bowl underneath to drain. It worked really well.

This recipe made me about 2 1/2 cups or 750g of ricotta it cost about $2.30 to make. At the supermarket the cost was $4.60 for 250g

The left over liquid is called whey and can be used in smoothies, or baking when milk or water is called for. I used mine to make some bread.

I used one of the kids muslin swaddling wraps to strain the cheese.