Cooking, I assume. But I’m open to other suggestions.
I bought more ricotta than I needed for my no-pasta lasagna (don’t tell anyone, but I use deli chicken breast slices). I have an unopened 15oz container. It’s good until November, so I could just wait until next time I feel like lasagna. But I feel like experimenting, instead.
What can I do with it…specifically without a bunch of starchy carbs? I avoid pasta and the like due to blood sugar issues.
Thanks!
-D/a
Grandma’s Ricotta Cookies
1 cup butter softened
2 cups sugar
1 15-ounce container ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Red and green sprinkles
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease large cookie sheets.
In a large bowl cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add ricotta vanilla and eggs and beat until combined. Add flour baking powder and salt and beat until dough forms.
Using two tablespoons drop dough onto cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 15 minutes or until cookies begin to turn golden. Remove cookies to wire rack to cool.
In small bowl stir confectioners sugar milk and lemon juice until smooth. With a small metal spatula or knife spread icing on cookies and top with sprinkles. Set aside to allow icing to dry and harden.
These won’t help with your blood sugar issues, but they are delicious!
Ricotta + no-carb sweetener + flavoring (cocoa/vanilla/whatever) = low carb dessert. Actually one of the better ones IMO.
It’s also good in scrambled eggs or in quiches.
You also don’t really need to make a huge fancy lasagna if you don’t feel like it. Use a bread pan or smaller dish, layer in the chicken breasts you mention, ricotta, spinach, leftover tomato sauce, that last bit of broccoli/eggplant/whatever from last night’s dinner, sausage, top with more cheese, bake. Sometimes the best kinds of things happen this way.
The recent figs thread reminds me - take fresh figs, cut a cross in the stalk end almost all the way to the base, open up like a flower, insert spoonful of ricotta, close up again and wrap in a thin slice of pancetta/prosciutto/bacon. Grill (I think that’s a broiler to USians?) until meat is crisp.
I made some turkey burgers once that had ricotta mixed in with the meat (since turkey tends to be very dry) and they were delicious. I have no idea where I put the recipe, but I got it from an episode of America’s Test Kitchen or Cook’s Country on PBS. I do remember that I had to gently mix in the ricotta cheese and whatever spices or other components I wanted, then gently form the patties so as to avoid compressing them too much, then cook them in normal hamburger fashion. I bet that mixture would make good meatballs, too.
Stuff mushroom caps with ricotta, spinach and the mushroom stalks.
Bake on an oiled cookie sheet.
You can make a very nice frittata with ricotta as the cheese. Preheat your oven to about 375 F. Mix together six eggs with about 3/4 cup ricotta, salt, pepper, and maybe some herbs. Place a bunch of cooked stuff in a saute pan, like vegetables, leftover pasta, bits of smoked fish or leftover meat; compose this with some thought to make sure it’s not a total jumble of random crap. Alternately, you can cook a big pile of veggies in the saute pan. Once you’ve done this, add the egg mixture, shake a bit to make sure the eggs incorporate in evenly, and cook on low for about 10 minutes, until the eggs have set around the bottom and sides. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake until the eggs are set on top, another 10-15 minutes or so.
Yes, low-carb dessert! I had a hippie cookbook from the 60s and a recipe suggested mixing carob powder from the health food store, and honey, into ricotta. It was very good, though cocoa is better. We ate this a lot when we were doing a low-carb diet. Also spread on layers of pound cake, fruit, and whipped cream, to make a kind of trifle, in a loaf pan.
Mix the ricotta with a cup of grated parm cheese, an egg, a package of thawed and thoroughly-drained chopped spinach. S&P to taste.
Peel a large eggplant (or two) and slice it lengthwise about 3/8 inch thick. pan fry the eggplant in EV olive oil until golden. Let cool. roll about 2 tbsp of the ricot mixture inside the eggplant and place in a greased baking dish. You may have to secure with a toothpick. Top with a little marinara and grated fontina cheese. Bake for 20 minutes at 375.
Serve as an appetizer or entree with a salad and garlic bread. (Obviously omit the bread for low-carb.)
I think I’ll pick up some rigott and eggplant…
May I suggest omelette? Optional spinach and fresh nutmeg highly recommended. Just put it in the middle and fold it over.
Wow…so many options… I love it.
I think I’m going to try the desserts…mixing with some cocoa, and a sweetener. And I’ll try some variant on the egg/omelette dishes. Maybe make a weekend break from my usual oatmeal.
And then I might have to buy more extra ricotta to keep playing. 
Thanks, everyone!
-D/a
Make some cannoli filling and eat it with a spoon.
Just be careful where you got your ricotta from, BTW.
I don’t know if you have enough to make Fragomammella?
My father used to put it on toast. He vastly preferred toast from an artisan bread, but if all we had was plain white supermarket bread, he’d put the cheese on that. I’ll put it on toast or crackers, myself. You can use it as a sweetish dip for fruits and veggies, too.
Interesting! I might fancy that up a bit, and serve some to my family next time I make dinner. I’m always looking for interesting, different desserts for them.
-D/a