Eat Local Challenge: Ricotta on the brain

'Tis the season of faux Italian cooking. Tomatoes, basil, garlic, eggplant and/or zucchini, throw in some non-local (exempted through the pantry rule) but real and genuine Italian fruity green olive oil brought back for us from Italy in precious carry-on space, and you've got dinner in a myriad of ways. Except for one thing.

Cheese.

I've been living off goat cheese from oodles of local places, but all of it chevre. Which is close and good enough for most applications. Mozzarella will have to wait for the arrival of my cheesemaking kit from New England Cheesemaking Supply (30 minutes! Fresh mozz!). Parmesan in all its glorious forms will have to wait till September. But ricotta, with recipe via Heidi and proof positive from Clotide, was only some buttermilk away.

I got a half gallon of goat's milk (goat's milk ricotta, doesn't that sound yummy?) from Full Moon Farm in Rochester, NH. The buttermilk was from Oakhurst, so it may technically come from further away than 100 miles, as some farmers are way up in Maine, but a lot are closer, too. Law of averages or something.

Milk warming.

All of a sudden, the action.

Draining.

Forgot about it for too long so it dried out more than regular ricotta.

More like a ricotta salata than anything. Which is totally good and fine.

It melts like a dream - perfect for those melty cheesy pesto tomato dishes I've been thinking about. Layers of eggplant, globbed onto grilled zucchini, tossed with roasted tomatoes and pasta (pasta? where'd you get locally sourced pasta? well, it's made by a local company and ummm . . ) for the quickest satisfying dinner.

Hurrah!