Pizza Blonde

 A couple of days ago I was commenting on Jane Mason's post on Virtuous Bread, where she had been making gnudies.  I have yet to try those, but this did inspire me to make some ricotta.  With the heat, we had not been having our usual afternoon 'weak teas'.  Instead of having tea, when we have about a third of a mug of milk topped up with boiling water, we were having glasses of water.  The result is that I had spare milk on Monday, just before my weekly delivery of goat's milk from Wookey Farm.

With tips from Jane about using use the whey in my dough, and also about making making sure that the cheese is well drained so that it bakes well, after a night in the fridge, draining through a muslin lined conical strainer, this is the result:

Goat's milk ricotta

Gnudies will need to wait for another day.  I just had pizza on my mind:  Pizza Blonde, without the tomato, using my little small pattipans, some onions, and walnuts.  I made the pizza dough with the whey, taking inspiration from Linda Collister's recipe, which includes Herbes de Provence in the dough, except I used some of my own dried marjoram!  I have used Linda Collister's 'Bread'for many a bake!

Ever since enjoying my first 'professionally baked Pizza Blonde in Sicily' and also baking Jane Mason's Alpine Pizza from 'All you Knead is Bread', I realised that my 'tomato less' pizzas were very nearly mainstream.

So for supper yesterday we had some of this Pizza made with loads of onions, a few steamed Pattipan slices, walnuts, which I had steamed along with the pattipans, so that they were damp and didn't get burnt, topped with my home made ricotta.  There was a little nub of other sheep's feta, which got grated and added.  Final topping was shredded fresh marjoram and a little olive oil just before serving.  I find Marjoram Nana the best for flavour.  

With all the whey I had from the 1 litre of milk, I also made two spelt loaves, and a couple of rounds of cinnamon whirls, one of which is being taken to our gardening club committee meeting this morning.

Should I ever have a spare litre, I'll be making ricotta again.  I have even more admiration for the cheese makers, and uped my milk order for next week to include some of Sarah's lovely cheese which she makes on the farm.