Chef Kevin's A.C.E. Cooking Classes

Post Date: 6 October 2014

Welcome to the latest post of my cooking classes blog.  This week we will stay Italian, discussing store bought versus homemade ricotta in making cannoli, followed by my thoughts on listening to music while cooking.

 

RICOTTA CHEESE

This past week I made some ricotta.  It is my favorite Italian cheese, and not just because it is rather easy to make.  What appeals to me is its versatility.  Ricotta can be used in savory dishes, like lasagne or ravioli, desserts like cannoli, or just mixed with a handful of Italian herbs and spooned onto a crostini or cracker as a quick appetizer.  However, the batch I made was destined for cannoli.
We will be doing cannoli in my A.C.E. Beyond Biscotti class the first two Sundays in November and I wanted to compare homemade vs store bought for the lesson.  What I plan to do is to bring in both and have the students make cannoli with both so they can see which they prefer.  We won’t really have time in class for everyone to make ricotta, so I will be providing them with an easy recipe to try at home.
For the comparison, I used 2 cups of each type.  Before adding the cannoli ingredients, I took a quick taste of each.  The store bought one had some sweetness to it which the homemade one did not and it had a thinner consistency than the home made.  I then added in the same cannoli ingredients – sugar, orange zest, vanilla, and mini chocolate chips to both.
With the store bought ricotta, it was quite easy to combine all the ingredients with a whisk.  However, as the homemade was thicker, I had to use a spatula to get everything combined.  Tastewise, they were both excellent. The store bought one was a tad sweeter to the taste buds, but the homemade one was somewhat thicker and richer to the mouth. 
It will be interesting to see which the class prefers.

 MUSIC WHILE COOKING

Do you like to listen to music while you cook?  And if so, what kind?  My first choice is jazz.  I used to do CDs until I discovered jazzradio.com, which has lot of different categories, so I stream from a laptop or smartphone.  I will also do classical at times. If I am in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, I listen to the opera, either the live broadcasts from the Met during their season or the recordings the rest of the year.  And sometimes, for variety, I listen to CDs of popular Italian songs, like O Sole Mio.  As I type this, it is Saturday afternoon, so I am listening to Rameau’s Castor and Pollux on WETA FM.

Well, that’s all for now.  Keep cooking.

Questions or Comments?  Please email me at:

              KJBrady@fcps.edu

                             or

              Chefdujour4u@gmail.com