Stuffed French Bread

That Rosie Hawthorne is a bad influence.

Or rather, she is a good influence, as all her recipes

I have tried have been excellent.

Hey, you gotta know who to listen to.

And Rosie knows her food.

Tell me you don't want some of this?

You know you do.

Rosie's recipe for stuffed french bread called for

ricotta cheese.

This gave me the opportunity to try Ina Garten's recipe

for homemade ricotta cheese.

Bonus points!

The ingredients for the ricotta*:

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups whole milk**

1-1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

*I made a half recipe so I halved the amounts.

**I could not find whole milk so I bought Vitamin D milk.

Heat the milk, cream and salt to a boil, stirring occasionally.



Note that the second you turn your back is the second

the mixture will boil over.

And boy, did it.




Remove from the heat and add the vinegar.



Allow to sit for one minute so that the milk curdles.

Moisten two layers of cheesecloth and line a strainer

before placing over a bowl.

Pour the mixture into the strainer.

Allow to drain for about 20 to 25 minutes.

The longer it drains, the thicker it will become.

This separates the curds from the whey.

After 25 minutes we have ricotta cheese.

And we have whey.

This will be tossed.

This made about 1-1/2 cups ricotta cheese.

The next morning we got to work on the stuffed french toast.

I thawed out some strawberries,

added about 1/4 cup ricotta cheese and

4 oz. cream cheese.

The Foodie Boyfriend mashed the strawberries and

mixed this together.

I put three eggs, the egg whites left over from

making hollandaise sauce and a splash of

heavy cream with a pinch of salt in a shallow bowl.

Stir with a fork.

The Foodie Boyfriend stuffed the bread.

Then I fried it up in a pan.

I had extra egg mixture,

so I made some scrambled eggs.

We also had cooked some bacon in the oven

while we were making breakfast.

This was a delicious and rich meal.

Do yourself a favor, folks, and listen to Rosie.

She should have her own cooking show, I tell ya.