What to do with left over whey? Make Ricotta Cheese! 8'15

Home made ricotta on home made bread

 A by-product of any form of cheese-making is whey.  Whey is the liquid which is squeezed from the milk curd.   Health food stores sell  small quantities of whey for a small fortune, so we knew it must be good stuff.  But what should we do with the three quarts of whey we had left over from our mozzarella making adventure?  Back to the internet.  We found lots of suggestions, but these were the ones we liked the most:

• Make ricotta cheese 
• Substitute whey in any baking recipe that calls for water (or even milk)
•  Use whey to soak grains
•  Use whey to cook pastas, potatoes, oatmeal, or rice. 
•  Add whey to soups and stews. 
• Freeze it for later. 

The first and most obvious use was to make some ricotta cheese from our left over whey. And it’s so incredibly easy! all you do is heat the whey to 200 degrees; let it sit for several hours until the heated curd is cool enough to handle, then strain the curd through some very fine mesh.  (We used coffee filters.)

We must have done a very good job of pulling all the milk solids out of the whey during the mozzarella making process, because we only got about a half cup of cheese from the ricotta strain, and that looks and tastes more like a rich cream cheese.  Not bad for a first attempt at cheese making. For a more complete list of ideas for using whey see:  http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2011/06/16-ways-to-use-your-whey.html