How to make ricotta cheese

Mix the milk, cream and salt together in a heavy bottomed pan.

Stir the milk on medium low temp so that nothing sticks. When the milk reaches 190 degrees take the pan off the heat and add in the lemon juice. Stir the lemon juice in slowly, a couple of times.

Let it sit off the heat for 5 minutes. Don't touch the cheese while it's sitting there. Line a colander with a couple of layers of cheesecloth and set it on top of a bowl to catch the whey.

Pour the curds and whey into the cloander.

Let them drain for at least an hour. After an hour the ricotta will be soft, creamy and very spreadable. If you let it go another hour, you'll have more of a cream cheese type texture.

The ricotta firms up as it cools, so what's in your cheesecloth is not the final texture.

You can eat the ricotta warm on crusty bread, with tomatoes , olive oil and basil. You can also put it in an airtight container in the fridge for use later

Or you can make a dessert as I did , with Sonoma figs, local honey, and some walnuts. As you see there's a lot one can do with fresh ricotta, and it's only limited by ones' imagination.