So sometimes things don’t go so well….. blah….. but isnt it great when you can turn them around into something great.

I really do make an effort to find the good in things, even when it feels outrageously dreadful at the time. I don’t always manage it immediately, but I’m getting better.

Although my ‘Bad’ of yesterday wasn’t the sort of devastation that could count as a major life event, I still do like that the small things mirror the large, that a little lesson around something insignificant can remind me of how to approach larger, more complex issues with as much optimism as I can muster.

So…. my ‘Bad’. Yesterday, I made yogurt. I like making yogurt, ever since I bought my yogurt maker for $5 in a garage sale last year. But yesterday, it went grainy – oh my, i hear you cry, what a disaster! I could easily have managed eating some grainy yogurt this week (i’m really not THAT fussy and the taste was really quite ok), however.. whilst trouble shooting my grainy yogurt on the worldwidewonderweb I discovered a wondrous use for yogurt that turns out not quite right – make it into RICOTTA. Wow. This made me feel quite a lot of excitement. Opportunity out of failure. Nice.

So I did…. just now, I really did. I MADE CHEESE – who’d have thought it possible.

Here is what I did, which I gleaned from various hints and tips on the internet (hence no one comprehensive link – apologies!)

I put the grainy yogurt in a saucepan, added a splash of vinegar and a little salt, brought it the boil and let it simmer for a few minutes. This was the most exciting part, I was literally glued to the sight of the yogurty brew turn into curds before my eyes. It really was thrilling. Then I put some muslin in a colander over a bowl and poured it all in to let the curds do their curd-y thing and the whey do their whey-y thing. A right little miss muffet I was.

My piece of muslin wasn’t very big so I pegged it onto the colander to try and keep everything together (thought I should explain the presence of pegs in the photo!)

I let it sit for about an hour, then i gave the muslin a bit of a squeeze to get rid of some more whey and hey presto… look what happened. I got ricotta.

I had to try some, so for a super quick sweet treat, I popped some on a corn thin and drizzled some maple syrup on top.

Next time I’m going to try some fresh made ricotta atop a digestive biscuit spread with a little cherry jam – can’t wait!

So simple, so effective, so resourceful, so feeling good right now.

Sue