Farro cakes on a bed of kale

I've been wanting to make a farro-based main dish for a while, but usually I just use it in salad, and it's been too chilly for me to get excited about a cold dinner. I played around with the idea of this farro cake for a while before going for it. I've made grain cakes before, and I just kind of made this one up. It's awesome, if I do say so myself. The farro is nice and chewy, and the liberal use of parmesan gives them a really nice deep cheesy flavor. It took me a little fiddling to get them to hold together. First, I just added one egg, but it was kind of just a dry-ish mash. I added a second egg, and it was too wet, but then I threw in some Panko crumbs, which absorbed just enough egg to get the cakes to hold together well. The kale complements the cakes nicely, but I have a pro-kale bias.

Farro cakes on a bed of kale

Makes about 10 cakes. I had 2 at dinner, and Jon had 5. So it serves 2-5 people, I guess.

1 cup farro (or a little less; you want 2 cups cooked in the end)

2 cups vegetable stock

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

8 grape tomatoes, quartered

1/2 tsp ground marjoram

1/2 tsp dried thyme

.65 oz grated parmesan or asiago cheese (I just got an electronic kitchen scale! If you don't have one, it's probably 1/3 cup grated by a microplane.)

2 eggs, well beaten

1/4 cup Panko or bread crumbs

4 kale leaves

Cook farro by combining farro with broth in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cook for about 25 minutes, or until water is absorbed and farro is tender. Set aside.

Heat oil in a medium frying pan. Add onion, then a few minutes later, garlic, tomatoes, marjoram, and thyme. Saute until everything is soft. Set aside.

Place 2 cups farro in a medium mixing bowl. Add vegetable mixture and cheese. Stir in eggs and Panko or bread crumbs.

To cook the cakes, heat a crepe or nonstick pan over medium heat until it is very hot. (Add a little oil if your pan needs it; ours doesn't.) Take a big spoonful of farro mixture, plop it on the pan, and mash it down with the back of the spoon so it's even and fairly flat. Cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the bottom is golden brown. Carefully flip it and cook on the other side until that side is done as well. The cakes didn't seem very liable to burn, so you don't need to be too worried about them getting overcooked.

In the leftover oil from the vegetable pan, saute the kale. Serve farro cakes on top of a bed of kale.

Broccoli rabe pizza

This is a pizza recipe I came up with about a month ago to use up some leftover broccoli rabe. Broccoli rabe is a vegetable that I always think I will like more than I do. I don't dislike it, but honestly, I'd rather have broccoli or kale. Anyway, this pizza came about when I was browsing around for broccoli rabe recipes, and I ran across this pizza from smitten kitchen. When I saw the pictures initially, I thought the black blobs were raisins. When it turned out they were olives, I already had my heart set on raisins, so I swapped that out. I also decided to caramelize the onions on the stove instead of roasting them in the oven. I added pine nuts and used fontina cheese instead of mozzarella because I had some I needed to use up.

This pizza was excellent. Jon was rock climbing that afternoon, and he is always really hungry when he gets home from that. He inhaled 2/3 of the pizza and raved about it the whole time, but I don't really trust his judgment when he's that hungry.

Broccoli rabe pizza

Vegetable oil for sauteing

1 large onion, sliced into thin rings

1/2 pound broccoli rabe, washed and chopped

1 pizza crust (I used my standard 1/2 whole wheat crust)

1/2 cup shredded fontina cheese

1/4 cup raisins

2 tbsp pine nuts

Salt to taste

Start by caramelizing your onions. To do this, put a generous amount of oil in a large saute pan and heat it over medium. When it is hot, add the onions and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are brown and soft, between 45 minutes and an hour. Remove onions and set aside. Sometime while the onions are caramelizing, put your pizza stone in the oven and turn it on to 425 F.

Turn heat up to medium and add broccoli rabe to remaining oil. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until broccoli rabe is wilted and bright green, about five minutes.

Roll out pizza crust. Top with cheese, onions, raisins, broccoli rabe, and pine nuts, roughly in that order. Sprinkle with salt if desired. Put the pizza on the stone and bake until done, about 9-12 minutes.

Liptauer cheese spread

I saw this spread on 101 cookbooks months ago and have been wanting to try it since then. I finally got around to it a couple weeks ago. It is delightful on this thinly-sliced rye bread we like. I call it German health bread, but I don't think that's its technical name. We changed the recipe a little bit because we don't care much for capers, and we had green onions instead of shallots. The spread ended up a little salty. I think next time I will see if I can find a less salty goat cheese. I didn't add any salt, so that and the pickle were the only sources.

Liptauer cheese (adapted from 101 cookbooks)

8 oz goat cheese, room temperature

4 oz butter, room temperature

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp carraway seeds

1 green onion, sliced

1 tbsp diced pickle (we used standard dill, but I think a sweet pickle would be nice too)

Mix goat cheese and butter in a medium mixing bowl. Add paprika, mustard, and carraway seeds. Fold in green onion and pickle. Serve on bread or crackers.

Beet, basil, and cheese crackers

While Jon was waiting in line at the deli counter a few days ago, I spotted this intriguing Greek cheese called manouri. (you might remember it from the composed salad I posted yesterday.) The sticker near it said it was made with the whey from feta and sheep's milk cream. It wasn't very expensive, so I bought a little to try. We really enjoyed it. It's not as salty as feta, and it has a nice creamy texture that is kind of hard when it's still cold and gets very soft when it sits out a while. It's like a cross between feta and mozzarella.

These crackers were an after-dinner snack for me when dinner hadn't been quite enough, but I think they would also make nice summer party food. I think crostini would work in place of the crackers, too. I think beet instead of tomato on the cracker is tasty and a little different from what you might expect.

For two crackers:

2 Wasa or other sturdy crackers

4 slices manouri or other semi-soft cheese

4 leaves basil

1 medium beet, cooked, peeled, and sliced into rounds

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Top each cracker with 2 slices of cheese, 2 basil leaves, and half the beet rounds. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and a tiny drizzle of olive oil.

Pasta salad

We took this salad to a lovely concert in Millennium Park. There is not much dressing but we found it to be plenty with the basil, feta and olives.

1/2 lb mini penne (I think shells or rotini would work well too)

2 big kale leaves

1/2 lb broccoli crown chopped small

20 grape tomatoes halved

10 olives (I used Kalamata and Alphonso) diced

feta crumbled

fresh basil sliced fine

Dressing:

1/2 lemon

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

3 Tbsp olive oil

thyme

oregano

pepper

ground mustard

salt

Cook the pasta in salted water. Add the broccoli 2 minutes before it is done. Drain in a colander lined with the kale. Let cool. Combine the ingredients. Dress with the dressing.

Dressing. Combine all ingredients except the oil. Let sit. Add the oil and stir well.

Two things to do with olive oil

As I mentioned in a recent post, we got some really good olive oil recently. It's this stuff from California.

In the past, I've mostly stuck to imported Greek and Italian olive oils, but they had samples of this out at a local grocery store, and it's a great finishing oil. It's fairly bitter and grassy and assertive, but still fresh. While dousing bread in olive oil and balsamic is awesome, I've been trying to highlight this excellent oil in other ways as well. Here are two recipes I made this week that tasted good and let the olive oil stand out. The bulgur salad is a variation on something we do pretty often. The crostini came about because I saw a pickled cherry recipe in a recent Bon Appetit and just had to make it. (By the way, I didn't pit the cherries before pickling them, and I think they're fine.) It's pretty good, but I'll probably tinker with it when I make it again. I find it a little too acidic, and I feel like the cherry flavor would stand out more if I left them in the hot liquid for a shorter amount of time and decreased the vinegar a bit. But the rosemary is great in there! This seemed like a logical way to use up some pickled cherries. I think the crostini would be even better with a nice creamy chevre in place of the feta, but feta was what I had.

Bulgur salad

1 cup coarsely ground bulgur

pinch of salt

3/4 cups halved grapes

1 celery rib, thinly sliced

a big spring of mint, leaves julienned

juice of 1/2 lemon

olive oil

Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil. Add the bulgur and a pinch of salt, turn off heat, and let bulgur steam until the water has been absorbed. If all the water has been absorbed and the bulgur isn't tender enough, add another 1/4-1/2 cup of water, bring to a boil, and turn off heat to let it steam a little more. In the meantime, place the grapes and celery in a medium mixing bowl. Add the cooked bulgur and dress with mint, lemon juice, and oil. Serve by itself or over a regular salad with lettuce, tomatoes, red peppers, and cucumbers, like I did.

Pickled cherry and feta crostini

Makes 1. Increase as necessary.

1 slice Italian bread

2 tsp crumbled feta cheese or a big smear of goat cheese

4 pickled cherries, pits removed and cherries chopped into 8ths

Black pepper

Olive oil

Toast the bread. I don't have a toaster, so I spread a little butter on it and fried it for a few minutes in a skillet, but toasting/grilling/broiling would work too. (I didn't want to use the oven for just one piece of bread.) Place cheese on bread and add cherries to the top. Sprinkle with black pepper and pour a little olive oil on it.

Kale week and two recipes

Jon is working in France right now and will be for the next six months or so (don't worry; I get to visit this summer), and his departure has thrown me a little out of my food and cooking rhythm. Specifically, I barely have to cook because I eat much less than Jon+Ev. So I have fewer opportunities to try new things, and I don't have as much motivation to be fun and creative in the kitchen. Here is a post I started a while ago when Jon was in town and gave up on at the time because my pictures weren't uploading properly. I have a few other recipes I've been meaning to write up, so those should be appearing soon. And I'm working on getting my groove back. A big part of this is learning that "serves six" means "you can eat this for eight meals" instead of "you might have leftovers for lunch tomorrow if you're lucky" like it used to.

It is no secret that I love kale. A couple weeks ago I proposed that we should have a "kale week" where we ate kale every day. Jon was a bit skeptical and suggested that we only do a kale work week, but we ended up eating kale the Sunday before and Saturday after as well, so it was a full week of kale. I proposed kale week in part because I love kale and in part to see if I would get tired of it. I didn't at all. In fact, the Monday after kale week, we made a kale pizza, pictured above, recipe below.

Sunday: Potato, kale, carrot, and onion skillet.
Monday: Southwestern quinoa salad (recipe coming soon, perhaps) with a side of sauteed kale

The picture uploaded 90 degrees clockwise from what the file looked like in the folder the first time, so I rotated it 90 degrees counterclockwise and tried again. That time, it uploaded in the same orientation as the file in the folder. I tried to rotate it again, but it was not having any of that. Technology!

Tuesday: Chickpea crepes topped with red Russian kale, golden beets, and feta cheese. Delicious!
Wednesday: We knew we would be eating dinner out with friends, so we sauteed some kale with sesame oil and salt and had it as a side to our lunch of sandwiches.
Thursday: Spinach ravioli with kale added to the cooking water at the last minute, topped with cheese.
Friday: Mac and cheese and kale. Jon makes great mac and cheese from scratch, and this time we sauteed up a bunch of red kale and stirred it in. It was great! Next time I might increase the kale to two bunches to get even more kaley goodness. The recipe is below.
Saturday: Leftovers of various kale-containing foods
Sunday: No kale.
Monday: Kale pizza

Macaroni and cheese and kale
This is based on the mac and cheese recipe from the New Basics Cookbook. We reduced the cheese significantly from their recipe and added kale. The recipe dirties a lot of dishes and takes a while, but it sure is tasty. I think this could be made with blanched broccoli or asparagus in place of the kale.

vegetable oil for sauteing
1 or 2 bunches kale, washed, tough stems removed, leaves coarsely chopped
1 pound penne or rigatoni
4 cups milk
4 tbsp unsalted butter
6 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp paprika (we use sweet or hot smoked, or a combination)
salt and black pepper
4 oz gruyere cheese, grated

In a saute pan over medium heat, saute the kale in the vegetable oil until it just wilts. Set aside.

Cook penne in plenty of water until just tender. Add the kale to the penne. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350.

Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Set aside.

In another heavy saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly, for about five minutes. Do not allow to brown.

Add the hot milk to the flour mixture and whisk well. Add 1/2 tsp paprika and a generous amount of black pepper. Season with a little salt. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, for about five more minutes or until the mixture thickens. Add to the kale and penne and toss to coat thoroughly.

Butter a 9x13 baking dish and fill evenly with sauced penne. Distribute the grated gruyere evenly and sprinkle with more pepper and the rest of the paprika. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until hot. Turn on the broiler (use caution if you have a Pyrex baking dish) and cook under the broiler 3 or 4 minutes or until the top gets a little golden and crispy. (The kale on the top will dry out and get a nice crunch going.)

Kale pizza
I used both sauteed kale added at the beginning and raw kale added at the end. The sauteed kale crisped up a little but stayed substantial and chewy. The raw kale crisped up a lot and added nice crunchy bits. You might recall that I throw it onto a lot of my pizzas for a nice vegetal crunch. Jon said he would have preferred just the kale crispies, but I liked both.

1 pizza crust made with 1/2 whole wheat flour

vegetable oil for sauteing
1 bunch of kale, washed thoroughly, thick stems removed, leaves chopped
extra-virgin olive oil for brushing on pizza
about 1/4 of a large onion, sliced into thin rings or half-rings
1 oz gruyere cheese, cut into thin 1-inch squares
coarse salt and black pepper
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 425 and put your pizza stone in it. Roll out the pizza crust.

In a saute pan over medium heat, saute all but a small handful of the kale in oil until just wilted. Remove from heat.

Brush pizza crust with olive oil. Scatter onion slices and cheese over crust. Sprinkle with coarse salt and black pepper. Top with sauteed kale. It should be a pretty thick layer, but you might not want to use all of it depending on how big the bunch of kale was.

Transfer pizza to pizza stone. Bake for about 8 minutes or until crust is mostly, but not quite, done. Add the raw kale pieces and bake for 3 minutes more, or until crust is done. Remove from oven and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Lemon-ricotta-chard pizza

This post has been featured in the 38th Grow Your Own roundup! Thanks, Nate and Annie, for hosting! There's a lot of delicious and impressive stuff over there.

I made a big batch of ricotta last weekend because I had wanted to try several ricotta recipes. I made some ricotta gnocchi and some cute lemon-ricotta pancakes.
Both were nice but not anything really special, but this pizza was amazing. I knew that I wanted a ricotta-based pizza topping and that I didn't want it to be too complicated. My aunt gave me a bunch of home-grown Meyer lemons, which are big and sweet and juicy, and in a brilliant stroke of inspiration, I decided that they would be the perfect accompaniment to the ricotta on the pizza. Fiesta had some gorgeous bunches of Swiss chard, so I added that too. It worked nearly perfectly. Cooking sweetened the lemons even more, and the greens got a little crispy without burning. Next time I will peel the lemons because the white pith is a little too bitter. That change is reflected in the recipe.

Lemon-ricotta-chard pizza
Vegetable oil for sauteeing chard
Lemon zest, optional
1 bunch Swiss chard, stems removed for another use (if you're into that kind of thing), leaves cleaned well and coarsely torn
1/2 recipe pizza dough made with whole wheat in place of half the white flour
Olive oil for brushing
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 Meyer lemon, sliced into thin rounds, peel and pith removed
Coarse salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 F with pizza stone in it.
Heat oil in saute pan over medium heat. Grate a little lemon zest into the oil if you want. When the oil is hot, add the chard leaves and saute until wilted. You might cover them briefly to get some nice steaming action going. Remove from heat and set aside.
Roll pizza dough out into 12-inch round. Brush with olive oil. Top with ricotta, chard, and lemon slices. I added the ricotta in little spoonfuls, but you could also spread it thinly over the whole pie. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Carefully transfer to pizza stone and bake for 12-14 minutes or until the crust is done.

Caramelized onion, pear, and blue cheese pizza

I think I got the inspiration for this flavor combination from California Pizza Kitchen years ago. The onions and the pears are both sweet, but the tangy blue cheese balances it out. I served this pizza with a truly extraordinary salad. In addition to the normal lettuce, tomato, pepper, and cucumber, I added dill, sorrel, kale, and carrot tops from the garden and pear slices that didn't make it onto the pizza. Jon is the onion caramelizer in the household, so I can't give you guidelines on that. Low and slow is my best guess. I'm sure the internet knows how to do it, though, if you need a recipe. In addition to this pizza, we use caramelized onions in wraps with black bean dip and as a topping for veggie burgers. (We made veggie burgers from scratch for the first time a few days ago.) I plan on using the onion-pear-blue cheese trifecta in galettes later this week as well.

Caramelized onion, pear, and blue cheese pizza

1/2 recipe pizza dough made with whole wheat flour in place of half of the white flour
Extra- virgin olive oil for brushing
Caramelized onions
1 pear, thinly sliced
Crumbled blue cheese (we used a mix of Maytag and a local generic blue cheese)
2 tbsp pine nuts
Coarse salt, optional

Preheat oven to 425 with a pizza stone in it. On a floured surface, roll the pizza dough out to a large circle. Brush with olive oil. Arrange caramelized onions, pear slices, blue cheese, and pine nuts on dough. Carefully transfer to hot pizza stone. Bake for 12 minutes or until crust is done. Sprinkle with salt at the table if desired.

Inspiration pizza

A couple weeks ago, we got home late and hungry with very little food in the house. (We were even out of parmesan-the horror!) I felt like a Chopped! contestant. We had a beer pizza crust in the fridge from a couple days before. There were also some green beans that needed to be used. I marinated them in a mixture of lemon and tangerine juice with some black pepper, smoked paprika, and chopped garlic while I rolled out the pizza dough and assembled the rest of the ingredients. I spread some extra-virgin olive oil on the dough, followed that with a hearty helping of jarred pesto. I dotted the top with sun-dried tomatoes and layered the green beans on top. I wasn't sure that the feta would be good on the pizza, so I only put it on half of it. I put it in the oven at 375 and cooked it for about 12 minutes. I sprinkled on some pine nuts and then cooked it for another few minutes. It wasn't bad at all. If I decide to make green bean pizza in the future, I will chop them smaller, but other than that it pretty much worked. The leftover green bean marinade was a nice drizzle for the top. I was impressed by my kitchen ingenuity.
I'm thinking about doing a Chopped-style weird ingredient challenge every once in a while. My idea is that Jon and I each come up with two ingredients and then we each make a dish that has all four. It's dorky, but we don't have TV or internet at home, so how else are we supposed to entertain ourselves? If these challenges ever materialize, I'll post them here.

Ricotta and pea dumplings

It has been a very busy couple of weeks, so although we have still been cooking and eating (Jon doing most of both), we haven't posted anything in a while. On top of that, my camera was totaled in an accident involving the floor. I have a backlog of food photos, but after that we'll be switching to a photo-free format until I can get a new camera. Luckily one of the last meals I photographed was very beautiful.
I got the idea from 101 cookbooks, and I didn't change much. I don't care for raw alium, so I omitted the shallots because the pea mixture wouldn't be cooked for very long. I also am not as artistically gifted as Heidi, so my dumplings were not as artfully rolled up as hers. But I was very pleased with them.

First, I must tell you about ricotta. In the past, I implied that ricotta and paneer were basically the same, but I used a dedicated ricotta recipe just for kicks instead of my usual paneer recipe, and it really made a difference. This was sweet and milky and soft. I think lemon juice, the acid of choice, is less acidic than vinegar, so it didn't curdle as quickly and tightly.
Here's my ricotta recipe:
Bring 2 1/2 quarts milk to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly so the milk doesn't scorch on the bottom.
Add about 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice and stir until curds form. Keep stirring for a while to get as much curdling as you can. Remove from heat.
Line a colander with 4 layers of cheesecloth or some loosely woven fabric like muslin. With a slotted spoon, scoop out as many curds as you can.
Here's where I deviated from the recipe. The whey was still pretty milky looking, so I knew there was more protein and fat we could get to curdle. I set aside the delicious, soft, sweet ricotta I had made and added a splash of vinegar to the remaining milk. It curdled instantly, and I drained the translucent yellow whey away. That cheese was not as delicate as the other ricotta, but there's no sense in wasting perfectly good cheese, so we used it for another recipe later. (Speaking of which, if anyone knows how to use whey, I'd love suggestions. I attempted to make an Icelandic whey cheese, and it didn't go so well.)

We have big plans for future ricotta. We think it will be excellent on pizza, perhaps with pesto and grapes or pears.

Back to the recipe at hand. We used the homemade ricotta and frozen peas to make this dumpling filling and then pan-fried some of them and steamed some of them. Both were good, but I thought that steaming let me appreciate the flavor of the filling more. The fried stuff tasted like delicious fried stuff, which is nice, but I when I go the trouble of making ricotta, I want to taste it. We think that this would also be great with spinach or chard in place of the peas. These don't need a dipping sauce. I think if you had one, it would overwhelm the delicate pea and lemon flavors.

Ricotta and pea dumplings (from 101 cookbooks)
2 cups frozen peas
2/3 cups fresh ricotta
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Zest of one lemon
Wonton wrappers (these can be frozen indefinitely and thaw very quickly on the counter)

Fill a small saucepan about halfway with water and bring to a boil. Add the peas and cook for 1-2 minutes. Run under cold water to stop the cooking. Combine peas, ricotta, oil, and salt in a food processor and process until mixed through. It's fine if there are still whole peas in the mixture. In a medium bowl, combine pea mixture with Parmesan and lemon zest.
Now you're ready for filling. Spoon about 1 tsp filling into the center of a wonton wrapper. Dip your finger in warm water and run it along the edge of the wrapper. Fold one corner up to the opposite corner to make a triangle, and press the edges together. If you're more agile than I am, feel free to experiment with other wonton shapes. Once you've filled as many as you think you want, either steam or pan-fry them. (I'm sure they'd be delicious deep-fried as well.)

To steam them, bring about an inch of water to a boil in a wide-bottomed saucepan. Place dumplings in a metal colander or strainer a couple inches over the boiling water. Cover and steam for about 4 minutes or until they look translucent. (Sometimes the corners of mine didn't cook all the way. It didn't bother me much.)
To pan-fry, pour a little oil into a small skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the dumplings and cover. Cook for about 2 minutes on the first side, then flip them and cook until the other side is brown and has those lovely little bubbles on it too.

Caramelized onion tart

This is kind of the opposite of the last post, at least in my food world. It's very rich and indulgent. Luckily, since it's so rich, you don't want to eat a lot of it. As you can see above, I just had a small piece of this tart with a big salad and a bunch of asparagus for a very nice meal. Jon and I managed to make it last two dinners and one lunch. If you know Jon, you know that is quite a feat.

Caramelized onion tart (from Jeanne Lemlin's Vegetarian Classics)
If you caramelize the onions the night before, this comes together very quickly.

1 sheet frozen puff pastry
1 tbsp olive oil
2 lb onions, thinly sliced (about 9 cups)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
Dash cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese (we used Ementaler)

Let the puff pastry thaw for at least 30 minutes on the counter or a few hours in the fridge. You want it to be cool but not frozen when you work with it.
While you're waiting on the puff pastry, prepare the onions. Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions and partially cover the pot. Cook, stirring often, for about 40 minutes or until the onions are a deep caramel color and very soft. You'll want to turn down the heat as the onions begin to soften so they can cook slowly and get all nice and brown. Scrape the bottom of the pot often to prevent sticking. Marvel at how much their volume decreases. Let the onions cool.
Lightly butter a tart pan or pie dish. On a lightly floured surface roll the puff pastry into an 11-inch square (just a little thinner than its starting size.) Press into the buttered pie dish and tear off the bits than hang over unless you want puff pastry charcoal at the end.
Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Beat in the cream, cayenne, and salt. Stir in the cheese and onions. Spoon the mixture into the pie dish. It might look underfilled, but it will fill out as it bakes. Bake 30-35 minutes at 425, until the custard is set and the crust is a deep gold. Ours looked like this:
Cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Paneer

Fried pieces of paneer

This is a recipe for the simplest homemade cheese. If you're making Indian food, you'll press absolutely all the whey out and call it paneer. If you're making Italian food, you won't press it as much and call it ricotta. (Traditional ricotta is made with whey, but I think this gives similar results.) In other food traditions, you might call it farmer's cheese. Basically, in this recipe you heat milk, curdle it with an acid, and strain out the chunky white curds. You can make it with any milk from whole to skim. Whole is richer, and that's what I use. I have used this cheese to make saag paneer, a traditional Indian dish with spinach or other greens, and mater paneer, or peas with paneer. That recipe will be next up on the blog. Paneer is pan-fried in both those recipes, so you want it as firm as possible so it will hold its shape. If you're using it as ricotta, you'll want more liquid in it since you'll probably be using it in a lasagna or something.

Paneer (recipe from Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Sumana Ray)
The milk amount is just a suggestion. The amount of vinegar below will curdle much more milk. You get about 1 cup of paneer for each quart of milk, so plan accordingly.
3 quarts milk
7 oz warm water
3 oz white vinegar

Bring the milk to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Combine the water and vinegar. Slowly add the vinegar solution to the milk. When the milk curdles, stop adding vinegar.
Put three to four layers of cheesecloth on a sieve or narrow-holed colander and strain the curdled milk. If you want a ricotta-like cheese, stop here and put the cheese in a container and refrigerate. If you want paneer that will hold its shape when pan-fried, press out as much whey as you can. I use the bottom of a bowl with a towel in it because the cheese is still very hot at this point and I have delicate little hands. After you've pressed out as much as you can that way, tie the ends of the cheesecloth together and hang it up to drain a little more. I sometimes wrap it in a towel at this point and wring it out. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week.