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We all have our rituals for marking the end of the work week, and mine is to spend about two hours on Friday evening setting up a Crock-Pot of yogurt, mixing two loaves of no-knead bread and making ricotta cheese. Had I envisioned in my early 20s that this would be a voluntary and completely satisfying gateway activity to the weekend, I would have slit my throat. But now I love coming home and preparing these basic foods for the coming week by myself and in complete silence except for the clanking of utensils.

I have been fooling around with cheese making for a few years, with wildly varying rates of success. In more than a dozen attempts at making mozzarella, I have yet to be satisfied with the results. However, ricotta has never failed me. Furthermore, it is such a versatile ingredient that even if I do perfect making the likes of mozzarella, Camembert or Gouda, I think making ricotta will remain a weekly pleasure.

For purists, real ricotta must live up to the meaning of its name: recooked. It is made from whey, the protein rich liquid left over from producing various cheeses. The original cow, goat, sheep or buffalo milk is cooked to make curds for something like provolone, then the leftover whey is cooked again at a higher temperature (with a coagulant added) until another round of curd is formed.

To make whey ricotta, the whey must be less than three hours old, and most recipes recommend the use of a mesophilic starter that (in a loose sense) acts a bit like a sourdough starter. I stick to milk ricotta, which is much faster and easier to make at home and can be used in any recipe that calls for whey ricotta.

If you have never used ricotta, it has a texture like dry small curd cottage cheese and can be used almost interchangeably in recipes. If the only ricotta you have tasted is the store-bought variety, you will find that the homemade version has larger curds, tastes richer and has a moister texture. This is largely because commercial varieties have stabilizing gums in them, like xanthium gum, locust bean gum and the ever-popular guar gum that appears to be in every product these days.

Homemade ricotta is easy to make and takes about a half an hour if you exclude the amount of time you let it hang for the excess liquid to drain out. It also is versatile in cooking, there are no mysterious gums in it and the taste and texture are superior. What else does it take to convince you to make your own?

How about cost? A gallon of milk makes about three cups of ricotta. I paid $3 for a gallon of milk. Citric acid sells at Fred Meyer for $10.99 per pound, and because you use a teaspoon of it, the cost is negligible. The only other expense is the small amount of electricity used to heat the milk to 185 degrees. This brings the total cost of three cups of homemade ricotta to about $3.40. On sale, the cheapest ricotta at the grocery store this week was $3.49 for 1 1/4 cups, so the savings are significant.

The instructions here are for making ricotta the way I do. However, there is a version made with lemon juice that you can see brought to life in a video at www.cooksillustrated.com/oct09. (There also is a recipe for a wonderful Italian ricotta pie that I could not reprint here but can be found on the same page.)

One final advantage to making your own ricotta, and many other cheeses, is that once you remove the cheese curds that rise to the top of the milk, you will have a lot of protein-rich whey left. I used to throw this down the drain, until Roxie Dinstal, the super cook at the Alaska Cooperative Extension, told me it could be used as a substitute for water in bread, pancake and cake recipes. Not only does it make the result more nutritious, but the texture is noticeably lighter.

Ricki Carroll, who runs a cheese-making supply company and has published various pieces for the home cheese maker, feeds whey to her dogs, chickens, cats and turkeys. She also mixes it into products like Tang, so that her kids are drinking something more nutritious than the run-of-the-mill soda or powdered juice drink.

My turkeys turned up their beaks at my offerings of whey, Alistair Cook the Irish wolfhound is on a low protein diet per orders of the vet, and I made the mistake of telling my husband, Ted, what I had added to the Crystal Light before I gave it to him to try. As a result, all of our whey goes to cooking and baking. When it cools, I put the whey in the fridge for up to a week. If I have no plans to use it before that, it freezes nicely.

If you have never made cheese, ricotta is the perfect place to start. If you don’t know what to do with it once you have made it, look at the recipe suggestions below.

Making ricotta

Ingredients

• 1 gallon milk (whole or 2 percent only)

• 1 teaspoon citric acid (not ascorbic acid or Fruit Fresh)

• 1/4 cup water

Preparation

Stir the citric acid into the water until it is dissolved. When it has, stir it into the gallon of milk that you have poured into a large pot. Heat the milk to between 185 and 195 degrees, stirring constantly to be sure it doesn’t burn — there is no way to salvage the taste once it scorches.

As soon as you see the milk solids separate out of the whey, remove from the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes to finish the process. Don’t move or disturb the pot in any way. Meanwhile, line a colander with cheesecloth (you can buy this at craft stores or hunting supply stores).

After 10 minutes, use a large slotted spoon to remove the curds gently and put them in the colander. Tie a knot in the top of the cheesecloth, using all four corners, and hang the bag of cheese from a faucet to let the last of the whey drain out. (If you don’t have a suitable spigot, you can suspend it from a long wooden spoon that you have placed across the top of a tall pot.) The longer you let it hang, the drier the consistency. Use immediately or cover and put in the fridge for a week to 10 days.

Yield: about three cups of pure white ricotta and 2/3 of a gallon of greenish, watery whey.

Leek and tomato ricotta puff pie

Ingredients

• 2 cups ricotta

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Gruyere cheese

• 2 eggs, beaten

• a pack of puff pastry, which usually weighs 17 to 20 ounces

• 2 cups leeks, white and light green parts, sliced into thin coins

• 2 teaspoons butter

• 1 1/2 cups cold tomatoes, finely chopped

• Salt and black pepper, to taste

• Feel free to add another cup or two of vegetables, such as sliced mushrooms or zucchini

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter and sauté the leeks until translucent. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Whisk together the ricotta, cheese and eggs. Unfold the two pieces of pastry and use a finger wet with water to glue two of the sides together to form a larger rectangle. Spread the ricotta mixture over the pastry, leaving a 3/4 inch border. Place the leeks (and other vegetables you select) on top of the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake for 25–30 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle the cold tomatoes evenly across the pie and serve.

Zucchini ricotta cheesecake

Ingredients

• 2 cups grated zucchini, peel and all

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 1/2 cups ricotta

• 1 cup freshly shredded Parmesan, divided in half

• 2 scallions, white and green parts finely chopped

• zest of one lemon (Wash a lemon and grate off the outside, that is the zest.)

• 2 eggs, beaten

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put the shredded zucchini in a colander and mix in the salt. Allow 10 minutes for draining, then use your hands or a cotton cloth to squeeze out as much of the remaining moisture as you can.

Whisk together the ricotta, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese, scallions and lemon zest. Stir in the eggs and mix until well combined. Stir in the shredded zucchini. Fill a greased 9-inch spring-form or baking pan with the ricotta mixture. Place in the oven and bake for 75 minutes.

Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and return to the oven for 15 more minutes. The center might jiggle slightly, but it will set while cooling.

Remove from the oven and let it cool to at least room temperature before serving.

Pasta shells with ricotta cheese stuffing

Ingredients

• 1 (16 oz.) box large shells, cooked and cooled

• 2 cups ricotta

• 1/2 pound cooked sausage

• 1 cup finely chopped kale, chard or spinach

• 1 egg, beaten

• 2 cups of your favorite spaghetti or marinara sauce

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ricotta, sausage, chopped greens and egg together. Stuff each shell with this mixture and place in a baking pan. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Uncover and pour the hot sauce over the shells. Keep uncovered and bake for another 15 minutes. Serve.

Ricotta dip

Ingredients

• 2 cups ricotta

• 2 green onions, white and green portions chopped finely (or use half a cup of chopped chives)

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

• 2 tablespoons sour cream or yogurt

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients together well. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight. Serve with crackers or crudités.

Ricotta pie with artichokes and mushrooms

Ingredients

• 2 pie crusts, homemade or purchased

• 4 cups ricotta

• 2 cups marinated artichoke hearts, drained and finely chopped

• 3 large eggs

• Salt and pepper

• 1/2 lb. mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 1 cup minced onions or leeks or 6 scallions, whites and greens finely chopped

• 1 teaspoon butter

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a pan large enough so that when you put the mushrooms and onions in they begin to sauté, not steam. While they are cooking, put the bottom crust in a 9 inch pie plate. When the mushrooms have turned a little crispy and the onions translucent, remove from stove and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Mix together the ricotta, artichokes and eggs and add the mushrooms and onions.

Put the mixture in the pie and cover with the other crust. Be sure to make two or three slits in the top crust. Bake for an hour, and serve when it has cooled slightly. Do not overcook or this will be extremely dry.

(This last recipe is adapted from one by Eugenia Bone. She writes an excellent cooking blog for the Denver Post, and I recommend taking a look at it: blogs.denverpost.com/preserved.

Linden Staciokas is a real do-it-yourselfer in the kitchen. Send questions to her at dorking@acsalaska.net.