“Ole Buttermilk Sky.

 

 

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 In the 1940s, Hoagy Carmichael had a hit song entitled “Ole Buttermilk Sky.” Not only is the sky over my house a buttermilk sky, everything in the house has buttermilk in it.  Before  Christmas, I had seen   turkey brined in buttermilk. We were just having turkey thighs, but I decided to try the buttermilk brine.   DH bought 1/2 gallon of buttermilk, so I had plenty of buttermilk left over.  I started to look for ways to use it up. We have had buttermilk waffles, buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk yeast rolls,

buttermilk quiche, and   buttermilk ice cream.   But I have pretty much figured out that anything that uses heavy cream can be  substituted with buttermilk.

 

I have really liked everything that I've made with the buttermilk except the brine for the turkey, which didn't   make any difference in the turkey at all.  The buttermilk ice cream was OK, but I wouldn’t make it again.

 

Every once in a while I buy ricotta cheese when I want to make lasagna. Then it's always a chore to think of ways to use the rest of the rest of the carton.  I've been listening to video recipes on the computer.  I had made ricotta crepes, and they were delicious.  But I needed a few more recipes.  Lo and behold, if a recipe calls for cream, you can most likely substitute ricotta.  I found recipes for ricotta cakes, ricotta chocolate mousse, ricotta pasta, ricotta spreads, etc.

 

The recipe that I most want to try is for ricotta gnocchi.     My dear Italian friend makes potato gnocchi, which are like little clouds, whereas my potato gnocchi are like clumps of paste.  She has even given me hands-on lessons--to no avail.  I can hardly wait to try making them with ricotta cheese.  Maybe it will be my gnocchi breakthrough.