I have been home sick a fair bit lately (I am going through some fairly intense dizzy spells) and that has given me a lot of time to read interesting blog posts. I found a blog called ‘Simple Vegan Blog’ which has a treasure trove of interesting recipes and tutorials, among them was a really simple ricotta recipe made with tofu.

I have been making small amounts of tofu at home and adding it to stir fry and other hidden dishes, but to make this recipe I had to go out and buy some as I haven’t made any in a while and I never make more than 100g anyway. Everything else we have in the pantry or freezer. I wanted to make some spinach and ricotta gozleme (sourdough, of course) that my daughter could also enjoy, so first I had to find a way to make vegan ricotta, then make the gozleme. As you can imagine that took up half a day and made a lot of washing up. If I am going to make that much mess, I like to make something that can be frozen and used at a later date. Making multiple meals at one time cuts the clean up in half in the long term (because I won’t have to do that clean up next time I want that meal). Also, I really like to try new stuff.

After making the gozleme dough and putting it to rest in the fridge, I put the big bunch of spinach on to steam and got to work making the ricotta. The recipe is so simple it doesn’t really count as a recipe, it’s more guidelines really.

Take about 275g of tofu (I used firm), chop it up and put it in the blender (I used the bullet blender and did two batches) with one tablespoon of lemon juice (I used some frozen juice I had), two tablespoons of nutritional yeast (I used three actually) and a teaspoon of salt (I used Murray River Pink salt). Blend it up until it is the required texture and there you have it… vegan ricotta.

I blended the spinach and some onion into the ricotta to make my gozleme filling. It turned out very well and my daughter came searching for more after we had eaten some for lunch and I had frozen the rest for work lunches (that’s when you know it’s a success).