Ricotta Custard

Tried a basic ricotta cheese custard.

0.75 cups boiling water

dash salt

2 Tb corn meal

120 grams ricotta

60 grams cream cheese

1 egg, beaten

handful of grated hard cheese

Add boiling water to corm meal with salt. Wait for cornmeal to soften, thicken, and cool. In the meantime, integrate ricotta and cream cheese. Beat egg in small bowl. Once corn meal is coolish, add soft cheeses, egg, cheese, and mix well. This will fill three or four small ramekins. I cooked in a water bath for about an hour. Internal temperature reached about 160ºF. Didn't brown on top as much as I would like, but the internal texture was pretty perfect.

Great changes to this dish would include: To use fresh corn instead of corn meal; To substitute pineapple chunks for the savory hard cheese; To add spinach or leeks sautéed with shallots...

Pressure Pintos

Soaked 0.5 lbs pintos overnight. Cut one half of a white onion into three wedges. Laid the wedges into a bit of hot oil at the bottom of the pressure cooker, just to brown on one side. Also added one dried chile. At the end, I threw in three bay leaves and four half-cloves of garlic. After a minute of heat on the garlic, I dropped the pintos and water in. A half pound of soaked pintos was a bit over 2 cups by volume. I included water at an approximate 2:1 ratio. This was less than the typical 3:1 ratio for pintos because of the pressure cooker technique.

Immediately after adding the pintos and water, I covered the cooker and locked the lid, turning heat up to high. Once the steam reached pressure, I cooked for 30 minutes - turning heat down to medium (which seems to be the minimum flame to maintain pressure). I released pressure using the valve and waited to open the lid.

Results were good flavor-wise, but not great on the whole. I added salt after cooking was complete - maybe a half teaspoon. The beans seemed a bit overcooked. I think they could have cooked for 2/3 or even half the time. Many were broken up and there was a lot of starch granules on everything. So, next time I'll cook for about 15 minutes at pressure.