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Janet Fletcher

180 Stonecrest Dr
Napa, CA, 94558
(707) 265-0404
{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

Janet Fletcher

  • Home
  • About
    • About Janet
    • Media
    • Client List
    • Contact
  • Planet Cheese
    • Planet Cheese Blog
    • Planet Cheese Signup
    • Cheese Library
  • Store
    • All Items
    • World Cheese Tour
    • Books
  • Classes
    • World Cheese Tour Classes
    • Other Classes & Events
    • Custom Class/Event Request
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  • Recipes
    • Spring
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    • Autumn
    • Winter
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Spring Means Ricotta

April 15, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com
six ricotta recipes for spring, from an antipasto ricotta board to caramel ricotta flan for dessert

Still finalizing your Easter menu? Or maybe, like me, you’re a guest and need to bring something. To that end, I’ve gathered some of my favorite ricotta recipes for right now.

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Tags ricotta, Easter desserts, cannoli, star bread, ricotta board, ricotta flan
5 Comments

Cannelloni Time

September 3, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

Sara Remington Photography

My eggplant crop was a runaway success this year—not always the case—and frankly I’m getting a little tired of baba ghanoush. I’ve cooked eggplant with pasta every conceivable way and still I have eggplant. For Labor Day, when normal people were grilling burgers, we grilled eggplant. That’s when I was reminded how much I enjoy this pasta-free riff on cannelloni, which I developed for a Sur La Table cookbook several years ago. Eggplant and tomato are a proven love match; add ricotta and prosciutto to the mix and you hit it out of the park.

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Tags eggplant cannelloni, eggplant parmigiana, eggplant recipes, grilled eggplant, ricotta, ricotta recipes
2 Comments

When in Naples…

August 13, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

Opting to follow the crowds instead of the guidebooks, my husband and I ended up in a packed working-class lunch spot in Naples a few years ago. After a glance around, we decided to have what everyone else was having: rigatoni in tomato sauce topped with a dollop of snow-white ricotta. Eyeing the other diners, we did what they did, stirring in the fluffy ricotta before diving in. The cheese made the tomato sauce so mellow and creamy. If you’re preparing pasta with tomato sauce in the weeks ahead, please try this technique. If your sauce also has eggplant, zucchini or sweet peppers, so much the better.

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In Milk: Sheep Tags Naples restaurants, dining in Naples, pasta with tomato sauce, ricotta, summer pasta recipes, pasta with ricotta
4 Comments

My Kind of Cheese Cake

June 4, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

The strawberry farmstand near my house is in full swing right now, with berries so fragrant you can smell them from the parking lot. Fortunately, I know a dessert worthy of them. In French it’s a vacherin but I call it a macaroon torte: layers of crunchy almond meringues, whipped ricotta cream and juicy strawberries (or peaches in season). In just a few hours, the meringues soak up the juices and soften enough that you can cut neat slices. It’s one of the first desserts my husband ever made for me. (That list is short.) Doug brought a small collection of cookbooks to our marriage, and this recipe was in one of them. If he made it for other women before me, I don’t want to know.

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Tags almond recipes, macaroons, almond torte, ricotta, Dione Lucas, strawberry recipes
5 Comments

Simply Delightful

March 26, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

I was intrigued to read that superstar baker Dorie Greenspan is working on a book on simple cakes. Simple cakes are the best! You can have a nice slice for breakfast without feeling like you’ve gone off the rails, then another piece in mid-afternoon with a cup of tea. A little sliver before bed with a wee dram of Madeira? Oh, yeah.

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Tags yogurt baking, yogurt cake, ricotta, Gina DePalma, Easter dessert
2 Comments

Crazy Good Italian

September 12, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Peppers & Mozzarella Flaky Tart from Italy by Ingredient by Viola Buitoni

Photo credit: Molly Decoudreaux

If you love Italy and Italian food (everyone on board?), you’re going to love Viola Buitoni’s new book, Italy by Ingredient. A native of Rome, Buitoni is now a cooking teacher in San Francisco with a devoted following (which includes me). She comes from food aristocracy—the family behind Buitoni pasta and Perugina chocolates—but her cooking is rustic and original, prizing fine ingredients over fancy technique. Ricotta and mozzarella are among her must-haves in the kitchen, and she has some tantalizing ideas for using them.

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Tags Viola Buitoni, Italian cooking, ricotta, mozzarella, Italy by Ingredient, Italian cookbook, Italian desserts
10 Comments

Board Game

January 24, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Ricotta Board

Butter boards had their 15 minutes. Now, meet the ricotta board—which, naturally, I vastly prefer. Channel your inner artist and make a masterpiece with whipped ricotta and the toppings you like. (I have some suggestions.) I love how creamy ricotta becomes in a food processor, making a luscious canvas for toasted pistachios, briny olives, tapenade, pesto, prosciutto or whatever strikes your fancy. Add little knives for spreading and bread or crackers to spread it on.

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In Milk: Sheep Tags ricotta, ricotta board, whipped ricotta, butter board, Bellwether Farms, Calabro, Valentine’s Day, dinner party appetizer, hors d’oeuvre, spread recipes, dip recipes
6 Comments

Baked Lemon Ricotta is a Slice of Puglia

August 23, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com
Baked Lemon Ricotta

Is it cheese…or is it cake? Or is it cheesecake? Baked lemon ricotta is a modern creation produced by a small family enterprise in Puglia, but there’s plenty of tradition behind it. In Sicily and Puglia, shepherds long ago figured out that they could bake their ricotta in their wood-burning oven and extend its lifespan. Thirty-five years ago, the Donvito family took the practice in a new direction, creating a line of sweet, sliceable baked ricottas flavored with lemon, coffee, cocoa and pistachio. The lemon version—the bestseller by far—turns up at American cheese counters occasionally and I’ve been eyeing it, but not trying it, for years.

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In From: Italy, Milk: Sheep Tags ricotta, Italian cheese, baked ricotta, formaggi, Puglia, Sicilian cheese, ricotta infornata, ricotta al forno, Donvito, Sapori dell’Antica Murgia, baked lemon ricotta
15 Comments

Take the Cannoli Ice Cream

August 9, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com

I only recently learned that the most famous lines in The Godfather (“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”) were not in the script. Actor Richard Castellano ad-libbed them. Movie critics have debated the meaning, but to me it’s obvious. What kind of Italian-American would leave cannoli behind, even fleeing a crime scene?

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In Milk: Cow, From: U.S. Tags ricotta, ice cream, ricotta ice cream, gelato, Sicilian food, Sicilian desserts, cannoli, Rosetta Costantino
4 Comments

Six Ricotta Dishes to Make Before Summer Ends

July 12, 2022 janet@janetfletcher.com
Pesto with ricotta

We’re having a pesto marathon at my house. Tonight…and tomorrow night..and the next night. The garden basil is out of control and it’s now or never for the year’s sweetest pesto. I had made pesto for decades before discovering what a spoonful of ricotta does for it. So creamy! Fred Plotkin, the author of the bible on Ligurian cooking (Recipes from Paradise: Life and Food on the Italian Riviera), assures me that ricotta is a legitimate addition, although he would probably say I use too much. (I live on Planet Cheese, after all.) Try my way and let me know what you think.

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In Milk: Sheep, From: Italy Tags ricotta, ricotta ice cream, fresh ricotta, Fred Plotkin, pesto, frittata, flan, ricotta mousse, My Calabria, Ligurian cooking
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     Photographs: Douglas Fletcher, Ed Anderson, Megan Clouse, Faith Echtermeyer, Eva Kolenko,
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