Just don't try Velveeta
UNLESS you're going to mix it with salsa, and put everything in a crockpot, and eat it as a dip with chips.
The beauty of this topic with people who have a refined palate is they can appreciate the purpose of a specific ingredient within a given dish.
Ricotta is most often miscast. I've had it in salads, dips, appetizers and even dessert pie ffs. Awful. On its own, it brings nothing to the table in the way of flavor and is completely bland. You would no sooner eat it by itself than you would eat a tablespoon of starch or flour.
In this particular dish however, it's the perfect compliment to the mozzarella and parmesan. It absorbs the flavors of the garlic and basil and once baked is the "glue" of the stringy, ooey-gooey, cheesy, wonderful deliciousness and I cannot imagine making this particular dish without it.
The beauty of this topic with people who have a refined palate is they can appreciate the purpose of a specific ingredient within a given dish. Ricotta is most often miscast. I've had it in salads, dips, appetizers and even dessert pie ffs. Awful. On its own, it brings nothing to the table in the way of flavor and is completely bland. You would no sooner eat it by itself than you would eat a tablespoon of starch or flour. In this particular dish however, it's the perfect compliment to the mozzarella and parmesan. It absorbs the flavors of the garlic and basil and once baked is the "glue" of the stringy, ooey-gooey, cheesy, wonderful deliciousness and I cannot imagine making this particular dish without it.
Well of course you can make anything with anything, but at some point it becomes something different. If you make a cannoli without ricotta, it’s definitely not a cannoli.
But different strokes for different folks, and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo.
MTA: to be clear, someone makes food for me, I eat it happily, no matter what it is or what’s in it.
Dave
My mom also used to make lasagna with cottage cheese. I use ricotta because that's what Mr O prefers. I like it both ways. With a little meat or meatless.
In Italy, I was shocked that their lasagna doesn't have tomatoes or tomato sauce, or anything red. I did not like Italian lasagna. Tried it three times in different restaurants, always the same.
When I was in France in high school, our group of exchange students was told we were getting pizza for dinner on our first night. Each individual pizza consisted of crust and a thin layer of tomato sauce with an anchovy on top. No cheese, no sausage or pepperoni. We all looked at the person in charge and said, "No, that's not pizza."