Ricotta Pie the Hard Way

How many times, I wonder, does a senior moment change history?

I decided recently to bake a ricotta pie, ordinarily an Easter tradition, for my visiting husband and myself.  It's an easy recipe, and I had 15 ounce containers of ricotta in the freezer.  My recipe, on a stained note card going back to 1971,

was originally taken from the Providence Journal, my home town paper.  The recipe called for two pies, so I took one 15 ounce container of ricotta out of the freezer (the recipe dating back to the days when said cheese actually came in one pound containers), planning on halving the recipe.

Except that after I dumped the first ingredient, the ricotta, into the bowl, I promptly forgot to halve the rest of the ingredients.

I considered trying to scoop out excess stuff, but where I could probably get most of four eggs out, I had no idea how I could remove 1/4 pint of heavy cream.

So the only other option was to increase the cheese.  I walked over to my unnecessarily massive freezer,

opened the door, and gazed up at the frozen containers of ricotta.  Took out a container, felt it to be certain it was indeed solidly frozen, and sadly put it back in the freezer and closed the door.

In my younger days I might have panicked, but in my older, wiser years I thought, okay, the worst thing that can happen is that I have to throw the whole thing out.  And then improvised.

You all know that to me keeping supplies in excess is merely a matter of security; I always keep two three-pound boxes of Costco cream cheese on hand.  Cream cheese is, indeed, a staple, and those tiny eight ounce packages don't go far, and are way overpriced.

So I cut off eight ounces and beat it into the mix.  Then it occurred to me that I still needed 1/2 pound.  But I didn't want to overwhelm the taste of the ricotta.  I did have an unopened container of cottage cheese for post-holiday diet days, but I have not yet substituted cottage cheese for fattening, i.e. real, cheese, and was certainly not going to open up a new container and start now.

Hmm, I did have a container of sour cream with a bit left...and sour cream is about as yummy as cream cheese, even though it's not a cheese...hmm....

Well, as it turns out I had just enough sour cream, and repeated to myself that the worst thing that could happen was that I'd end up throwing it out.

In fact, it tasted amazingly good.  The texture was even ricotta cheese pie-like.  I made one pie and froze half of the custard.  Who knows how it will freeze, but what's the worst that could happen?