Molasses-Oat Bread / Using up the ricotta

The bread two weeks ago was molasses-oat. It rose beautifully on the first rising, but the loaves barely rose, so the bread is extremely dense. I haven't tasted it, because I'm not eating flour again, but Nathan likes it.

Remember I had leftover ricotta to use? I did two cool things with it. I made ravioli for the first time!!! Alas, the camera was in the car and I didn't realize this until I was covered in dough. I used the wrong flour again and the dough wouldn't roll thinly. The raviolis weren't that great tasting because of a poor dough/ricotta ratio, but I was still impressed with myself. I'll make it again one day, maybe with meat filling.

With the rest, I made bread. I needed to make bread anyway, so I searched for a bread recipe that used ricotta. I found this one that had good recommendations. I made a few alterations. I tripled the recipe to use the amount of ricotta I had. I used whole wheat flour, honey, water, and oil, instead of white flour, sugar, milk, and butter. I also added extra honey at a reviewer's suggestion and onion powder, because the ricotta had seasonings mixed in, so it seemed logical to make it more of an herb bread.

The loaves turned out absolutely beautiful and soft. Nathan says the bread tastes fine. If only I could help taste it...

On that note, I had a moment of weakness today. I was hungry (I made myself lunch and then gave it to Nathan, who is sick) and I just wanted to dig in the fridge for some chocolate. I went downstairs to grab a jar of fruit and realized I could smell ripe pears, which shouldn't have happened already. I found several rotten pears (they had bad spots when we picked them) and several pears that ripened early. They were just the tasty ticket to eliminate my feeling of deprivation.