my Lithuanian friends always claimed that Cepelinai are made with cottage cheese as we know it in the area, not really similar to ricotta - and cottage cheese is one of curd products.
Cottage Cheese and Ricotta are extremely easy to make at home - my mum used to make it when I was a young child... cottage cheese has a bit of extra cream added to it, and it has larger curds. Ricotta is finer and dryer because most of the moisture has been taken out - I guess it depends on how fine and runny you would like the mixture to be. I'd imagine cottage cheese would be more 'melty' and ricotta would give you a low fat alternative...
You don't need any special milk to make it, either. Just ordinary stuff...it should be 'whole' milk though, not 'skim'.
Here's an explanation (in German) of the stuff you can buy and how it relates to milk, cream, curd and cheese: