Category: Food

Off Season

Sadie2 Comments

This past December I posted several of my favority Christmas cookie recipes, but I did not actually document every cookie I made. Each year I try to make a mix of traditional family favorites, and new recipes we are less familiar with. One of those new recipes this year came from a good friend of mine.  My friend Elizabeth over at Food-Ramblings brought some of her ricotta cookies over to my house one night to snack on while we watched TV.  After giving them a try, I knew I had a new cookie recipe to try. When Christmas rolled around, my family definitely concurred.  At one point my brother and his girlfriend were rationing the ricotta cookies in the little box of cookies I gave them to bring home.

The great thing about these cookies is that they are a good neutral.  They have a light, fresh taste with a small dollup of easy frosting: perfect!  Last week I was asked to make a few cookies for a “coffee break” event at my school and I thought these would be a perfect addition to the cookie tray.  Since they are more plain in flavor, they work really well as a compliment to coffee and tea, but they are also tasty enough to stand on their own. Needless to say, these were a big hit at the coffee break! It’s proof that they work twelve months a year!cookie tray

Ricotta Cookies

Yeilds about 80 cookies depending on size (halve the recipe for a more managable amount), from Food Ramblings

Ingredients

Cookies

  • 1 cup butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese (basically a whole small container)
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder

Frosting

  • 2 Tbs butter, melted
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 Tbs milk (I actually used almond milk and it worked great)
  • 1 Tbs vanilla
  • food coloring (I have made these in pink and green)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 375.
  2. Use an electric mixer to cream together the butter, ricotta, and sugar.  Once that mixture is uniform, light, and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time.  Then add the vanilla.
  3. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder.  Slowly add the flour and baking powder mixture to the wet mixture.  Mix until combined but try no to over mix.
  4. Portion the cookie dough out with a small ice cream scoop or teaspoon.  These cookies are (in my experience) made pretty small, and they do puff up a little when they bake.  Place the small balls of cookie dough on a parchement lined cookie sheet and bake about 12 minutes until they are just looking set and ever so slightly golden brown.right out of the oven
  5. While the cookies are cooling, whip together the frosting ingredients.  Make sure the cookies are completely cool before you frost them. Otherwise, they frosting will just slide right off.delicious

 

Do you have any Christmas cookies that you like to make year round?

Cookie Tray

Sadie5 Comments

So I volunteered to make some cookie trays for a “coffee talk” at school. After some self inflicted hemming and hawing on my part, I put together a list of five different cookies to include on the trays. I thought since it’s for a coffee and tea break, I should include simple cookies that pair well with a hot beverage.  The event was late morning so it needed to be things that weren’t too sugary, but past the breakfast pastry stage.  This immediately brings me to shortbread or similarly dry cookies like biscotti.  I’ve already made the standard shortbread several times for things at school so I thought I would add some variation.

With those considerations in mind, I decided to make Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies, Ricotta Cookies, and Double Chocolate Walnut biscotti (to add some chocolate to the mix).  Then since it was near purim, I felt compelled to make Hamentashen.  And to roundout the tray I added some small brownie squares.

Voila!cookies!yum

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be posting the recipes for the Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies, Ricotta Cookies, and Double Chocolate Walnut Biscotti.  Get Excited!

Stuffed Cabbage

CarrieLeave a comment

I have always had a love for golumpki. This is the polish word for stuffed cabbage. It just doesn’t get much better than this. Who doesn’t love a polish style meatball swaddled in tender leaves of cabbage. On a day like this, a pot of golumpkis are the perfect comfort meal served along with a side of mashed potatoes.

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This recipe for Stuffed Cabbage is adapted from Ina Garten.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 large sweet onion chopped
2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes and their juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup raisins
salt and pepper to taste
1 large head green cabbage, including outer leaves
For the filling:
2 1/2 pounds ground beef
3 large eggs
1/2 of a large sweet onion chopped
1/2 cup panko
1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper

Directions
For the sauce, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onions and cook until the onions are tender. Then, add the tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, raisins, salt, and pepper. Bring this to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Remove the core of the cabbage with a paring knife. Place the head of cabbage in the boiling water for a few minutes. As the cabbage cooks, peel off each leaf with tongs as soon as it seems flexible. Set at least 12 leaves aside.

For the filling, in a large bowl, combine the ground chuck, eggs, onion, panko, rice, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add 1 cup of the sauce to the meat mixture and mix lightly with a fork.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To assemble, place 1 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a large Dutch oven. Remove the hard triangular rib from the base of each cabbage leaf with a small paring knife. Place 1/3 cup of filling in an oval shape near the rib edge of each leaf and roll up toward the outer edge, tucking the sides in as you roll.
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Place some of the cabbage rolls in the bottom of the pot in a snuggly fashion. Then, add more sauce and more cabbage rolls alternately until you ve placed all the cabbage rolls in the pot. Pour the remaining sauce over the cabbage rolls. If you have extra meat mixture and not enough cabbage leaves, simply hand form meatballs and place them on top of the cabbage rolls. They will cook just the same and taste just as delicious. Cover the dish tightly with the lid and bake for at least an hour and a half or until the meat is cooked and the rice is tender. Enjoy!