Iced Ricotta Cookies

My mouth waters just thinking about these cookies - the recipe is from an old Family Circle magazine.  I have tweaked it a bit, and only bake a half recipe, which is still a generous amount.
I like to make them for teas, since they are not super sweet and look colorful, and also for Hanukkah, with a dusting of goofy blue sprinkles.  This makes about 3 dozen.  Note the recipe suggests refrigerating the dough for a few hours, so plan ahead.

Cookie Dough

¼ c (= half stick) butter, softened

5/8 c. sugar

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

1 c part-skim ricotta (7-8 oz) - this is ~half a 13 oz container

2 c. flour (as you know by now, I usually put in ~ ¼ whole wheat)
1 t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
½ t salt

Cookie Glaze
1 c. confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 to 1½ T orange juice or eggnog.  GO EASY ON THE LIQUID.  It's easier to add more than to work with runny icing.  I make this mistake most every time.

In large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed - I have always just used a  handmixer. Beat about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, vanilla and ricotta until well blended.

In a second medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients until well-blended.  Cover and refrigerate and hour or two for easier shaping.

To bake:  heat oven to 350.  Spray baking tins or mini-muffin trays.  If you use trays, shape level tablespoons of dough about 1" apart.  You could do a combination of both.

Bake about 10 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly browned.

In the meantime, prepare the icing.  Stir the confectioners sugar with the liquid until smooth, adding the liquid very sparingly and incorporating it before adding more.  Add just a drop at a time.  Really!

When the cookies are slightly cooled,  pick up each cookie/mini-scone and dip it in the icing, and then the sprinkles, orange zest, lavendar, or slivered almonds.

The icing hardens - what a treat, and so pretty, too!

Other ideas for color on the icing: lavender, or tiny orange zest peels from a microplane zester.

Weeknight Gnocchi w Brown Butter Sage

Gnocchi Waiting for Tomato Sauce and Grated Cheese!

This gnocchi (pronounced "no-kee") recipe's shortcut, using dehydrated potato flakes, is not for a purist.  But they are fun to make,  less work - and quite delicious.
Any kind of good tomato sauce would work. Or how about pesto. You need good parmesan cheese to grate over it, and parsley offsets the bland color of the gnocchi. Capers are an extra add-on, very tasty. The ridges in the gnocchi hold the sauce.

We conclude that smaller gnocchi are better!

Fill a 3 quart pot with water, cover, and if you have an induction cooktop, put it on a minute or two before you're ready to drop the gnocchi in. If it's a conventional stove, start the boiling before the dough. 

1 c. very hot water
1 c. potato flakes
1 c. flour

1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 egg
1 T oil
1/2 t salt 

fresh pepper

15 or so leaves sage

Butter
Red Sauce or Pesto
Grated Parmesan
Minced parsely if you have it
Capers (optional)

Lemon zest and juice (optional)

In a medium mixing bowl combine the very hot water (hottest tap water, or instant hot, or microwaved to near boil) with the potato flakes.  Dump in the flours and mix. Add the egg, oil, and salt  and mix until it's a smooth dough. This is easiest to do by hand. The dough doesn't need much attention, just squeeze/knead until the flour is all incorporated.

Divide into four.  On a large board, roll into four long coil about 1" wide and flatten.  Use a sharp knife and slice the coil into 1/2" pieces, wetting the knife if necessary. If you want to be more efficient, you can line them up and slice across all four coils at once. Keep these small, like the size of a small grape. (The gnocchi expand when cooking.) You could also cut them, and then pinch off half, making two. That nice small size is more effort but they're good.

Use a ridged gnocchi board.  I just bought one, and it's really fun  Will show you next time you're around.  It doesn't take any longer and they come out neater. Take a pinch of dough, press it into the grooved board, and coil it so it has a hollow center.

By now the water is likely boiling.

Dump the first gnoccho [I looked up the singular of gnocchi] into the boiling water.  They quickly float to the top, like matzah balls - fun to watch.  While they're cooking, repeat the process.  When the next 1/4 are ready, use a slotted spoon remove the floating gnocchi from the boiling water and set them in a bowl or plate which you can cover to keep them warm.  This makes enough for 2-3-4 people, depending on how much else you serve.

To make the sage brown butter gnocchi, use a cooling rack over a tray to let the gnocchi dry after removing.

In  a large frying pan, toss in torn sage and about 2 T butter. Fry the gnocchi and sage until browned, turning the gnocchi as needed.

Salt and fresh pepper it. 

Serve with some red sauce on the side. With a little parmesan, I don't think it needs sauce, but DAT always likes some.

The sage came from Zach and Becca's. Yum! Sender and Shula are here at Allens Lane and Circus Camp, along with Zach. Summer 2023.

Walnut Cheese Loaf with Mushroom Sauce

This recipe is from the Jewish Exponent (which, as you know, I dubbed The Backward, as opposed to The Forward.)  
This is kind of a meat loaf substitute - it has platter presence for a vegetarian meal, especially if you're accustomed to serving meat in a starring roll.  Served this when the Bank/Rosenzweigs joined us for a stratospherically wonderful Shabbat dinner.

Notes:  you need to cook the rice in advance.  Also, you need to grease the pan super well.  Spraying is not enough.  Add a layer of butter or margarine so it comes out more easily.
Also: make a double recipe and freeze half.  Or even make 1.5 times the recipe and make two nice sized loaves.  If you don't have a second loaf pan, just freeze in a ziplock.

Loaf
4 eggs, beaten
6 oz. Cheddar or other hard cheese, grated
1 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
1 c. cooked brown rice
1/2 c. oats 
8 oz chopped mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped fine  (you could also add chopped celery)
1 clove minced garlic
salt & pepper to taste

1 T butter or olive oil

Sauté mushrooms and onions in butter or olive oil until soft.

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.  Pack into well-oiled au gratin or loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes until set.  Let stand ~ 10 minutes..  Unmold onto serving platter.

Mushroom Sauce

(You could use any sauce or gravy, but this is the recipe.)

1/3 c. butter
8 oz sliced mushrooms
3 T flour
1 1/2 c. milk

1 t. Osem or Telma vegetarian bullion powder 
salt, cayenne pepper to taste

• In saucepan, melt butter over low temperature.
• Saute sliced mushrooms until soft.
• Stir in flour through a small sieve or strainer, and incorporate. Add salt, bullion, and cayenne and gradually add milk.
• Cook until thick, without boiling.  On the induction, #4 setting works well.

Pour about half the mushroom sauce on the loaf, and the rest on the side.

Banana Pineapple Chocolate Comfort Cake

Originally I found this recipe in the Rockland Journal News.  It's a heavy, forgiving cake, more like a quick bread.  The recipe is enough for a generous tube pan cake + a loaf pan or the mini-bundt pans I just purchased.  I sent this to you at Wesleyan, Nomzi - and I think you and your friends dubbed it as Comfort Cake, more or less. Since this is a parve cake, I often made it for Rosh Hashanah.
It's worth baking this cake just to smell the aroma!

Preheat oven to 325
2013 Note: this year the oven was broken.  I baked an 8" tube pan, half the recipe, for 48 minutes in the convection oven at 325

3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs [these are optional! I accidentally left them out and the cake is dense but flavorful]
1 c. oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. ripe diced bananas, mushed (about 4 medium)
8 oz. can crushed pineapple and juice
4 oz mini-chocolate chips (or regular size is OK, too)

• Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl or standing mixer.  
• Add undrained pineapple, oil, vanilla, eggs, mashed bananas, and chocolate chips. 
• Pour batter into a sprayed tube pan until it's about 2/3 full, and then the remainder into a loaf pan.
• Bake ~ one hour.
• Test with toothpick to see if cake is done.

Pasta Puttanesca

This has always been an Abba favorite, but I found the recipes for it somewhat intimidating, until I bought a huge bottle of capers at Costco.  This motivated me to try it, since those capers weren't going anywhere soon. I make it with a lot of shortcuts - pitted olives, bottled minced garlic, spaghetti sauce.  It's a spicy, tasty sauce.  Really pretty with grated Parmesan and fresh parsey.

1/2 lb pasta - penne, or your choice.
Boil water for the pasta, and start your sauce prep.

1 or 2 cans anchovies
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes or spaghetti sauce of your choice
1/2 c pitted olives, sliced
1 T. drained capers
1/4 t crushed red pepper
[you can also add chopped artichoke hearts - just in case it's not rich enough for you ...]
Chopped parsley for garnish

In large skillet, over medium heat, pour the oil from the anchovies.  Add the garlic and cook a minute or two until fragrant.
Stir in the tomatoes (or sauce), capers, olives, and pepper and bring to a simmer.  Add the anchovies and break them up with the spatula.  Cook a few minutes.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Serve over drained pasta.
Add grated Parmesan to taste.

Aunt Ruth's Super Easy Ice Box Cookies

Ice Box cookies do sound old-fashioned.  Essentially these were commercialized as slice-and-bake cookies, chilled vacuum-packed dough logs.  These are so simple it seems ridiculous to buy store-bought.  It's originally from Aunt Ceil, Grandpa Sam's oldest sister.  Ruth brought the recipe to Fargo and it became very popular.  Debi Osnowitz makes them with poppy seeds, via Maxine Liszt.  Ruth's are crispy and incredibly simple and good - quite addictive.  I like the poppyseed-less version better.

When I tasted Aunt Ruth's I asked what happened to the poppyseeds, since I remembered that different version. "Betsy, I live in a retirement community. You can't bake with poppyseeds, everyone has diverticulitis!" In other words, what kind of idiot are you?
When Ruth took the tin out of the freezer, I enjoyed a wave of nostalgia - the tin was the same design Mom used for all her wonderful baked goods - though not these cookies.  It was from fruit cake.  Ruth reminisced that Mom had brought over a prune bread, her signature recipe, when Ruth moved to Fargo as a new bride in 1952. (Ruth claims responsibility for my existence, but that's another story.)

Double Recipe

2 c. confectioners sugar
1 lb butter
4 c. flour (sure, put in some ww...)

2/3 c. poppyseeds (optional)

Single Recipe
1 c. confectioners sugar
1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)
2 c. flour

1/3 c. poppyseeds (optional)

Mix the ingredients by hand, like you're working clay, and roll out in three long salami logs.  These cookies don't spread a lot, so I think Ruth's are around 3" thick.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Heat oven to 375.
Slice and place on cookie tins - no need to oil them, there's so much butter in these.
Let them cool - they will crisp and harden.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until they are beautifully browned like the ones above.  Mine didn't brown around the edges - doing some research on that!

French Toast a la Nomi

How could we not have a Challah French Toast recipe? If you can call it a recipe.
The pictured version is two eggs.

~ four slices of challah
2 eggs
~ 2 T milk
a few shakes of cinnamon/sugar or add them separately
a little vanilla
butter for the pan

The trick of French Toast is finding a bowl that is shallow with a flatter bottom for soaking the slices.

Beat the eggs.  Add a little milk + the seasonings.  Put your first slice flat, and when it's soaks up the liquid, turn it over.  Then slide it up the side of the bowl and repeat.

In the meantime, melt the butter over a large non-stick skillet, on medium flame.  Butter burns if it's too high, so keep an eye.

Soak your additional slices. Slide them into the hot pan.  First side will take 3-4 minutes, second side just 1 or 2.  Serve with
cottage cheese
yogurt
jam
syrup

Yummmmmm!