Baked Lime Ricotta with Blackberries

Specialty cheese shops commonly sell an amazing sweet Lemon Ricotta I’ve riffed on with this Baked Lime Ricotta with Blackberries. The original Lemon Ricotta is fun to put on a cheese board, especially a dessert cheese board, because it’s such a great bridge between traditional dessert and cheese for dessert. If it’s easy to buy in cheese shops, and it’s oh-so-wonderful, then why did I need to make it you ask? Fair point. But I never said it was easy to find, and even in a big city with good cheese shops, every now and then I can’t find it, which makes me really sad, especially if I traipsed all the way down to the Italian Market. I didn’t set out to write this recipe at all because I figured it would be easy to find an official recipe on the subject. When things are mass-produced, usually there’s a sort of consensus on how to make them, but as I searched it became apparent that there weren’t really recipes for the lemon ricotta. The recipes I saw were basically just variations on cheesecake, and that’s really not what this is (you’ll note I’m definitely not calling it a cake). The … Continue reading

PESTO!

Just in case you have basil coming out of your ears or your farm share and you don’t already have a pesto recipe… Here’s how I make PESTO!. I haven’t actually measured out my pesto ingredients in years, so when I made it this week, it was a fun exercise to measure, record, and compare to the recipe my mom gave me years ago, when I left for college. Another fun part of digging out my recipe was discovering that my Aunt Elly taught my mother to make pesto via a note written on the card. A food processor or blender makes this a dream. But making PESTO! can be done via mortar and pestle as well. In fact, that’s how it got its name. 2 cups fresh basil leaves (gently packed if you’re serious about measuring, or two big handfuls) ¼ cup pine nuts ½ cup fresh parmigiano reggiano cut into small pieces (or grated if you’re making it by hand) 2-4 cloves of garlic ½ cup olive oil 1 + teaspoons sea salt extra parm and pine nuts for garnish 1 pound spaghetti Put a big pot of salted water on the stove to boil. Wash and dry the … Continue reading