Lemon Ricotta Cookies [Recipes]

Season’s Greetings readers! I love this time of year – cookies at parties, cookies in the office, cookies from friends, coooooookieeees!!! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.  I want to spread the holiday cheer and share this recipe with you.  Moist, subtly sweet, and with just a hint of citrus – these Lemon Ricotta Cookies are a must bake!

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (1 cup) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups of sugar
• 15 oz of ricotta cheese
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 4 cups of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup of milk, or as needed

1. Cream 2 sticks of butter with sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add ricotta, lemon zest and 2 teaspoons of vanilla and beat well. Add eggs and mix well. Then beat in flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be very dense and somewhat dry looking. Don’t be scared. Cover dough and chill for at least 2 hours.  I left my dough in the refrigerator over night.  I can’t emphasize enough that you have to chill the dough before baking!

Don’t you love my gingerbread spatula?!

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees and line several cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Drop tablespoons of cookie dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake until pale golden on the bottom, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

3. Melt tablespoon of butter and whisk confectioners’ sugar with melted butter, lemon juice, remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla and enough milk to make a nice glaze.

4. Using a brush or rubber spatula – glaze your cookies. Make sure not to ruin your mom’s nice tablecloth.  Allow the cookies 20 minutes to set before serving.

Isn’t that easy?! It was!  You will love this recipe, I promise!  I loved these cookies so much, it literally hurts to wear pants now. Happy Holidays everyone!

Makes 60 cookies.  Recipe adapted from the New York Times.

Cranberry Cheesecake Bars [Recipes]

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend with lots of great food! I for one was lucky enough to see so many family and friends and eat so many (..too many) amazing meals. For the Thanksgiving meal, I made these Cranberry Cheesecake Bars for dessert. The cranberries added the holiday touch and they were bite size bars so perfect after a humongous meal.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 cups instant rolled oats
• 3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar (divided use)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
• 8 ounces block of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 -3 teaspoons of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with non-stick foil. (You will need the foil so please don’t forget to do this step. I did, and I lived to rue the day!)

2. Combine flour, rolled oats, 3/4 cup brown sugar, and butter with a pastry blender (or two forks) until crumbly.

3. Set aside 1-1/2 cups of mixture and set aside for later use. Press remaining mixture into bottom of the baking pan. Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

4. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice, until completely combined. Pour evenly over warm bottom layer crust that you just took out of the oven.

5. Scoop the cranberry sauce into a bowl and gently break up with a fork. Add 1 tablespoon brown sugar and cornstarch. Mix until combined.

6. Drop cranberry mixture over the cream cheese layer. Gently smooth with the back of a spoon to cover.

7. Sprinkle top with the  reserved crumb mixture.

Bake 45 minutes, until top is golden brown. Cool completely before cutting. Refrigerate before serving.

Crumbly warm goodness!

Go ahead, take a bite!

Gobble gobble!

Whoopie Pies [Recipes]

[Update: I added two new photos below so you can see what the cookies look like when you bake them.]

This Valentine’s Day make some whoopie . . . pies.

Happy Valentine’s Day Y’all!  In honor of this most chocolatey of holidays I thought I’d share this Whoopie Pie recipe.  It involves a cake-like cookie and a yummy frosted filling – both fun to make and eat! Before you start making whoopie, this is what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Cookie Part:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter at room tempature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 and a half teaspoons of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa poder
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 cups of all purpose flour

For the Filling

• 1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar
• 2 cups of Marshmallow Fluff
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

1. First preheat your oven to 375 degrees and lightly spray two cookie sheets.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter sugar, baking soda, and baking powder until light.  Then mix in the egg, vanilla, and cocoa.  Then add the milk and flour and beat until smooth.  It should look something like this.

2. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter on your cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

3. Bake in the center of the oven for 7-8 minutes. Set aside and let them cool.

4. To make the filling, combine the butter, sugar, marshmallow cream, and vanilla until smooth.

5. To make the whoopie pies, spread about 2 tablespoonfuls of the filling on the bottom of one cookie, and sandwich it with another cookie.

When making whoopie, it’s never a bad idea to give a little squeeze!

6. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

I hope you enjoyed watching me make whoopie pies!

Makes about 8 small pies, and 5 large pies.

Adapted from the Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope it’s filled with love and chocolate!

My Best Meal in 2010 [Special Eats]

I know the end of the year is a time for reflection on the passing year so I thought I’d do a post about the best meal I ate this year.  Well, it turned out to be harder than I thought it would be because I ate some delicious food this year! It was a tough choice but…..[::drumroll::]…the best meal I had this year was dinner at Suzuki’s Sushi Bar in Rockland, Maine!

Let me start by saying that I do not by any means consider myself a sushi expert, however, being a New Yorker I’ve had some amazing sushi in my life.  You name it Nobu, Yasuda, I’ve been there!  So when my ever loyal and fearless dining companion and I traveled up to Maine this Autumn, I expected to have some great seafood. What I didn’t expect was to have my mind blown by the amazing sushi. BAM!

We started our meal with some yummy steamed gyoza. I unfortunately did not get a picture of it, but it was delicious, on point, and basic.  I was satisfied but I was not overly impressed…..yet.  For the main meal, my loyal and fearless dining companion and I ordered the Special Omakase Assortment for two. It was described as the sushi chef’s selection of the best sushi and sashimi of the day.  We were satisfied with our choice and so we waited.  Then this came out …

I mean the picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful and mouth-watering.

Every time I look at this picture I just want to sing Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely. Isn’t she wonderful, Isn’t she precious….

The assortment came with some of the most simple, purely delicious sushi I’ve ever had! It included two Ama-gasu handrolls (pictured on the top left corner of the platter) – it was to die for: Ama ebi (Maine shrimp), asparagus, lemon wasabi mayo. So good, I want one right now.

There was also the beautiful Spanish Mackerel which we have a close up of above.  Tuna, Salmon, and Yellowtail, scallops, and other things I can’t remember the name of but it was oh so goooood. The meal was exactly how sushi should be. I didn’t really have a desire to use soy sauce or the wasabi because the freshness of the fish was perfect. The textures, the subtle flavoring of the sushi rice. Oy, I’m not exaggerating at all, the best sushi I’ve ever tasted in my entire life!  

To end our meal we had dessert which consisted of a homemade blackberry lemon sorbet topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. That too was so simple but divine.

So there you have it, my best meal of 2010. It’s so sad when I think about it.  Whenever I have sushi now, I enjoy it, I’m satisfied…but I’m really just thinking about Suzuki’s.

So what’s the best meal you’ve had this year?

Suzuki’s Sushi Bar, 419 Maine Street, Rockland, ME – (207) 596-7447

Happy Holidays! [Special Eats]

Happy Holidays! I know I’m the worst blogger ever! I haven’t updated in over two months! But sometime around November my immune system got up and quit this bitch! I’m going to spare you the details of my various ailments but I’ve been trying to catch up with life the last month and have utterly failed as a blogger in the process.

But no worries! I promise to update the blog with two delicious new recipes before the new year! (::fingers-crossed::).

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a joyous holiday season. I for one was very festive yesterday. As you can see, I made this chocolate-candy house! Yes, that entire house is edible! The roof is white chocolate with red food coloring. The outside paneling is dark chocolate. The house is decorated with vanilla frosting, M&Ms, Junior Mints, Twizzlers, and Spearmint Jelly Leaves.

Happy Holidays to you and yours! May the New Year be filled with family, good friends, and great FOOD!