Beecher's Flagship and Ricotta Grilled cheese

My sister is quite the inspirational chef. I came home from my best friend sleepover and she mentioned she had made a grilled cheese sandwich. Naturally, I wanted in on the action too! 

Ricotta Ice Cream

One day, Mai & Paul visisted Di Palo's and found out that you can buy three pounds of ricotta for $12. Not the gross, tasteless kind of ricotta at Gristede's, but REAL ricotta.

Naturally, we decided to host a Ricotta Fest dinner party. By the time we got our schedules organized, it was already June. June means ICE CREAM! Okay, that's a lie. Every month means ICE CREAM, but now that it is just starting to be summer in NYC, we needed reason to celebrate.

In addition to the ice cream, we made several other dishes. Mai and Paul made meatballs with ricotta, ravioli,  crostini, and chicken marsala. Gretchen made pasta with carbonara and a delicious ricotta cheesecake with a strawberry rhubarb topping.

At Di Palo's, we picked up three of these canisters.

Back at home, we opened up our canisters. As you can see below, the ricotta was in a metal-ish canister. We tried to think of eco-friendly uses for them. I suggested that they would be great for milkshakes. Until I realized that there were holes at the bottom and along the sides. 

I also picked up some prosciuotto for us to nibble on while we were prepping.

Mai & Paul had picked up some artisinal honey at a farmer's market. We decided to whip out some cheese & crackers and top with honey. The cheese (pictured below) looks like blue cheese, but it isn't. We don't know the name of this mystery cheese, but you can find it at Fairways. This was quite possibly the best snack idea ever! I've never had honey in this form before, usually mine comes from a squeeze bottle. The honeycomb is on the bottom and you have to scrape the honey off the top. 

We devoured two boxes of crackers and the entire wedge of cheese. What? We got hungry cooking in the hot kitchen...

Mai made some homemade pasta to accompany her ricotta meatballs...

As if we did not purchase enough ricotta cheese, we purchased a pound of parmesan cheese as well. Most of it is in the photo below.

{The finished meatball product}

{Mai prepping the ricotta ravioli} 

{Delicious crostini}

{Chicken Marsala}

{Bacon wrapped dates stuffed with ricotta}

{One of our guests, Nam, made a wonderful green papaya salad}

{Ricotta cheesecake!}

Both of the ricotta ice creams were easy to whip up (strawberry basil to follow this in another post). 

I've never made ice cream with a ricotta base, and this was the perfect time to experiment. I searched far and wide for a recipe and finally picked the one below.

Don't be afraid of this recipe - there is no custard base - so you don't have to worry about scrambled eggs instead of a perfectly fluffy, creamy ice cream. As in, this may be my all time favorite. Huge disclaimer: Apparently, this ice cream loses texture after an overnight freeze. You should probably finish the whole thing the night you make it (and that really shouldn't be that hard). I'm not sure why the texture goes from creamy to chalky, maybe because I didn't strain the ricotta.

Also note: as the weather gets hotter, don't try to churn ice cream in a sauna-ish temperature room. Your precious ice cream mixture will not freeze properly in the canister, and will be milkshake like afterwards. This is what happened to poor little strawberry basil. 

Basically all I did was blend all the ingredients together in Mai & Paul's vitamix!

Below is the only photo I got of the ice cream.  I was so busy eating and mingling!

Ricotta Ice Cream, recipe adapted from food52

Makes 1 Quart

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cup quality ricotta 
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Pistachios (optional)

Blend everything until the salt in a blender until smooth. Then add the heavy cream and blend until just combined. 

Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker - I let mine run for about 40 minutes. I also tried really, really hard not to lick the bowl. During the last 5 minutes of the churning process, you can add your mix in's if you desire (i.e.pistachios, etc). 

Transfer your ice cream to an air tight container and let it harden ("bloom" ?) in the freezer for a few hours. I made mine in the afternoon - around 3pm - and served it around 8:30pm - and it was perfection! You could grill up some peaches, drizzle them with honey, and serve with the ice cream as well. Peaches aren't quite in season yet, or else I would have done that as well. 

Perfect Grilled Cheese

Happy March! Does this mean it is spring yet?

Recently, I went to a cool lecture on the history of sandwiches, put on by the Masters of Social Gastronomy.  The presenters, Sarah Lohman of Four Pound Flour, and Jonathan Soma delved into how the sandwich came to be, what creates the subway smell, and, most importantly, the best way to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Rainy Day Pizza

Ew, apparently it is monsoon season in New York.  The rain started last night about 1am, and has been going strong since.  Normally I'd roll out of bed and log onto seamlessweb, but lately I've been disappointed by the quality of everything on there. We all know how much I love pepperoni pizza.  I just didn't feel like waiting 40 minutes for my pizza to show up. So, I did the unthinkable.  I rolled off the couch and went to the grocery store downstairs to get the at home pizza essentials: pita bread, cheese, pizza sauce and pepperoni.

Another perk: I was probably consuming 1,000 less calories than I would have if I ordered in!

Pepperoni Pizza, a Hom Nom original!

Ingredients

• The fluffiest pita style bread you can find at your grocery store
• Mozzarella cheese (try to get the kind that is in a ball - not the pre-shredded it stuff)
• Pepperoni (I picked Boar's Head - I'm sure any kind is fine)
• Pizza Sauce 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  

On a pizza tray, place the pita bread and spread some pizza sauce on it. Slice your mozzarella into 3-4 pieces.  Top the pizza with the cheese and pepperoni.  

Bake for 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the pepperoni smells good.  

Devour while watching The Parent Trap on ABC family! 

Truffled Mac and Cheese

It's been a long winter filled with fondue, fondue, and even more fondue.  I wanted some change.  I also love melted cheese.  I said some change not drastic change.  So macaroni and cheese it was! Lucky for me, my friends like melted cheese as much as I do!

Over the holidays, a friend made truffled mac and cheese for a holiday party.  This sounded amazing and so I set off to find the best truffled mac and cheese recipe.  I ended up mixing two different recipes (one that my friend used, and the other that I found online).  The result was perfectly crusted, impeccably cheesey and truffley.  I know the latter is not a word but I'm making it one.

Sparkling Wine and Cheese Party

I like Lavina's new job.  She sends me all kind of food articles and recipes that she thinks I will enjoy.  She also sent me the idea for a sparkling wine and cheese themed party.  I knew we had to have this party to kick of 2011! 

We each brought a few cheeses from the specified countries - Italy, France, Spain and good old US of A.  And of course, some bubbles to accompany the cheeses.  Of course.  

All in all a fun night of giggling, girl talk and dairy-induced food comas.  

Even More Fondue!

More fondue! To ring in the new year (now that we are all back in NYC), Becca, Alyx and Nicholas came over for dinner.  Alyx made two fantastic loaves of bread (I believe it was a recipe from Jim Lahey) for us to eat with our fondue.

I made a three cheese fondue...and this time the special ingredient was a tomato onion chutney.  In addition to Alyx's crusty and just slightly salty bread, we also dipped tortellini! So YUM!

Apple-Scented Fondue

I'm telling you.  Fondue is the ice cream of winter.  I think I've made it like 4 times in the past month alone.  I was watching Rachel Ray randomly while waiting for Alton Brown to start and she made this yum looking fondue (well...let's be honest...ALL fondue looks yum).  Asmi was coming over for dinner for some fondue so I figured this would be the best time to try it out!

Dumac and Cheese

Over Thanksgiving break, I made my sister a Gossip Girl gift bag that I put together myself.  It included a head band from Bendel's (channeling Blair), white truffle oil (channeling Serena), macarons (and Blair again) and...The New Brooklyn Cookbook (channeling the Humphrey clan + Vanessa).  And apparently since then, this cook book is the cook book to have.  See here and here.

Lo and behold from all the Thanksgiving cooking, baking, cookie party and ice cream making, we had a lot of heavy cream and whole milk left over.  So of course mac and cheese was a logical recipe to make with all our left over ingredients.

Brie and Wild Mushroom Fondue

Fondue night with Kim! Since Fondue will be an on-going winter delicacy, I needed to find another recipe that was more, um, sparkly, than your basic emmental and gruyere.  Yes, I have now decided that I am going to describe food as sparkly when it makes me feel the same way a pair of glittery pink high heels would.

Porcini Fondue

Well it was that time of year again.  Time to put the ice cream maker into a deep freeze (ha - but not for long!) and pull out my fondue pot! So I hosted the first annual fondue pot winter inauguration for the Winter 2010 - 2011 season.  Since this was kind of like opening night for my fondue pot, I neede a scene stealer!  Something fancier than traditional gruyere.  Well I love gruyere, but I think my normal fondue recipe needed something extra.  Like MUSHROOMS!

Toasted Truffled Cheese Baguette

Last night, I went out for a few drinks with some of my wonderful former colleagues (so much fun!).  Marisa and I also got our Christmas tree, so between both things I didn't really have time to eat dinner.  After a few vodka sodas at the Copper Door and a warm, holiday cheer-inspiring spiked cider at Bua, I wanted to eat a midnight snack and watch some DVR'ed tv before going to bed.  Usually when I come home in this fashion, I make a pita pizza, taking whole wheat pita bread, topping it with mozzarella and maybe some pepperoni. 

But I had a BETTER idea! Earlier in the week, I had picked up some truffley cheese.  I also had some proscuitto lying around and I had some left over black truffle oil from when Kim came over for fondue (to be posted shortly).  My normal MO is to eat cheese and crackers as my dinner while watching Good Eats or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (don't judge me).  However, tonight, I decided to make a truffled grilled cheese sandwich.  Well, some version of it. 

Toasted Truffled Cheese Baguette serves 1

Ingredients

• Baguette of choice
• A few teaspoons of black truffle oil* (I freehanded this to lightly coat the bread)
• A few slices of Pecorino Tartufello or something similar - you want it to be soft/semi-soft and meltable

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with a small section of aluminum foil. 

Slice the baguette in half (like a hot dog bun).  Using a pastry brush, brush the truffle oil onto both slices of bread.  Line the bread with your cheese slices.

Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes or until you get your desired melti-ness of cheese and the bread is just slightly toasted (ha, no pun intended). 

Ending Notes:  This was probably the most ingenius midnight snack I have EVER made.  Of course you all know how amaz-o truffles are.  And in cheese? Even better! Melted pecornio tartufello + toasted bread = ultimate "grilled" cheese.  I also ate a few slices of proscuitto and then proceeded to watch Millionaire Matchmaker until I scarfed down every last bit of of my gourmet sandwich.

Deep Dish Pissha (Pizza)

I was flipping through Marisa’s old cooking light magazines one evening while watching Monsters Inside of Me and The Cooking Channel and I was really craving pizza. Lo and behold – a deep dish pepperoni pizza recipe appeared before me!

When I was attending training for my old job, we were based in Chicago for 2 weeks. Here my main goal was to eat as many deep dish pizzas as I could possibly fit in my stomach. One day I got so excited about the thought of eating my first authentic Chicago style deep dish pizza, I referred to it as “deep dish pissha”.

On that note, with the glossy magazine photos of melted cheese in a golden crust in front of me, I had two options: 1) go to south street seaport and have one at Uno’s or 2) save the recipe to make when I went home for a week. I decided it would be well worth the wait to have some home-made pizza, so I opted for #2.

Cheese Fondue

My two favorite things in my kitchen are my heart-shaped fondue pot and of course my ice cream maker. So what do you get when you combine them together? FONDUE ICE CREAM! Ew, just kidding. Wait. That could be good?


I've tried various fondue recipes. Champagne Fondue. Chipotle Cheese Fondue.

This one is good tried and true recipe:


Adapted from here
1 garlic clove, halved crosswise
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon cornstarch + extra
1/3 pound Emmental Comte cheese, coarsely grated (a little less than 2 cups)
1/3 pound Gruyère, coarsely grated (a little less than 2 cups)


Because I’ve made some variation of the recipe before and always end up with wayyyy to much cheese stuck to the bottom of the fondue pot, I actually reduced the amount of cheese to about 1/3 pound instead of the original ½ pound from the recipe. This adjustment fed four of my girlfriends and me (so 4 + 2. Haha).


The recipe also called for Emmental cheese as you can see I crossed out above. I used that last time I made this, and the result was a solid, traditional fondue. When I substituted the Comte, the result was DELECTABLE. My friends raved about the flavor. So try it both ways and see which one you like best. But don’t forget to invite me to be a taste tester!

As my cheese was melting, I noticed it still wasn’t thick enough with just the 1 tablespoon of corn starch. So I threw in maybe 2-3 more tablespoons.


As for the white wine, I didn’t use anything special. Just some kind of chardonnay from Trader Joe’s, for probably $6 or less.

The spread:

Mac n Cheese

Lavina sent me an article today about the best Mac N Cheese in New York. Naturally this set off a food craving. I considered going to s'mac...but then thought, "maybe I can make it 'healthier' if I do it at home!" since I have been eating like crap all week.

Then I scoured recipes in my last hour at the office...trying to find something creamy and cheesey and ooey and gooey. My weakness...well ONE of my weaknesses is ooey gooey stringy yummy cheese. Like pizza...or mac n cheese! Some days I crave chicken parm sandwiches from toasties. Other days I crave chipotle carnitas tacos. Today was a mac n cheese day.

I finally settled on a recipe that seemed easy enough. It also seemed as though I could avoid the mishap that occurred last time I made mac n cheese (um...let's just say the smoke alarm went off...). Ta-Da!

When I am first trying recipes out, I follow them to the T. Woo whole-wheat elbow macaroni!

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Breadcrumbs with sage...I recently discovered that sage "fried" in melted butter is amazing. A.MAH.ZING. (especially with scallops, but that is a story for another day)

I almost feel as I was on Giada at Home and I had neutral painted nails with the California sun shining in the background (mas-car-pon-aye). God.Bless.Mascarpone. Creamy mascarpone. So versatile too. I can make a savory pasta sauce...or a sweet dessert (mascarpone with berries!). Yeah yeah, it's not the 'healthiest' thing out there, I'm sure it causes cancer, blah blah blah...but it is.so.decadent.

See that whole foods parmesan cheese in the back? First of all, it smelled AMAZING. And so fresh. YUM YUM YUM. I might eat the rest of it straight out of the container. When I was little, my mom used to make Halibut with that cheese and my sister would steal some and munch away. Now, our puppy steals cheese that falls on the floor. How time flies.

Mascarpone + Fresh Parmesan = Heaven. HEAVEN. My heart is racing. (or maybe my arteries are clogged. I'm not sure)

Ooey gooey hommity nommity. If this doesn't inspire you to make mac n cheese tonight then, well, you are dead to me. DEAD.

This was the best mac n cheese recipe I've tried so far. It was just the right amount of salty, and the cheese was very creamy. Mascarpone saved the day. Definitely keeping this one around. Maybe one day I'll throw bacon or proscuitto into it!