Peach Ricotta Tart

Remember awhile back when I wrote a post about homemade ricotta, and at the end I showed a blurry phone picture of a peach ricotta tart? Well this is that tart. I have made it quite a few times now, and it’s wonderful; especially right now since we are in the prime of peach season.

First of all, you should make homemade ricotta (from this post) but if not, try to buy fresh ricotta, or the best quality you can find. Since this is one of the main ingredients you want it to be good.

Ingredients:

Crust:

8 Tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar

¼ tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups flour

Pinch of salt

Filling:

16 oz (2 cups) fresh ricotta cheese

1 large egg

¼ cup honey

3-4 peaches, blanched, peeled, and sliced

Warmed honey for brushing

Method:

Heat oven to 375. Using a fork, mix melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add flour and mix until combined. It will look like this.

Dump the contents into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom (see note about this at the end). Using your fingertips, press dough evenly onto the sides, and then the bottom of the pan. Use a flat bottom measuring cup to help form a smooth even crust (pressing evenly).

Bake crust until golden, about 14 minutes. Crust will puff slightly while baking. While the crust is baking, prepare the peaches. Score the bottom of each with an X, drop into boiling water for 45 seconds (or so) and then with a slotted spoon transfer them to ice water. This will make the skins practically slip off. Peel, and slice the peaches.

Remove from oven and let cool while you prepare the filling. Maintain oven temperature.

For the filling: Whisk together the ricotta cheese, egg, and ¼ cup of honey.  Pour into cooled tart shell (it can still be warm, just not straight out of the oven).  Arrange peaches on top of the ricotta.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the ricotta filling has puffed up slightly. Warm about 3 Tbs of honey until it is runny, and when the tart comes out brush the tops of the peaches. Let tart cool before serving to allow the ricotta to set. Serve with a drizzle of honey.

A few notes:

A removable bottom tart pan is essential for a tart like this. This crust is cookie like, and kind of crumbly (and delicious). So if you don’t have a removable bottom tart pan it will be virtually impossible to get the tart out in one piece. The alternative (as you can see I used since my tart pan is at the restaurant) is to use a 9-inch spring form pan. Just make sure to evenly distribute the crust up the sides of the spring form pan (since it’s quite a bit taller than the tart pan).

In slightly unrelated news, my wonderful boyfriend got me this beauty for my birthday.

Coming soon- things made with this

AND in other good news, this weekend Cat is coming to visit me….which means we will finally be able to cook and do a post together! We have some pretty amazing things planned…you should get excited.

-Sue

Homemade Graham Crackers

So I’m just going to throw it out there. I’m not a super huge fan of graham crackers. However, this may have just changed that. I made these because I wanted a homemade graham cracker as a component of a deconstructed key lime pie that I’m making as a dessert special for my restaurant this week. I did a little research and found a recipe on smitten kitchen (one of my favorite blogs, if you haven’t already, you should read it). The end result of these graham crackers was delightful; they have a distinct honey flavor, and a hint of molasses from the dark brown sugar. Let me just tell you, these would make the best smores EVER.

On to the recipe for homemade graham crackers, from Smitten Kitchen.

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups plus 2 tbs all purpose flour

1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp kosher salt

1/3 cup mild-flavored honey, such as clover (I used local Colorado honey)

5 tbs milk (full fat is recommended, but I used 1%)

2 tbs pure vanilla extract

Topping:

3 tbs sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method:

Dough: Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off until the mixture is the consistency of coarse meal.  I do not have a food processor big enough to accommodate the amount of ingredients, so I used a pastry blender (like the one in the picture below). I strongly urge you to use a pastry blender or a food processor; other alternatives just will not work as well.  Be sure to blend until they are well incorporated.

In a small bowl whisk together the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture and pulse of and off until the dough barely comes together (or mix with the pastry blender). It will be very soft and sticky. Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap and dust it lightly with flour, then turn the dough out onto it. Pat it into a rectangular shape. Wrap it, then chill it until firm, about 2 hours or so, or overnight.

Roll out the crackers:

Divide the dough in half and return on half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of flour onto the work surface and roll out the dough into a long rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. The dough is pretty sticky, so use plenty of flour. Use a knife or a pizza slicer to cut the dough into the desired shape. I made mine into small rectangles.

Place the crackers on a parchment lined baking sheet and sprinkle with the topping. Make sure to leave about a ½ inch of space in between each because they do spread slightly. Use the blunt end of a bamboo skewer (or whatever you have that is like that) to put little dots into them (like the store bought brand have).

Bake for 10 min, watch them carefully- my first batch burned, and I actually found that 7 mins was the perfect amount. It really all depends on shape and thickness…so the lesson is watch the first batch and learn from there.

These are pretty much equivalent in effort to making sugar cookies. You know, make dough, chill dough, roll out dough, reform scraps, roll out dough again, and repeat. Easy but somewhat time consuming. Believe me though, these little things are tasty and worth it!

- Sue

Honey Ancho Chili Corn Butter and Caveman Steak

A few weeks ago Nick and I were home in Indiana visiting my parents, and we bought the summer grilling issue of Bon Appétit. Holy crap, I want to make every single thing in there. I already love almost everything grilled, but this issue inspired me to want to cook everything outside. I mean let’s face it…everything really is better grilled.

Picture courtesy of Renae Gugan Smith*

On the way home from the airport, we picked up 2 porterhouse steaks and a bag of corn.  The two recipes we planned to tackle were the caveman steak and the ancho chili honey butter. Now, I will show you a picture of the amazingly HUGE porterhouse we consumed (one was enough to feed four people) and I will give you a link to how to cook it. Basically- you put the steak directly on the coals…that’s right.  Directly. On. The. Coals.  It is incredible, and since we first made it I don’t think Nick has grilled steak any other way (Porterhouse is amazing, though expensive, and we have found that bone-in NY strip works well also). I have an amazing roof top deck…but at night it has this horrible fluorescent lighting, so the pictures of the steak cooked really didn’t turn out well.

* Sidenote-  A couple weeks ago Sue and I were discussing steaks (because if you think we talk about food a lot in our regular lives, it is a drop in the bucket compared to how much we talk about food to each other) and we both, at the same time, say – CAVEMAN STEAKS IN BON APETIT!  We had both read the magazine, fallen in love with the idea of steak grilled on coals, and fixated on it.  I tell you, we are twins separated at birth.  Or- we both really love meat.   – Cat

Ok. Picture of steak and link to the method:

Tell me that's not a beautiful steak

Now let’s move onto the corn butter. I have always been a purist when it comes to corn. We have AMAZING sweet corn in the Midwest and I never felt the need to mess with that, a little butter and a little salt was all you ever needed. Well, this butter changed my life, especially in Colorado where the corn is not *quite* as good as Midwestern corn.

This is the original recipe from Bon Appétit:

1 stick unsalted butter, softened, and divided

1 tbs ancho chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tbs honey

½ tsp dried oregano (I recommend Mexican oregano)

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp granulated garlic or garlic powder

¼ tsp onion powder

8+ ears of corn

Method:

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small skillet over medium low heat. Add chili powder and cumin; stir 10 seconds. Transfer to a medium bowl; stir in honey and cool.

Add oregano, salt, granulated garlic, onion powder, and 6 tablespoons butter to the butter mixture. Mix until smooth. This can be made ahead. Cover, chill, bring to room temperature before serving.

We grilled the corn on the charcoal grill until it had a nice amount of charred spots on it. About 12 minutes.

As you well know, neither Cat nor I are very good at following recipes, so I had to mess with this one….just little bit though! After trying this butter for the first time, it was incredible but I thought it needed a little bit of a kick, so I added 1 tsp of chipotle powder.

* This charcoal grill photograph at the top of the post is by our dear friend Renae, she is super talented, you can check out her work here.

Try this; it will change your life. Happy grilling! - Sue