Pretty pleased...with a cherry on top.

My fridge is empty! I haven't gone grocery shopping in a week, it's quite sad. After a cooking and baking marathon the week before I gave in to my laziness. I spent all of last week sitting on my couch with a stack of library books, a sink full of dirty dishes... and did nothing. My dinners mostly consisted of cheese and crackers or the odd sandwich. I'm slightly ashamed of my behaviour, but sometimes a girl just needs to read. But not to fear, I still have a few delightful recipes that I saved for a rainy day (and it's looking pretty cloudy out there).

This particular recipe comes courtesy of my brothers girlfriend Kristine. When she told me about a recipe for Black Forest Cookies that didn't quite turn out as expected, I was more then happy to help. After all I am never one to turn down a challenge, or a recipe that involves chocolate for that matter. She emailed me the recipe telling me that the main problem with the cookies was that they were dry. And no wonder! There was hardly any wet ingredients, just some softened butter and an egg. I made a few notes on different things I could add and saved the recipe to try out at a later date.

A couple days later I felt the baking itch hit me and knew I needed to make something or go crazy. Now, I like to find as many excuses to bake as humanly possible, and this particular week I had many. Not only did I have a recipe waiting patiently on the sidelines for me to tweak, but I also had some farewell parties to attend and friends to wish bon voyage to. And nothing says it quite like baking. So on a Thursday evening when I was supposed to be at the gym, I was at home surrounded by cherries and chocolate. My first action was to halve the recipe. I decided that making the full amount, which would leave me with 66 cookies, could be hazardous to my health (and waistband). Next I added a generous splash of vanilla and a few spoonfuls of the syrup from my maraschino cherries and it was all that the recipe needed. I ended up with soft, chewy bites of chocolately-cherry goodness, which I packed up in little boxes to give to my friends that were leaving.

Black Forest Cookies
adapted from Company's Coming Cookbook

• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 package instant chocolate pudding powder
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp syrup from maraschino cherries
  
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 66 maraschino cherries, drained and blotted dry
  
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp hard butter

Beat first amount of butter in bowl with pudding powder. Add egg, mix well.

Add flour in 2 additions, beating well after each. Roll into 1-inch balls then roll the balls in the sugar (I found the dough to be very sticky and had some trouble forming them into balls, so I scooped them up with my measuring spoon and dropped them into the sugar and molded them into the balls once they were coated.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Arrange balls about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Dent each with thumb. Bake for 5 minutes, press dents again, then return to oven for 10 more minutes until firm. Let stand on cookie sheets for 5 minutes before moving to wire racks to cool. Place one cherry in each dent.

Meanwhile, heat chocolate chips and butter in small heavy saucepan on low heat, stirring often until chocolate is almost melted. Remove from heat and stir until smooth. Spoon into piping bag with small writing tip, or a small re-sealable freezer bag with the corner snipped off. Drizzle small amount of chocolate in decorative pattern over each cookie. Let stand until set.

**Recipe note: the above recipe is for the full 66 cookies, when I halved it I still used the full package of pudding powder and the whole egg**

Cheesecake, a good place to start.

Okay, so it's been over a week since my first post and I've been meaning to get to post number two, but truthfully I've been very nervous. I wanted my first official recipe post to be perfect. Something delicious, described with wit and charm by yours truly. I have made many things over the past couple weeks, and have written, deleted, and re-written many possible posts about them. But the time for procrastination (and let me tell you I am the Queen of the Land of Procrastinators) is over my friends. So here I go. Try not to be too disappointed.

About a week and a half ago we had a birthday dinner for my Mom. Naturally it fell upon me to come up with a suitable menu for the occasion. I spent the week before mulling over cookbooks and recipes trying to find just the right thing. I bounced between many ideas, none of them seeming right enough. Then after an impromptu dinner date with my neighbor Liz, during which she served me the most simple and delicious salad, I decided that a salad like that would be making an appearance. Using that as my jumping off point for inspiration, I decided a simple dessert was in order as well. Initially I was going to make a big multiple-layer Chocolate Espresso cake, but after I decided on more simple flavours a Ricotta Cheesecake overruled it.

Cheesecake has to be one of my all time favourite desserts. But as nice as it is to have chocolate, caramel, berries and whip cream piled high on top (and believe me I do love such things), I much prefer mine plain. I like to savour the wonderful cheesecake-i-ness without the hindering of, what I deem unnecessary, toppings. Needless to say I have consumed many different types of cheesecake (good, bad and indifferent) in my 24-odd years, but this recipe is my favourite thus far.

This particular recipe I found in my Baking Illustrated Cookbook which is by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. It is currently one of my go-to books for baking, and has 5 cheesecake recipes in it alone, which doesn't even count the hundreds of other recipes for pies, cakes, cookies and other such bake-able delights. But I digress. The texture and flavour of this cake is quite different from a standard cheesecake made with cream cheese. It's lighter and smoother, using lemon zest as it's main flavour base, which to me is just perfect. So without any further ado, here is my first official recipe post:

Ricotta Cheesecake
(adapted from the Baking Illustrated Cookbook)

Amaretti Cookie Crust:

• 2 cups Amaretti Cookies processed into fine crumbs (I couldn't find amaretti cookies in my dismal excuse for a grocery store so had to substitute vanilla wafers)
• 5 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
• 1 TBSP butter melted for greasing the pan

Ricotta Filling:

• 2 pounds ricotta cheese, drained
• 4 large eggs, seperated
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light rum (I ended up using dark rum since all my light rum accidentally got consumed)
• 1 TBSP all-purpose flour
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt

Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees.

For the crust: In a small bowl combine cookie crumbs and melted butter. Toss with a fork until evenly moistened. Brush the bottom and sides of a springform pan with most of the remaining butter, making sure to leave enough to brush the sides again after crust is cooled. Empty crust into springform pan and press them evenly into the bottom. Bake until fragrant, about 10-13 minutes. Cool on a wire rack until room temperature. Brush sides of pan with remaining butter.

For the filling: Place drained ricotta in a food processor and blend until very smooth. Add the egg yolks, sugar, rum, flour, lemon zest, vanilla and salt and process until combined. Transfer mixture to a bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat egg whites at high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold into ricotta mixture. Pour mixture evenly into the cooled crust.

Bake the cheesecake until the top is lightly browned, about 1 1/4 hours. The perimeter should be firm but the center will jiggle slightly.

Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife between the cake and the side of the pan. Cool until barely warm 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Wrap pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold and set, at least 5 hours.



Final Dinner Menu:
simple leafy green salad with cucumbers, celery, avocados and a light dressing.
pan roasted chicken with a chocolate balsamic viniagrette (simpler then it sounds trust me!)
basmati rice
caramalized cauliflower
ricotta cheesecake with whipped cream

A Tentative Beginning

   I love food.  It increasingly takes up more and more of my time and thoughts as the years go by. There is a distinct possibility that anywhere between 80-90 percent of my day is taken up with thinking about, talking about, cooking and consuming food.  So I find myself sitting in front of my computer trying to find a way to express in words how I feel about it. 

  It started out as a mild flirtation with cooking and has since evolved into a full-blown love affair. As a teenager I needed something to pass the time when a lack of hours at work left me sitting around my parents house one summer with no money and nothing to do.   So I started pulling out cookbooks from my moms’ shelves and using my family as guinea pigs to explore further into the culinary world.  It has been full speed ahead ever since.

 So this is my humble and somewhat nervous beginning into the world of food blogging.