Mushroom Pizza Rustica

This week for Tuesdays with Dorie we made a Pizza Rustica! I wasn't quite sure what a Pizza Rustica was, I thought it was more like a filled two crusted pizza but this to me was more like a savory ricotta pie and it was pretty yummy! 

Since I don't eat meat I swapped out the prosciutto for some mushrooms sauteed in butter and brandy.  They were delicious. I even got a double mushroom! How fun! 

Above are the mushrooms just starting to cook...and below they are being added to the ricotta and cheese mixture.

For the ricotta I used a mixture of two brands, Biazzo was wetter than the Frigo but they tasted pretty much the same (I am a ricotta fan and did a little ricotta taste test :) )

The lattice top was a little tricky. I usually forget to use my ruffled pastry cutter so it was nice to have a reason to pull it out.

Below is my Pizza Rustica before going into the oven.  It baked up nicely although I did add an extra 5 minutes or so on to the cooking time.  Picky husband does not like ricotta cheese so he passed on this one (I also made a lasagna that night since I knew this would be a tough sell) and my kids all tried it but didn't like it.  Thank goodness I had my mom over for dinner when this was served because she really enjoyed it and could appreciate something like this.  I liked it as well and am really glad I added the mushrooms since they added a nice depth of flavor. I packed up half of the pie for my mom to take home and I will probably have some as leftovers for lunch this week.

Rigatoni with Tomato, Eggplant, and Ricotta

This delicious dish was my pick for I Heart Cooking Clubs theme of the week: Peasant Food.  Pasta is so inexpensive and easy to store in the pantry that it is always on hand at my house. Sometimes I go a little crazy buying fun shapes or fancy imported pastas, but for this dish I used good ole rigatoni that you can find at any supermarket; and, just maybe, right in your own pantry :)  

The kicker that really makes this dish "peasant food" is that the eggplant was free since it was from my garden!! Now, take the word garden lightly here, this was actually my first year planting any vegetables, and I just had a few plants in a small area next to my back porch.  The kids were excited to plant the vegetable plants and loved harvesting our teeny tiny crop.  Our very first garden consisted of one zucchini plant, one summer squash plant, two eggplant plants (only one of which produced), one acorn squash plant, and one jalapeno pepper plant -- that only produced one unedible gnarly little pepper.  Anyway, it was a fun experience, along with our first herb garden which we also planted this year, and we will probably try gardening again next spring.  On to the recipe...

Penne Rigatoni with Tomato, Eggplant, and Ricotta

Tessa Kiros -- Apples for Jam

1 small eggplant

salt and freshly ground pepper

5 tbsp olive oil

1 large garlic clove, peeled and squashed a bit

1- 14 ounce can tomatoes

3/4 of 1 - 16 ounce package of penne (I used rigatoni)

1/4 cup salted mature ricotta or finely grated parmesan cheese (I used 1/2 cup of regular ricotta, I can never find the hard ricotta, ricotta salata I believe it is called, and this is peasant food, right? so I used what was on hand even though it changed the recipe a little)

3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (thank you, herb garden!)

Cut the eggplant into slices about 1/4 inch thick and about 1 inch across. Toss them into a colander, sprinkle with a teaspoon of salt, and leave them for about 40 minutes to drain off any bitter juices.

Heat half the olive oil with the garlic clove in a smallish pan over medium low heat until you can just smell the garlic. Add the tomatoes and season with some salt and pepper. When it comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes, until it all melts into a sauce. Break up any bits of tomato with a wooden spoon as you stir. Keep warm.

Rinse and drain the eggplant pieces and pat them dry with paper towels. Heat the remaining oil in a nonstick frying pan (I used my electric wok) and saute the eggplant over medium heat until it is crusty and golden in places on the outside but still soft inside.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water, following the package instructions. Drain, keeping a cup full of the water.

Put the paste in a large serving bowl. Add the eggplant, the tomato sauce, cheese, and parsley and mix together thoroughly, adding some of the pasta cooking water in the pasta seems dry. Serve immediately.  Serves 4.

I made this for lunch one day when my four year old and picky husband were home. I absolutely loved it, I think it is a wonderful recipe and would make it again for sure, and use extra eggplant since that was my favorite part.  The eggplant was amazing, I don't know if it was because it was homegrown or the preparation but this was the tastiest eggplant ever, and I adore eggplant! My four year old liked this but didn't love it.  I was very surprised picky husband was even game for trying this one, he hates most pasta but I think he was trying to be nice, anyway, he is not an eggplant fan, but said that this was the best eggplant.  He did not like the pasta...oh-well.  If you like pasta and eggplant, this is a winner recipe for sure :)

I'm sending this along to  HoneyB at The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch for Presto Pasta Nights #236, thank you for hosting, HoneyB!

Ricotta Gnocchi with Tomato Pesto

Welcome to a brand new season of I Heart Cooking Clubs where we are now cooking and baking recipes from chef Tessa Kiros! I have to be completely honest and say I'd never heard of Tessa until she was on the poll for picking the next chef, where had I been? Although Tessa (as far as I know) does not host a cooking show on TV, she is the author of numerous books featuring different cuisines that are close to her heart.



As I flipped through the pages of her cookbook, Apples for Jam, I was enchanted. So many beautiful photographs, drawings from her little girls, memories written for us to enjoy, and to top that all of, tons of recipes that sounded good! If this book is any indication of her others, looks like I'm going to have a lot of fun during this session of IHCC!

The recipe that first jumped out at me and said, "make me today!" was Ricotta Gnocchi with Tomato Pesto. I love gnocchi and had all of the ingredients on hand, and was extra happy to find a use for some of the last summer basil that I grew in my herb garden this past summer. We are about to have our first frost of the year, and I don't think I can take my herb garden inside, maybe though...not even sure if it would last if I tried to? I'm new to the whole herb gardening community -- anyway, here is the recipe...I have stuck with Tessa's ingredients exactly, but have shortened up the directions a touch, let me know if you have any questions.

Tessa's Ricotta Gnocchi

2 cups good quility ricotta cheese

3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1 scant cup all purpose flour
salt

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, if you are making the tomato pesto, make sure it is ready before cooking the gnocchi. Mix together the ricotta, parmesan, flour, and a pinch of salt. With lightly floured hands, roll out into thin sausages (about 5/8 inch thick) -- cut with a sharp knife into little dumplings, about 3/4 inch long.

Drop into boiling water and cook until they float to the surface and are done. (Book says 45 seconds, I needed about double that, so 1 and 1/2 minutes) Lift out with slotted spoon and put into warmed serving bowls (I added a little butter to my bowl so they wouldn't stick together).

Serve with tomato pesto and grated parmesan.

Tomato Pesto

1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes (I used a can of san marzanos)
salt
1/2 cup basil leaves, torn
4 tablespoons pine nuts
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil in a sauce pan with one of the garlic cloves.

When it sizzles, add the tomato and season with salt. Simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes until the tomato thickens and becomes smooth, crusing it up with a spoon from time to time.

Finely chop the other garlic clove and put it in a small processor with the basil leaves and pine nuts. Pulse until finely chopped. Add the remaining olive oil and the parmesan, pulse just long enough to combine. Stir into the tomato sauce and heat for 30 seconds. Remove whole garlic clove before serving. Use sauce to top the gnocchi.

And there you have it, my first Tessa Kiros recipe and it was a huge success! I made these for dinner with my daughter and she had so much fun helping roll and cut and drop these into the pot. She even enjoyed the tomato pesto, which surprised me since she is an avid tomato hater. Now my two boys, they were not fans of this dish, but it really didn't matter, I just made them something else. Nothing was going to spoil these delicious gnocchi and the special mommy daughter time we enjoyed while making them together :)

Spinach and Ricotta Conchiglie -- Stuffed Shells

So good to be back! We had a huge ice storm last week and were out of power for about 4 days, thank goodness we have a small generator so we were able to heat our house, power the fridge and basement freezer, and have a light or two on, but no TV or computer so that was an adjustment. We opened up the curtains, enjoyed the beautiful sun shining on all of the ice and the kids and I played a ton of board games. No oven = no baking :( To make dinners we turned off the furnace for an hour or so (so we had enough power from the generator to use small kitchen appliances) and plugged in the griddle and had 'breakfast for dinner' one night, the other night we used the presto pizza pizzazz to cook a pizza, and the last night fired up the electric wok for some teriyaki noodles -- all cooked by candlelight since the generator could only power one kitchen appliance and the fridge at once. What a week, it almost was kind of fun, I know the kids had a blast, but I'm glad things are back to normal!

On to this dish, Spinach and Ricotta Conchiglie is my pick for My Kitchen My World -- Destination Italy. This recipe is from the cookbook, Pasta - irresistible recipes for perfect pasta, that I've had for years and only made one recipe from. The one recipe I tried was Macaroni and Blue Cheese -- I had completely forgotten I made that recipe -- but I had written down the date that I made it in the cookbook (what I used to do before starting a food blog), October 2006, and when I read that date, I remembered how my daughter -- who was 18 months old at the time -- loved the Macaroni and Blue Cheese just as much as mommy did, even though daddy was not a fan. It made me smile back then, thinking I may have a lil' foodie on my hands, and now that memory makes me smile even more. I love stuffed pasta shells and was happy to give this version a try. The photo in the book is so enticing, I love the addition of pine nuts sprinkled on top.


Spinach and Ricotta Conchiglie
slightly adapted from Pasta - irresistible recipes for perfect pasta

12 ounces large conchiglie (pasta shells)
1 and 3/4 cups strained tomatoes
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
2 thick slices white bread, crumbled
1/2 cup milk -- I used skim
3 tablespoons olive oil
9 ounces ricotta cheese -- about 1 and 1/4 cup
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts
Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling
salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water according to the directions on the package. Rinse under cold water, drain, and reserve until needed.

2. Place the bread, milk, and three tablespoons of olive oil into the bowl of a food processor or blender and process to combine. Add the spinach and ricotta cheese and season with salt (about 1/2 tsp kosher), pepper, and nutmeg (about 1/4 teaspoon).

3. Combine the strained tomatoes with the garlic and remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Spread the sauce evenly over the bottom of a casserole -- I used a 9 by 13 pyrex glass baking dish.

4. Spoon the spinach mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large, plain tip and fill the pasta shapes (I used a ziplock bag with the corner cut off, worked great).

5. Sprinkle the pine nuts over the top and grate some parmesan over the top, then bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly and the nuts and cheese have turned a light golden brown.

Buen Appetito! -- Enjoy your meal! Sorry for the lack of good photos on this one, I'm going to have to blame bad evening lighting :) This dish was great, it was pretty heavy on the spinach though, so make sure who ever you are serving this to is a spinach fan. To serve, I spooned some of the strained tomato sauce over the shells. I have a favorite non-traditional stuffed shells dish I make that has lots of cheese (mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta stuffed into the shells) and then is blanketed with sauteed mushrooms, homemade tomato sauce, and mozzarella before baking in the oven and I think that one is still my favorite. It was fun to try a more traditional Italian version of one of my favorite Italian-American dishes, and conchiglie is much more fun to say than plain 'ol stuffed shells. I did love the pine nuts on top and will have to incorporate those into my usual recipe :)

I had a lot of fun picking an Italian recipe to try (originally wanted to do a whole meal, but with the outage didn't have time to get it to it) and I have three *must make* Italian recipes from some of my cookbooks that are completely new to me, two breads, one dessert, so hopefully you'll be seeing those up here soon at Nummy Kitchen. Having the power outage meant lots of time for browsing through my cookbook collection, among other things, so I have a whole bunch of recipes mentally bookmarked that I have had on my shelf for years and never noticed before, kind of reminds me of time before the internet and before a quick jump on google or foodnetwork made it so easy to find a recipe that you actually had to page through a cookbook, miss those days.

I'm sending this dish along to Ruth at Once Upon A Feast, who is the creator of Presto Pasta Nights and hosting a 4th Birthday Bash for PPN #203, how fun!

Roasted Red Pepper and Ricotta Calzones

Calzones are such a fun dinner and are easy to personalize for the kids and picky husband, I wonder why I don't make them more often? This recipe is from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian and starts with his basic pizza crust recipe...

Mark Bittman's Pizza Dough

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1 to 1¼ cups water
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil

1 Combine the yeast, flour, and 2 teaspoons salt in the container of a food processor. Turn the machine on and add 1 cup water and the 2 tablespoons of oil through the feed tube.

2 Process for about 30 seconds, adding more water, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky to the touch. If it is dry, add another tablespoon or two of water and process for another 10 seconds. (In the unlikely event that the mixture is too sticky, add flour, a tablespoon at a time.)

3 Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand a few seconds to form a smooth, round dough ball. Grease a bowl with the remaining olive oil, and place the dough, in it. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp cloth and let rise in warm; draft-free area until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours. You can, cut this rising time short if you are in a hurry, or you can let the dough rise more slowly, in the refrigerator, for up to 6 or 8 hours.

4 Proceed with calzone recipe, or wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for up to a month. Defrost in a covered bowl in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

* I made this dough in my bread machine on dough cycle and it worked perfectly, just follow your manufacturers directions for the wet and dry ingredients and you should be fine.


Mark's recipe for calzones suggests spinach as a filling with the ricotta but leaves the options open, and suggests using pizza toppings to mix with the ricotta as a calzone filling. I thought roasted peppers would be a nice combo with the ricotta and just happened to have some peppers on hand.


I like to roast the peppers in the oven and use the broiler method, it's quick and easy but you do need to stay by the oven and babysit the peppers because they can get overdone quickly. You want them blackened and charred and looking deflated.

Roasted Red Pepper and Ricotta Calzone

• 1 recipe pizza dough -- above -- or use your own favorite dough recipe
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

I found that Mark's dough recipe made 3 very large calzones, you could easily make 4.

Shape dough into 3 or 4 circles, about 8 inches each, by rolling or patting the dough down.

Combine the cheeses, peppers, and salt and mix well.


Fill calzones by making a mound of filling on one side...


and then bring up the other side over and seal shut with your fingers or using the tines of a fork.


I like to sprinkle the tops with some Italian herb blend. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes at 350 on a baking stone (remember stone should be preheated in your oven) or sheet. *I think it is very difficult to move a calzone to a stone or sheet so I would say make the calzone right on the baking sheet. I used my pizza screen sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, which has been a lifesaver when it comes to moving pizzas to bake on the pizza stone. You just bake the calzones right on the screen on top of the stone and they come out perfectly.

These were great served with some homemade pizza sauce. They had a very mild flavor but they were really good, I just think they need maybe some roasted garlic mixed into that ricotta mixture, and maybe some red pepper flakes. Spice them up to your liking.

The theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is 'Damn, that's Sexy' and I know you're probably thinking, calzones? Sexy? Well, I think they are sweet sexy in a way, right? Made for sharing, but only for two, a little rustic, just the two of you in an Italian villa with a wood fired stove having fun making dinner together, having a glass of wine...hmm? I know I'd have fun with it!

I'm submitting this post to YeastSpotting which I haven't participated in for way too long, go check out all of the gorgeous baked goods there :)

Ricotta Gnocchi with Creamy Mushroom Vodka Sauce -- Daring Cooks

Time for the first ever Daring Cooks Challenge! The Daring Cooks are a sister to the Daring Bakers, now culinary enthusiasts around the world can do TWO daring challenges a month, one 'baked' and one 'cooked'! I am so happy to be a part of this very first challenge, picked by Lis and Ivonne, our Daring leaders, the creators of The Daring Bakers and The Daring Cooks. Thank you, Lis and Ivonne!

Our first challenge is Ricotta Gnocchi from The Zuni Café Cookbook. Let's get started...


You start with 1 lb ricotta cheese, 2 eggs, a little bit of salt and a little bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano...


You can then add some seasoning, I chose to do an Italian seasoning blend, with marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, sage, oregano, and basil. Just about 1/2 teaspoon, didn't want to over power the delicate ricotta flavor of these little gnocchi.


Here is my super messy work station, I'm kind of embarassed, but I really don't worry about the mess when I'm 'creating' in the kitchen -- I know some people clean up as they go and put everything away, which sounds great in theory, but I usually end up leaving everything out until I'm all done -- then clean up. I ended up adding some flour to the actual ricotta mixture, even though we were just supposed to be rolling them in flour. I was a little nervous about that judgement call but have to say that in the end I'm glad that I did it.

From there you start on a complimentary sauce, this was our chance to play around and do our own thing. I love making up sauce recipes as I go, so this was really fun for me. I knew I wanted to do something mushroom, at first I was thinking mushroom roasted pepper sauce, then I couldn't help wanting to grate some more parmigiano-reggiano and do a cream sauce. I didn't want something too heavy for the gnocchi, but definitely creamy.

Creamy Mushroom Vodka Sauce
*this sauce was enough for about 1/2 batch of this gnocchi recipe

2 tablespoons butter
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons vodka (I used Belvedere)
3/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup cream
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

Saute the mushrooms in butter and until most of the moisture cooks off, add the salt while sauteing.


Add in the vodka and cook for about 5 more minutes over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms are a touch browned and most of the liquid has cooked away. Turn off heat and let cool down for about 5 minutes.


Add in milk and cream, bring to a simmer, dust in the flour while whisking, you don't want it to clump up. Simmer for a few more minutes until thickened and add the cheese.


Stir until combined and the cheese has melted into a thick and creamy sauce with the mushrooms. If you sauce is too thick add a touch of milk and/or a touch of vodka. Before this final vodka edition (if desired) the vodka flavor is very slight since the alcohol cooked away, and might not even be noticeable. Add a little more if you'd like, to taste.

At that point with my dinner, I turned off the heat and set the sauce skillet to the side of the stove and started boiling my gnocchi.


Remove cooked gnocchi with slotted spoon and set into sauce skillet. Don't worry about a little extra liquid dripping off the gnocchi into the sauce (which should be pretty thick). After all of your gnocchi are cooked and in the sauce skillet, turn on the heat gently and saute the gnocchi with the sauce for a minute.



I know this finished product might look a little bland, too heavy, or too rich, but it was amazing! Probably one of my favorite meals I've had lately, really! I love how the sauce coated the gnocchi and the mushroom were a delicious match. At first I wasn't sure what to do with my second half of this gnocchi batch but I will most likely be making this exact dish again, I loved it that much! The gnocchi were a little messy to make, but relatively easy. I will be making these again for sure, and probably adding the extra flour to the gnocchi dough on purpose just because I think these turned out so perfectly :)

Mini Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling

This recipe was picked for Sweet Melissa Sundays by Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures, thanks Tracey! You can visit her site for the recipe. I know it's already Monday and I'm a day late, sorry! This past week has been a whirlwind, we had our first ER visit when my daughter accidentally broke her snow globe and cut her hand and needed stitches, and I also hosted a double birthday brunch at our house, talk about a wild week. When I joined Sweet Melissa Sundays I fully intended to bake every recipe (and post on time!) so I feel really bad that I missed last week's Brooklyn Brown-out Cake (which I WILL make) and was not going to let myself miss two weeks in a row even if I had to post late. I hope you guys can understand!

When I saw that Tracey had picked this recipe for us to try I was really excited, caramel apples, turnovers, and ricotta are some of my favorites. My husband is also a huge caramel apple and turnover fan, ricotta, not so much. So what I did was halve the ricotta mixture and instead of making big turnovers made little ones (9 little squares cut into one puff pastry sheet).

Three of the turnovers were caramel apple and ricotta and six were just caramel apple. For the apples I cut the quarters into tiny thin squares (I was going for apple pie consistency) instead of the 1/4 inch dices, and I also subbed brown sugar for white sugar. I was reaching in the pantry for the 1/4 cup of sugar called for and as I passed the brown sugar I decided that would be great for a little extra flavor depth.

Before and after baking...


I baked them at the suggested 375 on an insulated baking sheet for 20 minutes. I had set the timer for 25 minutes, but when I checked at 20 they were perfect. We absolutely loved these, the cinnamon sugar on the egg wash on top was a great touch. I was so happy to try this recipe and I'm sure we'll be making them again :)