Proud Italian Cook

Whipped Ricotta with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

September 10, 2015 by Marie 19 Comments

Before all the beautiful summer tomatoes quickly disappear, promise me you’ll make this! This is like the grand finale of tomato season for me, because soon we’ll be into the cooler weather, fall type foods, but I guarantee come mid January you’ll be dreaming about this like I do.

This combination was meant to be together, like yin and yang, the perfect match.

Creamy, light, fluffy and decadent, whipped ricotta slathered onto extremely crunchy bread and topped with the most intensely flavored slow roasted tomatoes, I can barely talk, it’s that good!

Ingredients: Great tomatoes, the best bread you can find and good quality fresh ricotta.

Normally when I roast tomatoes I put the oven on 400, toss them with olive oil and quick roast for around 15 or 20 mins, but this is a different process, there’s nothing quick about it, you’ll have to give up your oven for at least four hours.

The slow process is exactly why they taste so darn special, sort of like the difference between quick frying onions verses the slow process of caramelizing them, there’s no comparison in taste.

You want to get them to the point where most of the moisture is gone but yet they’re still a little moist and limp.

Now lets talk about the whipped ricotta, I like to call it Italian Hummus, you can dip it, spread it, whatever you like. I’ve been obsessing about it ever since I tasted droplets of it on top of a pizza this summer.

So simple to make, just place some good quality ricotta into a food processor or a mixer and blend it until it has a smooth and creamy almost fluffy consistency with no lumps at all, you might need a few drops of cream or half and half to help smooth it out. You can then finish it off by folding in some fresh herbs of your choice like, oregano, chives, basil, maybe a little parmesan cheese if you want, salt and pepper of course, and finally a nice drizzle of olive oil on top, just like hummus. I used chives and basil in mine but it’s a blank canvas so make it your own.

Pile it on some of the best bread you can find, toasted of course, then top it with those luscious tomatoes.

Honestly, you can make a meal out of this, it’s that good.

One bite and you’ll be hooked!

5.0 from 5 reviews

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Make this, it will change your life!

Author: Marie

Ingredients

great tomatoes
fresh thyme
garlic infused olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat oven to 250 degrees.
Slice tomatoes about a ¼ " thick, if cut too thin they will turn out like chips.
Place slices on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Brush each slice just on the top with olive oil that has been infused with one small crushed garlic clove.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper but be easy on the salt because it intensify's as it roasts and you don't want it to taste overly salty.
Spread fresh thyme leaves all over.
Place in oven and roast at that temp for 1 hour then reduce oven temp to 200 until tomatoes lose most of their moisture but are not completely dried out.
Mine took a total of 4 hours.
Store them single layer in an airtight container, in the fridge.

19 Comments Filed Under: Appetizers, Summer Tagged: crostini, ricotta, roasted tomatoes, slow roasted tomatoes, whipped ricotta

Picnic Food Ideas for a Crowd

September 2, 2015 by Marie 8 Comments

Labor Day weekend is fast approaching, the unofficial mark of summers end. If you’re going to a picnic or a family get together for your last hurrah, here’s a couple of things you can bring along and not worry about it spoiling from sitting around in the heat.

We recently had a big family picnic and although there were grills on site, we didn’t feel like grilling, so I was thinking what I could bring to share that would be big enough to feed a bunch of people, Italian sub sandwiches of course!

I decided I would switch it up this time and make them on focaccia bread, and although the picture may not show it well, these were huge, like the size of a 14 inch pizza.

Living in the Chicagoland area I’m fortunate to have access to many places where I can easily go and pick up some of these delicious breads, some are round, some are rectangle, all shapes would work for this, and of course you can always make your own.

I love this type of focaccia with the tomatoes stuck into it, it lends so much flavor to the sandwich but it does takes a little patience when slicing it in half horizontally.

You’ll need a small pairing knife and a large serrated knife. You’ll also want to make sure your focaccia is at least 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick. Use the pairing knife and score the center of the outside edge all the way around, this will just be your guideline so be careful not to cut into it too deep.

Then take the large serrated knife and SLOWLY cut through the focaccia, pressing on the top ever so slightly with your hand as you move back and forth until you reach the other side using your pairing knife marking as the guide, then gently separate the halves.

The sky’s the limit as to what you want to fill your subs with, I opted for swiping basil pesto on each side of the bread with a nice drizzle of olive oil all over, then I layered with slices of aged provolone cheese, mortadella, salami and a handful of arugula. Like I said before, the tomato focaccia has so much flavor so you really don’t need much more of anything else!

The best part is they make a great presentation on the table placed on a couple of round Party Store platters that I picked up.

I couldn’t cut them fast enough, needless to say they were a hit!

I also brought along this Caprese Pasta salad which I like to make this time of year with the abundance of cherry tomatoes that still have their intense flavor.

I cooked my pasta the night before, ( 2 lbs.) cooled it down, drizzled it with olive oil and put it into a zip bag overnight and also cubed up a log and a half of fresh mozzarella cheese.

The morning of the picnic I quartered all my tomatoes, a t least 2 big containers, dowsed it all with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh basil. Let it sit a bit so the juices can mingle, then tossed in your pasta and cheese adding more oil, basil and salt if needed.

Both are easy to do, a nice presentation, and feeds a crowd, oh and of course taste amazing!

8 Comments Filed Under: Breads, Salads, Sandwiches Tagged: caprese pasta salad, focaccia, Italian deli meats, picnic food

Zucchini Roll Ups with Ricotta and Summer Corn

August 25, 2015 by Marie 10 Comments

I’ve been taking full advantage of all the summertime produce I can get my hands on, soon it will be gone and we’ll move on to more cooler weather veggies, but I’m not ready for that yet.

Zucchini is still in abundance along with yellow squash and sweet corn which I pick up at the farmers market nearly every week.

I recently made some eggplant rollatini which I posted on my Instagram account last week, so I thought why not try it with zucchini!

To put a little summer twist on it I mixed fresh corn into the ricotta, spinach and cheese filling and I’m so glad I did, we loved it!

This is pretty easy to make so I’ll just tell you what I did. Slice your squash up fairly thin, you want to be able to roll it up, if it’s cut too thick you won’t be able to bend it easily. I used a grill pan inside to cook it down slightly on each side to get it limp enough to roll.

In a bowl I started out with a cup of well drained ricotta, the kernels of one ear of corn, a handful each of romano cheese, shredded mozzarella and fresh spinach that I chopped, you could sub out fresh basil for the spinach if you prefer.

I added 1 small smashed garlic clove, salt, pepper and an egg. Before you add the egg taste everything to your liking. Depending on how many roll ups you make, you might need to mix up a little more filling. Keep in mind you’ll only need a heaping tablespoon on each, that is if your squash ribbons are normal size and not huge.

Roll them up, placing them seam side down into a pool of marinara sauce. I like to spoon a little extra sauce down the center of each roll so as not to cover the whole thing because I like seeing all the different colors peeking out. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes at 350 or until ricotta is heated through and set.