Lemon Ricotta Cookies

For those of you who are regular readers, you may remember that I made these delicious Pecan Turtle Black Cocoa Brownies to bring to my mom and sister up in NJ last month when I visited. Well, my mom informed me on that trip that she now prefers lemon desserts to chocolate ones. Since I'm such an awesome daughter, I made her these lemon ricotta cookies when I went up to visit this weekend. I don't bake with lemon very often during the fall or winter, but these actually really hit the spot among all of the heavy fall and pumpkin related baking I've been doing.

While the main reason for my visit to NJ was my sister Annie's 25th birthday, the weekend happened to coincide with a really fun event in my sister's town called Boozin' for Boobs. As the name suggests, it's a bar crawl that raises money for breast cancer charities. I'm not sure how healthy daytime drinking of hot pink-dyed Bud Light is for my own personal cancer risk, but it was a ton of fun, and raised money for an excellent cause. 

Annie and me at the bar crawl. Happy birthday darling seester! 

Before making these, I'd never made cookies that contained ricotta cheese, so I wasn't sure what to expect. These don't taste like ricotta, so I think it's probably there for the moisture and richness. The cookie portion of this recipe reminds me of one of those big black and white cookies you can get at an Italian deli or bakery. They are moist and soft, and almost like miniature cakes. The glaze has the perfect amount of lemon flavor and tartness, and turns these cookies from something ordinary into something delicious. 

As you can see, I couldn't wait until my cookie photo shoot was over to sample the goods. 

Here's what you'll need for about 4 dozen cookies:

For the cookies:
 
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 15-ounce container whole milk ricotta cheese
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons

For the glaze:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted (Do not use organic or natural powdered sugar as it will turn the glaze gray)
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt with a fork. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar for 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in ricotta, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and beat until combined.

Stir in dry ingredients with a spoon until just combined. Using a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop cookies onto the baking sheet, leaving a couple inches between each. Store the leftover dough in the refrigerator between batches.

Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes, until no longer wet on top and not yet golden around the edges. Mine took exactly 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

To make the glaze, stir together all ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pour a scant teaspoon of glaze on top of each cookie, and let the glaze harden for at least 2 hours before storing. Cake-like cookies like these have a tendency to get soggy if stored in an airtight container. I kept mine in a tupperware container with layers of waxed paper between each stack of cookies. I just rested the lid on top, and didn't press it shut it completely, which worked great. I recommend enjoying these within a day or two of baking them. 

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Source: Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

Tacos de Barbacoa

I'm am a HUGE fan of Chipotle's Barbacoa. In fact, I just spent 20 minutes of my life making a crude homage to the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" ad to illustrate just how much I love Chipotle's Barbacoa:

 Stay hungry, my friends.

I've wanted to make my own barbacoa at home for a long time, because as delicious as Chipotle is, it's not somewhere that I should be frequenting. I once made the mistake of calculating the calories for one of my beloved burrito bowls. Ouch. Fortunately, the results of my at home barbacoa were delicious, and I've had enough tacos to keep me happy for the rest of 2012, and then some. Actually, scratch that. Who am I kidding? I love tacos, and will probably make yet another version in a matter of weeks. 

Depending on how stuffed you like your tacos, and how big your tortillas are, you can probably get about 5 tacos per pound of meat. If you're not responsible for feeding children, spouses, or roommates, I highly recommend that you invite people over to eat, so you don't end up eating tacos for 8 meals straight. 

Don't let the long cooking time for this scare you away. The prep work for this recipe only took about 20 minutes. This needs to cook low and slow for about 5 hours in the oven, but most of that time is hands off.

What you'll need:

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons lime juice
4 canned chipotle chiles
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano (use Mexican oregano if you can find it)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
3 teaspoons kosher salt (if using table salt, reduce to 1 1/2 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3-4 pounds boneless chuck roast, excess fat removed
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth, plus more if needed
3 bay leaves
Small tortillas, warmed (I used flour, but I think corn is probably more traditional)
Toppings (Cilantro, onions, lime wedges, tomatillo salsa, chopped tomato, and sour cream are all delicious!)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Combine the vinegar, lime juice, chipotle chiles, garlic, and spices in the bowl of a food processor. Process the mixture for about 1 minute, until completely smooth. Set aside.

Rinse and completely dry the chuck roast, and cut into one pound pieces. Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat in a large dutch oven until it is shimmering. Sear the pieces of meat on all sides until very browned, about 10 minutes total. You may need to work in batches for this if your pot is on the smaller side. (Note: If you're not using an enameled cast iron dutch oven like a Le Creuset, you will probably want to sear the meat on high, not medium.)

Turn the heat down to low, and add the chipotle puree to the pot. Stir to coat the meat thoroughly. Pour in enough chicken broth to come one-third of the way up the sides of the meat. I have a very large dutch oven, and needed a little less than a quart of broth. Add in the bay leaves.

Turn the heat back up to medium, and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and cover the pot with tin foil, and then add the lid to create a tight seal. Place in the preheated oven, and braise for 5-6 hours, checking halfway through the cooking time to baste the meat with the cooking liquid, and ensure that there is enough liquid remaining in the pot. During the last hour of cooking, remove the foil and the lid to allow the liquid to slightly reduce.

When the meat is done, allow it to cool for a few minutes, and spoon off any easily removable fat from the cooking liquid. Shred the meat with two forks, and serve on warmed tortillas with desired toppings.

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Source: Adapted from Food People Want

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Is anyone else bored of logging on to Facebook and being bombarded by a million people spewing their political opinions? Ever since the debates last night, I've been avoiding Facebook like the plague. As some of you know, I live in Northern Virginia, right outside of Washington, DC. I don't know if people argue about politics this much in other areas of the country, but here it's constant personal attacks, "fact" regurgitating, and mudslinging.

Obviously, I have opinions. I'm not going to talk about them here because a) no one cares, and b) I don't want the 50% of you who disagree with me to hate me, or think that voting the way I do is equivalent to some kind of character flaw. I sometimes wonder if the people who post inflammatory statuses honestly think that they will change the mind of the opposing side. Facebook has been around for 8 of my 10 legal voting years, and so far I haven't been swayed to change my political affiliation by what some wannabe pundit posts as their status. I respect people's right to share whatever they want on Facebook, but that doesn't mean I won't be annoyed by it. I think certain topics are just best kept private.

I go on Facebook for the following reasons:

1) Cat videos
2) Pictures of babies
3) Stories about drunken shenanigans
4) To find out where happy hour is taking place
5) To stalk people from high school and judge their choices in life

I do not go on Facebook:

1) To be told that I'm immoral or stupid for supporting a particular candidate.

I'm probably just as bad as the people I'm complaining about for even posting this rant. Can we talk about pancakes now? That's something we can all agree on, right? I hope so, because these are freakin' delicious. When I took my first bite of these, it was like biting into the warmest, moistest, slice of pumpkin bread ever. With most pumpkin-flavored foods, you tend to taste the fall spices more than the actual pumpkin. With these, you have a bold pumpkin flavor, plus an additional kick of flavor from the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. I served these with just maple syrup, but I think they'd also be delicious with a cinnamon spiked whipped cream!

What you'll need:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons salted butter, melted
Additional butter or canola oil for greasing the skillet

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and place a foil-lined pie plate inside. As you cook the pancakes, place them in the pie plate to keep warm.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a large liquid measuring cup, stir together the milk, pumpkin, egg, and butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk together until just combined. Some lumps should remain - don't over-mix or your pancakes will be tough!

In a large greased skillet over medium heat, drop batter in 1/3 cup portions. Cook the first side, and when bubbles start to form on the top surface, flip them over and cook for about a minute more. Transfer to the oven and repeat with remaining batter.

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Source: Adapted from Martha Stewart