Pasta with Lemon Ricotta and Zucchini

Hello,

I know, I’m late! It’s not Friday, and it hasn’t been for almost three days! But: it’s the Easter weekend, we had my family over, the weather is super, etc. So: here comes a recipe for a dish from the ‘light spring cooking’ category, a little late, but nonetheless delicious.

This is what you do:
1) Cook the pasta. I usually cook roughly half a pound for two eaters.
2) In the meantime, wash and grate the zucchini. I used two small zucchinis (I find the smaller, the better the taste). Heat some olive oil in a pan and add a chopped onion; stir. Add the zucchini, reduce the heat, and let them sauteé for about 5 mins. Add 2 table spoons lemon juice. Stir. Season strongly with pepper and salt.
3) In a large bowl, combine the cooked pasta, the zucchini mix, about one cup of ricotta cheese, and 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Stir well. Season to taste. Serve with parmesan cheese.
4) Enjoy!

I’ll leave it at that for today. Eat well, and drink well, and be very, very merry!
xoxo, F.

Puff Pastries

Good evening!

Here comes the recipe for the puff pastry muffins I promised earlier. Meaning: little pastries made in a muffin pan. Very easy! I made six with tomatoes and six without, because a certain member of the household doesn’t like tomatoes, which is insane. Anyways, obviously all kinds of fillings could be invented for this; however, I would stay away from fillings that are too saucy, since the pastry crust is really thin and the baking time is rather short, so a runny filling would probably cause a big mess.

Ingredients:
makes 12

1 cup feta cheese, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup ricotta cheese

approx. 1/4 pound spinach leaves
I used frozen spinach, thawed and drained; if you use fresh leaves, wash, drain, and chop them

1 scallion, sliced
1/2 garlic clove, minced

salt, pepper to taste

12 cheese cubes; I used gouda

approx. 10 oz puff pastry
I used store bought (I KNOW. Whatever.), which came in one big piece, which I cut into 12 even squares

3 cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:

In a bowl, combine feta, ricotta, spinach, scallions, and garlic. Stir well, and season with salt and pepper.

Transfer the pastry squares into the molds of the muffin pan, pushing gently so that the walls are covered evenly.

Preheat your oven to 350° F.

Fill the pastries with the feta mix; put a cheese chunk on top of each and half a tomato on six of them. Fold over the pastry rims.

Bake for approx. 2o mins., until the gouda is melted and the crusts are very light brown.
Serve with a fresh green salad. Enjoy!

We ate them for dinner, but obviously they would also make good finger food at parties or picnics.

Goodbye!
xoxo, F.

Green Ricotta Gnocchi

Good evening!

So this is what we had for dinner a couple of nights ago. It was great! This recipe requires some time, but it is worth it, and the dough can be prepared well in advance. I served these adorable gnocchi with a gorgonzola-cream-basil sauce, which worked well, but I think a tomato sauce or even just some butter and parmesan cheese would also taste good with this. And oh yeah, I found the recipe in Johanna Handschmann’s book Italian Vegetarian Cooking (which btw is great, I recommend it highly), but I had to adapt it a little to reality. For some reason I needed way more flour than suggested there. Anyhoodle, here it comes.

Ingredients:

18 oz spinach (fresh, if you have it; I used frozen)
1 onion
3 tbsp. butter
6 tbsp. ricotta cheese
1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated
2 eggs
about 2 1/2 cups flour (I used a mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose; come to think of it, maybe that’s why I needed so much. The original recipe calls for pasta flour explicitly!)

salt, black pepper, grated nutmeg to your liking

Directions:

If you are using fresh spinach, wash and chop it very fine. Peel the onion and dice it. Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the onion, and shortly afterwards the spinach (the onion is not supposed to brown). Let cook for about 5 minutes, then take the mixture out of the pan and let it cool for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, combine the ricotta, parmesan, eggs, and some flour roughly, using a spoon. Season strongly with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir in the spinach. Then, adding more flour consecutively, knead and knead and knead until you have a nice smooth, elastic dough. Form into two rolls (maybe 2 inches thick), wrap in plastic wrap, and put them into your fridge until you want to cook the gnocchi, but at least for 30 mins.

In a large pot bring water to a boil, add some salt. Form rolls of dough approx. 1 inch thick, slice off pieces approx. 1/2 inch wide, and shape them into little balls. Cook them in the boiling water (it really needs to be bubbling the whole time) for about 5 mins. (try one to see how long they need), then take them out and let them drain before serving.

Enjoy! We enjoyed this dish a lot, and although I have made good gnocchi before, I have to say I really liked the texture of these. I will surely make them again.

xoxo, F.