Contrary to the frequently perpetuated oversimplification, latkes are not potato pancakes. They’re not hash browns nor patties, neither nuggets, tots, nor home fries. “Shredded potato clusters” don’t quite do them justice, but it’s hard to explain such a disarmingly simple dish. Sometimes it easier to describe what they aren’t, rather than what they are- Or ought to be. Strong opinions exist about what makes a proper latke, but in my family, that only means one thing: thin, crispy, silver dollar disks of starchy ribbons, all bound together with a scant handful of matzo meal and a whisper of yellow onion for seasoning. Deeply browned around the edges with a tender interior, some more so than others to appease a diverse crowd, they’re made by the pound and scaled up by tens; never trimmed back, never turned down. Rarely do leftovers survive the main meal, no matter how many buttery Yukon golds press through those sharp spinning grates.

For as long as I can remember, Hanukah has meant the smell of canola oil wafting through the house come midday, long before the menorah comes out or the table is set. My parents work in concert to sling the edible oily miracles well in advance of arriving guests to hide the laborious demands of each painstakingly shaped round. My mom stands guard inside the kitchen, cutting down armies of potatoes to form the raw fuel for this fire. Conveying them in heaping stock pots to my dad, he then dutifully, patiently shallow fries them outside on the grill. Through the bitterly cold winds, freezing rain, hail, snow, and thunderstorms, he faces the elements with steely resolve. There’s no Hanukkah celebration without the latkes, and they’re not about to cook themselves.

I’ll start by assembling my plate daintily, politely spearing two or three small clusters to save enough for the crowd, but after the first bite, proper manners quickly fall by the wayside. Seconds consist of a half sheet tray of the potato gems, shamelessly slathered with enough sour cream to sink a ship, if not lavished with a truly decadent crown of seaweed caviar. From age 3 to 30, if I don’t end the night with grease stains on my shirt and crispy potato shrapnel tangled in my hair, then it isn’t a real holiday dinner with my family.

Latkes aren’t the point here, despite their dominance on festive menus and historical authenticity- Or lack thereof. Latkes are about symbolism, taking on whatever meaning you assign them on this holy, yet entirely ordinary winter day. Latkes are whatever you want them to be, but the only way I’ll ever want them is back east in the house where I grew up, my parents lovingly slinging them from dawn to dusk. No recipe on Earth could ever recreate that kind of experience.

The most common use of ricotta in my kitchen is as part of a filling for lasagna or another pasta dish. But savory dishes aren’t the only way to showcase the mild, creamy cheese and I often use it in desserts, including my Cannoli Pie and Ricotta Cheesecake Brownies. These Cinnamon Ricotta Waffles are a brunch dish that makes great use of this versatile cheese. The ricotta, which is incorporated into the batter, gives the waffles a light, moist interior and sets them apart from other waffle recipes.

The batter is easy to make and you can pull it together in the time it takes to heat up your waffle iron. Ricotta cheese is stirred right in with the rest of the ingredients, along with plenty of ground cinnamon and vanilla. The combination of cinnamon and ricotta reminds me of Italian desserts – which frequently feature that flavor combination – giving the finished waffles a familiar flavor, even if you haven’t had ricotta waffles before!

The waffle batter is fairly thick, so I recommend using a large ladle to spoon it onto your preheated waffle iron. I used a Belgian-style waffle iron that creates deep pockets on each waffle, perfect for catching a generous amount of maple syrup. You can use a regular waffle iron, as well. The cooking time will vary a bit from model to model, so check the instructions on your waffle iron and aim to cook the waffles until they are golden brown. The number of waffles you get will vary depending on your iron, but you will get enough waffles to serve at least 3-4 people with this recipe.

Once they’re baked, the waffles should be crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, with a surprisingly light texture that is enhanced by the ricotta cheese. You’ll be able to smell the cinnamon and vanilla as the waffles cook, but you also be able to taste them both in every bite. They’re tasty on their own, although they are not meant to be very sweet so that the can be served with a generous amount of maple syrup. I like to add a small scoop of ricotta to the waffles before serving, as well, just to highlight that ingredient further.

Cinnamon Ricotta Waffles
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup milk (pref. whole)
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
3 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add in eggs, milk, ricotta cheese and vanilla extract. Whisk until batter comes together, then pour in melted butter and whisk until batter is uniform.
Preheat waffle iron as directed by the manufacturer. Grease waffle iron with nonstick cooking spray or melted butter, then spoon batter (approx 3/4
– 1 cup, depending on the size of your iron) onto the waffle iron and cook as directed, approximately 3-4 minutes. Serve immediately.

Makes 3-4 waffles

The post Cinnamon Ricotta Waffles appeared first on Baking Bites.

If you’re shopping for the perfect gift for the cook in your life, I’m hoping this will be a helpful jumping off point. I was working on a 101 Cookbooks holiday gift guide (which I plan to post tomorrow!), and noticed there are a lot of really great culinary-focused gift guides already out there. So I wrangled my favorites into this list. Hope you find something special for the cook in your life. -h

– GOOP Cook’s Gift Guide: The compact, over-the-shoulder, Portable Table Barbecue caught my attention. Also lots of ideas in the GOOP Wellness Junkie’s Gift Guide.

– Not a gift guide perse, but CAP Beauty alway has lots of great products for your favorite cook, food, or wellness enthusiast. Start here, For The Foodie. Poke around The CAP Grocery. Or, jump into The Honey Pot.

– FOOD52 has a good number of A+ holiday gift lists. They’ve set up a page indexing them named The Great Gift List. Be sure to poke around Amanda & Merrill’s Co-founder’s Gift Picks, as well as The Big Wows.

– Serious Eats also has a range of culinary focused holiday guides. Love this one (The Bookworm) focused on the culinary bookworm in your life – lots of great cookbook classics in this list. There is also a holiday guide focused on The Beginner Cook and one for The Baker in your life. Links to all their other holiday gift guides are listed at the bottom of each page as well.

– The Strategist published a list of The Best 35 Gifts (That You Can Buy on Amazon) for Every Type of Home Cook. And there are a number of extra cool items here. Notably the red version of the awesome yellow Dansk Pot you see in a few of the episodes of Samin’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat series. Also intrigued by the mega-bento.

– Huffington Post: I like the scope of this round-up of Homemade Holiday Gifts. Even if you don’t use the recipes linked to in the article, this list is full of cobweb-clearing ideas to use as an initial brainstorm and to get the holiday ideas flowing.
– Wholefully: Cassie shares a really great spectrum of Homemade Soup Mixes in a Jar. And do you see the cute gift tags? You can download the template for those as well. If you want to keep your soup mixes veg, simply swap in veg bullion for the chicken bouillon called for.

– And one more, last-minute, addition to this list from The Strategist – The Best Gifts for Chefs, According to 24 Chefs and Restaurant Owners. If you have a serious home cook on your hands, one that is particularly tough to shop for, browse this list. It tipped me off items like a Microplane spice grinder (adding to my own wish list!), and Thai fruit carving tools.

Gift Wrapping Inspiration

– Check out this post on Remodelista (from a few years back) for DIY: Holiday Gift Wrap ideas. Or take a master wrapping class in holiday wrapping with Claudia Schwartz (pictured above) or Matt Dick – two of my very favorite people and both masters of the presentation of the gift.

Continue reading 15 Great Culinary Gift Guides on 101 Cookbooks

In this Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle, the classic chocolate chip recipe is changed up to create a new way to eat chocolate chip cookies.  Watch the video showing you how to make this cookie brittle, then scroll to the end of the post and print out the recipe so you can make it at home.

It’s safe to say that we’re big-time chocolate chip cookie eaters in our house.  I don’t make them often because I’m far too tempted by the dough itself, but my boys happily chow down on them whenever I whip up a batch.  Of course, me being me, I’m always trying to “think outside the box” in a chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Maybe add a little sea salt, change up the chocolate, stuff something inside of them, make them into bars, add some secret ingredients… anything to break up the monotony of The Chocolate Chip Cookie.  But your typical person walking down the street is completely satisfied with the same ‘ol same ‘ol.

This Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle was shared here on RecipeGirl back in 2012 with permission from Nestle (their original recipe).  The “brittle” characteristic is created by eliminating eggs, baking soda and brown sugar.

What ingredients do you need to make Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle?

You’ll need a pretty short list of ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, butter, vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.

How to make Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle:

When the dough is created, it will look very dry and crumbly.  Keep mixing though, and those crumbles will eventually snuggle together to create larger crumbles like this.  Then you can stir in the chips and nuts (I use pecans).

Do you have to add nuts to cookie brittle?

You can certainly experiment with NOT using nuts, but I will say that I think they help with the texture of the cookie brittle.

Enlist a helper to use (clean) hands to pat the dough into a rimmed baking sheet.  Watch that helper closely as he might sneak some of your dough!  Fun note:  this is my son Brooks way back in 2012 when he was just eleven years old.  He’s 17 now, and he’s 6’4″ tall.  You can see an updated photo of him on his blog:  RecipeBoy.com.  He has grown a lot!

You do need some kind of rimmed baking sheet for this recipe so the brittle can keep its shape.  Amazon sells a 15×10 Rimmed Baking Sheet, if you’re in need of one.

The dough bakes up thin and crispy.  Once it’s cooled, you should add some chocolate drizzle.  Just melt chips all on their own in a glass dish in the microwave.  Stir, scoop into a heavy duty zip baggie, snip the corner and squeeze your drizzle.  Then you can set it aside for a while to let the chocolate set, or you can put it into the refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes and it will solidify quickly.

You can be all neat with your drizzle, or you can go every which- way.

Once the chocolate has a chance to firm up, you’ll be able to lift the whole thing out of the pan like a giant cookie!

Use a knife to help give you the first crack.  Then break apart the giant piece of cookie brittle into jagged pieces, or use a knife to create neat cuts.

I prefer the “neat cut” look.  Is that a sign of an obsessively organized, neat -freak?

And what makes it “brittle,” you may ask?  Well, since it’s missing some of the key ingredients to make it a classic chocolate chip cookie (eggs, baking soda and brown sugar), you’re not going to bite into this one and expect a soft welcome.  It’s a harder texture… which means crunchy… which means serving wedges to dunk in milk is a brilliantly fabulous idea.  These are a nice addition to holiday cookie platters too.  I’d maybe sneak some red/green sprinkles onto the chocolate drizzle before it dries if you’re doing these for the holidays.  The verdict in my house from my my RecipeBoy:  “these are good.”  (And that’s pretty much a major endorsement from a pre-teen, who is not terribly talkative!!)

P.S. I know someone’s gonna ask, so I’m gonna just tell you.  You can’t make the recipe as-is into classically- shaped round cookies.  This recipe is for brittle, not cookies.

If you really love chocolate chip cookies, you will want to check out my nice collection of the best chocolate chip cookies!

• Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Jumbo Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Malted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Egg Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookies
• New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Browned Butter Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

The post Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle appeared first on Recipe Girl®.

Sausage Tomato Gnocchi is a flavorful tomato sauce with miniature sausage “meatballs” served over gnocchi.  A quick and easy meal that the family will all go crazy for! 

Tomato and Sausage Gnocchi

Hey everyone! Chelsea back from Chelsea’s Messy Apron with a good cold weather comfort food This is hands down one of the easiest and tastiest meals you’ll ever make! Don’t you love when little effort is rewarded with big flavor?!

How to make Tomato and Sausage Gnocchi:

1. Prepare the mini meatballs – Roll one pound of Italian sausage into small balls (about the size of a nickel). Add olive oil to a large nonstick skillet, heat to medium high, and brown the meatballs by gently turning around the meatballs for about 2-3 minutes. I recommend doing 1/2 of the meatballs at a time so that you have enough room in the skillet to brown them evenly. After all the meatballs are cooked, remove the meatballs to a plate and quickly wipe out the skillet.
2. Prepare the sauce – Using the same skillet, add 1/4 cup olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add in the garlic and wait until the garlic sizzles to add in the canned tomatoes and water. Add in the seasonings and submerge a sprig of basil into the sauce. Then, add in the meatballs, cover in sauce, and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.
3. Serve over gnocchi or spaghetti noodles: While the sauce is cooking, prepare your pasta of choice according to package instructions.

How to make your own homemade gnocchi:

For this recipe, I use store bought gnocchi because it is so much easier and is still super tasty. However, if you’re looking to make your own gnocchi, here’s how to do it:

1. Prepare the potatoes – Boil 2 pounds of potatoes (approximately 4 potatoes) with their skins on for about 20 minutes or until fork tender. Keeping the skins on helps prevent the potatoes from absorbing too much moisture. I recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes for their flavor and color, but other varieties would work as well. Drain well and allow the potatoes to cool and then remove the skins.
2. Make the dough – Rice the potatoes and measure out two cups of lightly packed riced potatoes. Stir in two egg yolks and 1 teaspoon of salt. Once combined, add 1/2 cup flour and stir until it becomes a thick, stiff dough. Gently knead the dough until smooth. Don’t add too much flour or over knead the dough or the gnocchi will become hard and dense. The dough should be light and airy and should still be slightly sticky.
3. Preparing the gnocchi – Using a floured surface, divide the dough into eight equally sized pieces. Roll each piece out gently until it resembles a long breadstick. The thicker the roll, the thicker the gnocchi. Cut the gnocchi into 3/4 inch pieces. If desired, push a fork against the gnocchi to give it a textured appearance.
4. Cooking the gnocchi – Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Gently remove excess flour and place the gnocchi into the pot. The gnocchi is cooked once it floats to the top. This typically takes 2-4 minutes.
5. Storing gnocchi – If left too long, gnocchi will quickly begin to stick to itself. To prevent the gnocchi from sticking, you should begin cooking it within 30 minutes. If you want to make the gnocchi ahead of time, you can freeze it. To properly freeze gnocchi, place the gnocchi on a floured baking sheet and leave it in the freezer until completely frozen (at least 2 hours). After they are completely frozen, you can place them in an airtight container in the freezer until you are ready to use them (for up to two months). When are you ready to cook your gnocchi, there’s no need to thaw them! Just cook the frozen gnocchi in boiling water.

Similar Recipes:

• Authentic Italian Bruschetta (SO easy!)
• Caprese Salad (with Basil Dressing)
• Bruschetta Pasta OR Bruschetta Chicken
• Italian Salad
• Italian Avocado Cucumber Salad
• Italian Orzo and Sausage Skillet

Sausage Tomato Gnocchi

 

Print

Author: Chelsea from Chelsea's Messy Apron

Ingredients

• 1 pound mild or hot ground Italian sausage
• 3 tablespoons + ¼ cup olive oil, separated
• 1 can (28 ounces) CRUSHED tomatoes, the higher the quality of these, the better it will taste!
• 5-6 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 sprig Fresh basil
• 2 packages (16 ounces EACH) mini potato gnocchi
• Optional: freshly grated Parmesan cheese, additional fresh basil
• Fine sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Instructions

1. Form very small "meatballs" with the ground Italian sausage. We're not adding anything to the sausage, just rolling it into small balls.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, add 1 and ½ tablespoons olive oil. Heat to medium high and then add in about ½ of the meatballs. Gently turn the meatballs over and cook for about 2-3 minutes or until they are browned (but not cooked through). Remove to a plate. Add another 1 and ½ tablespoons oil and repeat with the rest of the meatballs. Remove the rest of those meatballs to the plate. Quickly wipe out the skillet.
3. In the same skillet, add remaining ¼ cup olive oil. When the oil is hot, add in the garlic. As soon as the garlic sizzles, add in the canned tomatoes. Pour 1 cup water into the can of tomatoes and slosh around to get the rest of the tomatoes. Pour that into the skillet as well. Add dried oregano, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, and 1 teaspoon salt (or salt to taste). Stir. Add 1 sprig of basil and submerge it in the sauce.
4. Add the cooked meatballs into the mixture and gently stir until they are covered in the sauce. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring every now and again, or until completely cooked through. Discard the basil sprig.
5. Meanwhile, prepare the gnocchi according to package directions. Drain.
6. Top the gnocchi with the meatballs and sauce. Garnish with fresh basil, additional cracked pepper, & freshly grated Parmesan cheese