national cheesecake day

Though there really should be more than one annual National Cheesecake Day, here's a wonderful recipe in honor of this creamy occasion from Good Housekeeping's Comfort Food! Scrumptious Classics Made Easy recipe collection (2011 edition).

Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake 

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tbsps butter or margarine, softened
3 to 4 lemons
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 packages reduced fat cream cheese (neufchatel), softened
1 container (15 ounces) part-skim ricotta cheese
4 large eggs
2 cups half and half or light cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 deg.  Wrap the outside of a 9-inch springform pan with heavy-duty foil to prevent batter leaking.

In pan, mix graham cracker crumbs and butter with fork until crumbs are moistened.  With hand, press mixture firmly onto bottom of pan.  Bake crust 10 minutes.  Cool on wire rack for about 15 minutes.

Reset oven to 325 deg.  From 2 lemons, grate 2 teaspoons peel and squeeze 1/3 cup juice.  In small bowl, stir together sugar and cornstarch until blended. In a large bowl, with mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese and ricotta until smooth, about 4 minutes.  Slowly beat in sugar mixture.  Reduce mixer speed to low; beat in eggs, half and half, vanilla, and lemon peel and juice until just blended, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula.

Pour batter onto crust.  Bake 1 hour.  Turn off oven; let cheesecake remain in oven for 1 hour.

Remove cake from oven.  To help prevent cracking as the cake cools, run a knife between edge of cake and pan.  Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 2 hours.  Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 6 hours.

To serve, remove foil and side of pan and place cheesecake on plate.  Cut 8 very thin lemon slices for garnish.  Makes 16 servings, about 300 calories each.  (Good Housekeeping tip for perfect servings of cheesecake--that don't stick to your knife--dip knife into warm water and wipe dry before cutting each slice.)

[Image from Wikimedia Commons]

sunset cook taste savor

Sunset Magazine spotlights living in the American West, and this collection of recipes is a vivid celebration of the many wonderful, natural ingredients that region has to offer.  Boosted by the plentiful bounty of California and the Pacific Northwest, among the sixteen featured base ingredients are artichokes, berries, avocados, citrus, tomatoes, apples, cheeses, New Mexico chiles, mushrooms, coffee, dried fruit and nuts. Sample recipes include Mango Chicken Boats with Macadamia Nuts (endive leaves form the tiny boats), White Wine Coq au Vin, Zinfandel Risotto with Roasted Beets and Walnuts, Warm Dates with Soft Blue Cheese and Prosciutto, Mushroom Pate, Orange and Basil Mussels, Heirloom Tomato Soup, Spicy Watermelon Salad, Fig Gingerbread, Tangerine Olive Oil Cake and Blackberry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream.  And many more, grouped by the featured ingredient and accompanied by some enticing photos.

This quick and fairly simple recipe is Sunset's Raw-Spiced Applesauce, which as the book recommends can be made for breakfast, as a snack, or even a light dessert -- or served alongside Cook Taste Savor's White Cheddar Sage Popovers:

4 unpeeled Red Delicious apples (about 1 and 1/4 lbs.), cored and cut into small chunks
1/2 tsp orange zest
2 tbsp fresh orange juice
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp cinnamon
Pinch kosher salt
1/4 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans

Combine all ingredients except yogurt and pecans in a food processor and whirl until smooth (bits of peel will be visible), 3 to 5 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl if necessary.  Divide among 4 bowls and top each with a dollop of yogurt and pecans.

easy americana

For July 4th and from All-American Meals (Haystack Media Pub.), here's a recipe that's about as easy and cheesy as American cooking gets:

Smoked Turkey Crescents

8 oz pkg. refrigerated crescent rolls
3 tablespoons prepared ranch salad dressing
1/2 lb. deli-style smoked turkey, sliced thinly
8 thin slices Gruyere cheese (about 2 x 4")

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place the pastry/crescent roll pieces on a large baking sheet. Spread the ranch dressing on the pastry and top each with smoked turkey slices.  Layer the cheese on top of the turkey and roll each pastry, beginning at the widest end.  Bake for about 25 minutes or until browned and heated through.

(For a veggie version, substitute fresh heirloom tomato slices for turkey in each roll.) 

American Heart Association's Low-Salt Cookbook

Low-salt eating may seem like a culinary prison people get sentenced to by their doctors in order to stabilize an unhealthy diet, but there really isn't any reason why you can't be more proactively salt-conscious without sacrificing variety and taste.  The American Heart Association has several editions of its Low-Salt Cookbook series, but the one from 2006/2007 (3rd Edition) features a particularly diverse selection of recipes.  There are nutritional and psychological tips to help transition into better eating patterns, along with healthier, natural salt/seasoning substitutes and flavor enhancers.

Recipes include Potato Skin Nachos and Red Bell Pepper Crostini, Melon-Berry Kebabs and Horseradish and Dill Sour Cream Dip among the Appetizers and Snacks; Gazpacho, Minestrone, Corn and Green Chile are among the Soups (there are also recipes for making your own lower sodium Beef, Chicken and Vegetable stock base broths); Salads and Salad Dressings include Spicy Shrimp Salad, Asian Brown Rice and Vegetable Salad, Summer Pasta Salad, Southwestern Black-Eyed Pea Salad, Red Potato Salad, Ranch Dressing with Fresh Herbs and Cider Vinaigrette; and then there are plenty of seafood (like Pecan Crusted Catfish with Zesty Tartar Sauce), poultry (e.g., Blackberry and Balsamic Chicken), beef (e.g., Sirloin with Red Wine and Mushroom Sauce) and vegetarian (Crustless Garden Quiche, Eggplant Lasagna, Fettuccine Alfredo) offerings.

The cookbook also has chapters for Breads and Breakfast Dishes and a nice assortment of desserts, such as Denver Chocolate Pudding Cake, Caramel Flan, Deep-Dish Cherry Pie and Strawberry Banana Sorbet.  And because condiments tend to be high in sodium or if low in sodium they tend to be lacking in zing, there are recipes for homemade ketchup, chili sauce, barbecue sauce, tartar sauce, mustard and mayonnaise that -- as the book suggests -- may make you "wonder why you ever bought the bottled kind."

a teacup's worth of risotto

This delightful little recipe for Risotto à la Milanese is from the London Vegetarian Society's circa 1891 cookbook:

Take a teacupful of rice, wash it thoroughly and dry it.  Chop up a small onion and put it in the bottom of a small stew-pan and fry the onion to a high-brown colour.  Now add the dry rice, and stir this up with the onion and butter till the rice also is fried of a nice light-brown colour.  Now add two breakfastcupfuls of stock or water and a pinch of powdered saffron, about sufficient to cover a threepenny-piece; let the rice boil for ten or eleven minutes, move the saucepan to the side of the fire and let is stand for twenty minutes or half an hour till it has absorbed all the stock or water.  Now mix in a couple of tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese.  Flavour with a little pepper and salt, and serve the whole very hot.

almost too true to be funny

All The Comments on Every Food Blog...so glad the Yahtzee dice substitution worked out.

vote for cake

On this Election Day, one more recipe from 1915's The Suffrage Cookbook seems like an informed political decision, and since it's been a devilish campaign season, this old school Devil's Food Cake can maybe sweeten the outcome:



Devil's Food

2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup grated chocolate
1 1/2 teaspoons soda

Dissolve soda in boiling water and pour over chocolate and let cool. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add the eggs and other things. Bake in layers.