By 3:30 yesterday, I had chicken breasts defrosting and a risotto recipe on the kitchen counter. But all of that changed when I went to water my herb garden. The neighbor across the street works for a food delivery company. Occasionally they get an over order and he brings it home to share around the neighborhood. We've been given industrial sized packages of oatmeal and monster sized cans of fruit. This time, he asked if we wanted ricotta. Well, sure! Ricotta is good stuff! We'll take some! And that is how I came to be the proud owner of a 5 lb tub of ricotta. Yes, 5 pounds.... No, really, I'm not kidding.
All I know about ricotta is that it is used in lasagna and stuffed shells. Neither of those dishes are going to happen on a Monday night in my house - unless I managed something crazy over the weekend. So, I went to my ever faithful friend, Google, and looked for chicken and ricotta recipes. For these last minute dinner searches, I have a very specific recipe searching style. I only look at things that I have all of the ingredients for already. Yeah, I know, not adventurous, but I've learned to live with it.
So, I'm paging through recipe after recipe (no, I will not be stuffing chicken breasts tonight!) when I finally come across one with promise. Pasta? Check. Tomatoes? Yep. 1 c ricotta? Puhleeze! Salt/pepper and fresh garlic? Of course. But then, the two ingredients that made me say "YES! I MUST make this recipe!" Fresh parsley and fresh mint!
Whoo-hoo! Some of the herbs of my garden! Yes, I'm easily pleased. But it was SO nice to be chopping these very freshly harvested bunches up a few hours later.So that is the story of dinner last night. It was actually a fine "comfort food" kind of dish - flavorful, fresh and satisfying. I'll probably make a modified version of it again in the near future - especially since we have all this ricotta. And, BTW, if ya'll have some favorite ricotta recipes, let me know. 5 pounds of ricotta is A LOT of ricotta!
4 comments:
How fun. And you have inspired me; I think I am going to use one of my upstairs dormers for a herb garden (AN herb garden?)
I think that your house would like that! And there are all kinds of pretty window boxes out there....
Riccotta the blandness of cheeses. It's great with fruit for breakfast (like cottage cheese without the strange texture) I like to make pesto (Basil, garlic and pine nuts) and mix it in with my riccota because I often find riccotta boring but that is also what makes it versitile. I say be creative in how you flavor it. Rosemary and rasberries???
So far I've found recipes for 2 cookies, a quiche, pancakes, and an orange-chocolate-ricotta cake. I figure I'll be able to use this stuff up one way or another!
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