baguette

Friday Faves plus Grilled and Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe

Oh man, it’s happening.

In just the past two days we’ve turned off the swamp cooler at night, I’ve noticed the change of the angle of the sun, and Monday is D-day: the first day of school.

Although all of this signals the end of summer and our time of being foot-loose and flip-flop free, the harvest season reminds me that it’s time to take care of myself, to ignore the deadlines, the commitments and the easy way out.

Fall reminds me to take advantage of the harvest and eat fresh foods—either from the garden or locally grown.

It reminds me to take advantage of the cooler temps and work out my crampy hips—thanks to long hours in my computer chair —with evening or early morning walks—and hopefully soon, 5K runs.?,!??/!!*continue to the recipe… about Friday Faves plus Grilled and Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe

Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

I’ve been feeling a bit DIY these days. And I blame it all on fall.

Homemade pizza dough, fresh baked bread from MY oven and even making tofu from scratch (a blog post is coming soon, I promise you won’t want to miss it!)

So after trolling through several recipes for homemade ricotta, I pulled up my bootstraps, dashed to the store for a new aka un-cracked candy thermometer and gave it a whirl.

May I just say, in my best Giada voice with a trill of the ‘R’, “REEE-COOOAAA-TA!” Seriously? Making ricotta is THIS EASY? And THIS QUICK? It takes me more time to put on my makeup in the morning. Why have I never tried becoming a cheesemaker before?

Next time I’ll experiment with the amount of time I let the cheese drain in the colander—similar to the tofu pressing process—and see what sort of variety I get in the cheese’s texture. Maybe a bit creamier, maybe a bit firmer. Either which way, I know I’m going to love it.

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

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Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

Fresh and easy appetizer for any occasion.

Ingredients

Fresh Ricotta Cheese

from Donna Hay magazine
makes 1 1/4 cups
6 cups 48 fl oz full cream milk
2 T white vinegar
1 tsp kosher salt
In a saucepan adjust a candy thermometer to side and cook milk over medium heat to 176 degrees F. Remove from heat, add vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes until curds form. Line a colander with cheesecloth and place over a bowl. Using a slotted spoon, Carefully transfer curds to the colander and allow to drain for 5 minutes. Spoon ricotta into a glass or ceramic dish, cover and store in refrigerator for up to one week.

Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

inspired by Donna Hay magazine
serves 4-6 as an appetizer
for peppered ricotta crostini
1 1/4 cups fresh ricotta cheese
1/3 cup grated pecorino or parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic pressed
kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
8 slices french or sourdough baguette
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a bowl combine ricotta, parmesan, garlic, salt and pepper. Spoon ricotta into 2 large ramekins or other bake-to-serve vessel (6 oz) and bake for 30 minutes until bubbly and golden. While ricotta is baking, lightly oil baguette slices and toast. To plate, serve baguette slices topped with baked ricotta mixture, roasted tomatoes* and sprinking of fresh thyme leaves. Serve additional ricotta on the side for extra dipping opportunities.
*for roasted tomatoes
1 pint cherry tomatoes
olive oil
kosher salt
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a bowl toss tomatoes with a few drizzles of olive oil, just enough to coat. Cut tomatoes in half and place seed side up on a foil-covered cookie sheet, sprinkle with kosher salt and roast in oven for 2- 2/12 hours, depending on size of tomatoes. Remove when edges are crisped but tomatoes still have some plump. Store in olive oil for up to one week.

And now, for a little more cheesey appetizer goodness.

photo > Dishing Up Delights

With just a 5 ingredients, making sure they’re at optimal freshness is the secret to Dishing Up Delights’ come-together-in-five-minutes Figs with Fresh Ricotta and Pistachios appetizer. For a creamier cheese texture, next time give marscarpone a try.

photo > Bell’alimento

Bite size poppers from the homemade ricotta queen herself, Paula shares Bell’alimento’s Fried Olives Stuffed with Cheeses and Herbs of which she has annointed “the incredibly addictive app”. I’m puckering already.

photo > Five and Spice

When Amy described her Zucchini and Ricotta Fritters as “sizzling little guys practically grow legs as they come off the griddle and go leaping right into your mouth” it was a no-brainer that this recipe from Five and Spice was going to put my zucchini garden straight out of business.

This Wednesday will be our Family Food Flashback with a round-up of childhood faves. If you have a fave you’d like to submit to the Flashback, e-mail me by Tuesday, Oct.4 by 3 p.m. with a link to your post or link to your post on Twitter with the hashtag #familyfoodflash.

We’re ramping up for debut issue of FoodieCrush magazine. When will November 15 get here already? If you’re interested in advertising and partnership opportunities, contact me at heidi at foodiecrush dot com.

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please subscribe to foodiecrush and follow me on twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

Peach & Tomato Bruschetta Recipe

Baby toes, baby breath, baby kisses right in the crook of their fat, little, creased neck. The things I crave when I hear a friend is going to have a baby.

So when a bunch of Utah food bloggers got together to celebrate the beautiful-babe-to-soon-be of our friends Maria and Josh of Two Peas and Their Pod, it was the perfect excuse to get together and talk about two of our favorite things. Babies and food. Big surprise there, right?

But thanks to a long day at work and juggling after school pick-ups, I had zero time to bake or track down the perfect recipe for my contribution to the pot luck eat-ivities. I had to come up with something fast.

So with a freshly delivered sack of Brigham City peaches delivered to my house the day before–by our friend Paul, who could be dropping off anything from a convenience store freezer to a sack full of sprinkler heads—I knew peaches would be in the mix.

Next, I hit the garden, harvested some basil, pulled a few ripe Early Girl tomatoes—that Paul planted as a surprise one weekend while I was away, so HE’D have fresh tomatoes this summer—and a few yellow, zebra and orange cherry tomatoes, I grabbed some garlic and then the olive oil and I was on my way.

So how did the bruschetta turn out? Let’s just say Maria went back for thirds. And then took the rest home to Josh. HOME RUN!

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

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Peach and Tomato Bruschetta

A simple summer bruschetta recipe with fresh peaches and tomatoes everyone loves.

Ingredients

2-3 to matoes seeded and chopped
2 peaches chopped
2 large cloves garlic one smashed and left whole, the other chopped finely
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves slivered
1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup fruity olive oil divided
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
sourdough baguette

Instructions

In a saucepan, sauté 1/4 cup olive oil with smashed clove of garlic over medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until fragrant, being careful not to let garlic burn. Remove from heat. Slice the baguette in 1/4 inch slices and brush with olive oil mixture. Place rounds in toaster oven and toast in batches until lightly browned. Let cool. Combine all other ingredients and mix gently.
Top baguette rounds with fruit mixture and serve immediately.

TIP: I served the bruschetta in a bowl with toasted sourdough crostinis on the side so the little buggers wouldn’t sog up and be party poopers. But if you are serving straight away, definitely top the crostini rounds with the fruity mixture and serve on a platter. And don’t skip seeding the tomatoes or you’ll end up with a soup. A very tasty soup, but that’s a different blog post.

Big shout outs to Barbara of Barbara Bakes for hostessing at her lovely home and Deb of Taste and Tell for hatching the plan.

And now, who’s ready to PAR-TAE?

Kalyn making her way to the baby shower feast and look at that cute baby boy decor thanks to Deb’s cute, crafty sister.

Okay I’m hungry again all over.

From left: The lady of the hour, Two Peas and Their Expanding Pod‘s Maria, Kelley of Mountain Mama Cooks, Annalise of Completely Delicious and Deb of Taste and Tell who brought on the baby cravings with her little man Easton.

Creamy, orangeliscious-ness was on our hostess-with-the-mostess Barbara of Barbara Bakes’ menu, with her Creamy Orange Fruit Dip, fruity, light and the perfect compliment to the baby-smorgasbord.

Dara of Cookin’ Canuck gave us all a bit of the northern lights with her Smoked Salmon Appetizer, a riff on one of her popular blog posts of Smoked Salmon and Horseradish Mascarpone in Wonton Cups

The beauty contest award went to Kalyn’s Kitchen’s Marinated Tomato Salad with Parsley thanks to Kalyn’s prolific zebra tomato bounty. You know from her blog that her homegrown zebras are a favorite summertime ingredient. And for that Kalyn, we thank you. BTW, she uses this to fertilize those lush beauties.

Tiffany of Food Finery was another daredevil in the group, bringing a recipe she’d ingeniously whipped up just the night before the party, her Hot Crab Dip, with lots of fresh crab chunks in a creamy center served with freshly made white corn tortilla triangles.

Kelley’s Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad (above right hand corner) is another recipe that has yet made it to one of our favorite blogs, but we hope to see it on Mountain Mama Cooks soon so you can savor the perfect balance of noodles and roasted veg, light but fulfilling.

And of course there was no shortage in the dessert department. First round went to Deb’s mother’s secret Eclair recipe, which sadly for you has yet to make it to a Taste and Tell‘s blog post. So, just to let you know, you totally missed out on these babies. Not to be outdone, Becky of The Vintage Mixer pimped out a one of my favorite childhood treat of mint chocolate wafers replicated in the fine Mint Chocolate Pudding Dessert Shots. Dessert. In a cute baby cup. Nuff said.

Becky of The Vintage Mixer getting her baby fix.

As if we didn’t need enough baby encouragement already, Easton may have given Maria a false sense of babydom, because he is the most mellow baby ever. I mean, has the kid EVER cried?

Okay. The most perfect gift ever. Way to outdo us all Tiffany.

Dara, the perfect guest, taking notes for the mom-to-be.

Barb loves Kaylyn‘s favorite baby gift: Osh Kosh overalls.

top row from left: Tiffany of Food Finery, Sandra of Everyday Southwest, Barbara of Barbara Bakes, Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod, Donna of Everyday Southwest, Annalise of Completely Delicious, Kate and Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen

bottom row from left: Heidi of FoodieCrush, Lindsey of Cafe Johnsonia, Dara of Cookin’ Canuck, Becky of The Vintage Mixer, Kelley of Mountain Mama Cooks and Deborah of Taste and Tell

Didn’t get your baby fill here? Well then you must check out the virtual baby shower that many of Maria’s www friends threw for her, with so many delicious recipes any mama-to-be’s cravings will be a thing of the past.

photos: FoodieCrush

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baguette

Friday Faves plus Grilled and Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe

Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients

Fresh Ricotta Cheese

Baked Peppered Ricotta Crostini with Roasted Tomatoes

Peach & Tomato Bruschetta Recipe

Peach and Tomato Bruschetta

Ingredients

Instructions

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