I decided this morning that it was spring enough for lemon ricotta pancakes. Unfortunately this meant it was also spring enough to pull on our rubber boots and head out to the mud pit that is our back yard armed with garbage bags and poop scoops and attempt to make it a little less like a slushy poo Slip-n-Slide. The top layers of the glacier behind our house have melted, leaving a thick, icy, dirty underbelly, complete with pieces of Lou’s blankies, socks, kitchen utensils that have been missing since Thanksgiving, and Star Wars action figures half-embedded in ice. (Mike needed to boil the kettle and pour it over Han Solo in order to retrieve him. It was almost like carbonite.)
It’s a good thing we were so fortified by breakfast. Remember when I told you how enamoured I was with recipes as a kid? That I had my own recipe box, and took notes, and tore recipes out of magazines? At the time, lemon-ricotta pancakes seemed to me the absolute epitome of springtime gourmet ladies-who-brunch. Ricotta was something real chefs used instead of cottage cheese. Lemon was far more refined than chocolate. Not a spring goes by that I don’t at least ponder lemon-ricotta pancakes, whether I actually make them or not. And this (almost) spring, I have all this lovely homemade ricotta to make use of.
Today it occurred to me that while lemon-ricotta pancakes most often come with berries on top, I might add another lemon dimension with a sweet-tart lemon syrup to drizzle over. All I did was squeeze the juice from the lemon I zested into the pancake batter into a small pot, add as much sugar (sugar + water = simple syrup, so it stands to reason that sugar + lemon juice = lemon syrup), bring it to a simmer enough to dissolve the sugar, add about as much maple syrup, and pour the warm mixture over the pancakes. Lemon bliss.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
adapted from Patent and the Pantry and a bunch of others…
4 eggs, separated
1 cup ricotta
3 Tbsp. sugar
grated zest of a lemon
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the egg yolks, ricotta, sugar and lemon zest. Stir in the flour. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry; fold a third at a time into the ricotta mixture.
Heat a drizzle of oil (and perhaps a bit of butter) in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet (or any pan you want to use) set over medium heat. Scoop about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan, spread it out a bit and let it cook until golden on the bottom (bubbles won’t rise to the surface as readily with these), then flip and cook on the other side until golden and cooked through. Makes about 6 medium pancakes.
Lemon Maple Syrup
juice of a lemon (about 3 Tbsp.)
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/4-1/2 cup pure maple syrup
Stir together the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan set over medium-high heat; bring to a simmer and stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and stir in the maple syrup. Serve warm. (Keeps in the fridge for a few weeks.)
One Week Ago: Peanut Butter & Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookies
March 06 2010 | breakfast | 21 Comments »
I may have shared this tidbit with you already: when I was in grade 3, I told my class that when I grew up I wanted to be the food editor of Canadian Living magazine. I even read my Mom’s subscription. I began my career as a food nerd early.
The food editor at the time (and still today), Elizabeth Baird was one of relatively few food writers of the eighties and the only I knew, and I wanted to be her. (8 year olds, unless they happen to have been born into a food-writing family, tend to not know of food writers, let alone idolize them like their friends might Avril Lavigne. And it wasn’t just a phase; as a teenager, I wanted to dye my hair silvery-white and get bangs.
There were other food writers of her time – Rose Reisman, Rose Murray, Anne Lindsay – they were the faces and voices of Canadian cuisine, and I thought of them as pioneers, trendsetters – the ones dialing in the menus and trends of our Canadian kitchens. I still have old copies of the magazine, and their books are still some of the most weathered on my shelves; the ones I learned to cook from, they made me feel like an adult when I moved away from home and (eventually) the novelty of Hamburger Helper and Eggos wore off.
Yesterday, a copy of Anne Lindsay’s new tome, Lighthearted at Home, the very best of Anne Lindsay, arrived at my door. It’s like an encyclopedia, or a phone book – a large volume containing every possible kind of recipe one might ever need – the best of her cooking career, in a single volume. Flipping through, I was instantly sucked into the nostalgia of the baking section – Elizabeth Baird’s Chocolate Angel Food Cake, Best-Ever Date Squares (known in my grandma’s day, and referenced here, as Matrimonial Slice) and Raisin Cupcakes with Lemon Icing, the same recipe I recall transcribing into a notebook a couple decades ago; raisins soaked in boiling water and then drained, reserving some of the liquid for the cakes – the recipe comes from her mother-in-law, Olive Lindsay. I can’t possibly not make them. W, who loves raisins almost above all else (all superheroes excluded, of course) might become ecstatic at the notion of turning them into an actual cupcake.
But I liked the look of her Easy Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies – made with oat bran, wheat germ and whole wheat flour, they seemed potentially tweedy-crispy, rather than heavy… they turned out crisp-edged and nutty, with the rough texture of an oatmeal cookie and none of the heavy doughiness you might expect from something so loaded down with grains.
Out of oat bran, I used barley flour, and a little less of it – about half a cup. I turned the butter down to half a cup, added a tablespoon of vanilla instead of water, added some chunky toasted walnuts and fewer dried cranberries.
Grainy Cranberry-Walnut-Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Lighthearted at Home, by Anne Lindsay
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oat bran or 1/2 cup barley flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour, oat bran, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir until the batter starts to come together; add the chocolate chips, cranberries and walnuts and stir or beat on low speed just until the batter is combined.
Drop the dough in large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray or lined with parchment; flatten each cookie a little with your hand or the back of a fork. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until just set around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 2 dozen cookies.
For dinner we ate very mediocre frozen thin-crust chicken and spinach pizza while W had a bath, having slid through a pile of newly-thawed dog poo (ah, spring), and then went to watch Where the Wild Things Are at the Lantern in Inglewood. A bag of cookies came with us, warm from the oven.
And guess what! Being as it’s Friday, I have a copy for you. 500 recipes, almost as many pages – it’s a whole lotta cookbook. If you have a cookie recipe that makes you the most happy, I’d love to hear it. (And share links, if you like!) Otherwise, I always love to hear what you ate/made for dinner last night.
(I do a random draw on Tuesdays, and am happy to ship it anywhere it needs to go!)
March 06 2010 | cookies & squares | 91 Comments »
