Week 7: Ricotta Cheesecake With Fresh Berries

In an ordinary summer, I would have made a blueberry pie last week. This, however, has not been an ordinary summer, even for a household that might not best be described as "ordinary" anyway. But we're flexible, right? Pie week has been delayed, but we did share this berry-topped cheesecake before my household temporarily separated for overnight camp and other out-of-state obligations.

This is not cheesecake in the New York sense of the word. It's short. It doesn't have two pounds of cream cheese in it. A slice won't sit in your stomach like a lead weight. It's a summer dessert, not a doorstop.

Two points of note, especially if you are considering trying out this recipe for company. According to the original recipe, the cake should stand about 2 inches high after cooling. Mine sunk more than that; it was maybe an inch tall at serving. We were happy with the texture nonetheless, but I imagine the cheesecake would be even lighter had it not collapsed so thoroughly. Also, we had trouble getting clean slices onto serving plates, but that's purely an aesthetic issue.

Ricotta Cheesecake With Fresh Berries
(Adapted from an Ellie Krieger recipe. Credit to Caboodle for the berry design. It would not be wrong to add a drizzle of chocolate to your serving plate.)

Ingredient note: Neufchatel (the American kind, anyway) is a lower-fat cream cheese; look for the Philadelphia brand in bricks next to the regular cream cheese. Do not substitute a low-fat cream cheese that comes in a tub, as the water content is different.

For the cheesecake:
1 container (15 ounces) part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
4 ounces Neufchatel cheese, softened
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt

For the topping:
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam (or another flavor of your choice)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Fresh blueberries and raspberries, about 6 ounces each, or other fruit

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Coat a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a food processor, process the ricotta cheese until smooth and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients and process until well blended, scraping the sides of the food processor once or twice and making sure no ingredients remain unmixed on the bottom. Pour into the springform pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes or until the center is just set.

Transfer the cheesecake to a wire rack to cool, then cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least three hours. When the cake has been thoroughly chilled, carefully remove the sides of the springform pan.

Bring the jam and lemon juice to a boil in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until smooth. Brush the jam mixture over the top of the cheesecake and place berries on top. Store the cake in the refrigerator.

Week 9: Blueberry Salsa and Cilantro-Basil Sauce

As CSA weeks go, this one was a bit ho-hum: Light on the produce -- corn, cucumbers, a single beet (goodness, what is the point of a single beet?); and heavy on the herbs -- cilantro, basil, and dill. So it was a herb-filled week all around.

Most of the dill, and all of the cucumbers, were dispatched in the form of pickles. We had corn with basil; cole slaw with dill and basil (using up Week 8's cabbage); vegetarian chili with corn and cilantro; a cilantro-basil sauce for fish; and a fruity salsa with more cilantro and basil.

I’ve hit overload with these herbs, and I still have some dill and basil to carry into Week 10. Oy. At least the food's been tasty. The cilantro-basil sauce was delicious over a pan-seared tuna steak, and would be equally good over poultry or beef or with Indian food. The salsa would work with chicken as well, but we just ate it with tortilla chips. I happened to pick up the blue-corn kind, but I don’t really recommend doing that: color-wise, the chips and the salsa match a little too well.

(I apparently go for fruit salsas. Here are recipes for Peach-Pepper Salsa for now and Apple Salsa for closer to the fall.)

Blueberry Salsa

(Adapted from Jones Family Farms)

3 cups blueberries, washed and dried (divided use)

1 small red onion, finely chopped

1 small jalapeno pepper, chopped; seeds and membrane removed before chopping if you desire less heat

1/2 cup (packed) basil leaves, slivered

1/2 cup (packed) cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

3 Tbsp fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)

1/2 tsp coarse salt, or to taste

Place 2 cups of blueberries in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add onion, jalapeno, and herbs to food processor and pulse again to combine ingredients. Remove to bowl. Stir in lime, salt, and remaining blueberries. Allow flavors to blend one-half hour or more.

Cilantro-Basil Sauce

(Adapted from Laurie Constantino)

1 cup (packed) cilantro leaves

1/4 cup (packed) basil leaves

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped; seeds and membrane removed before chopping if you desire less heat

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

2 Tbsp water

Put all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process until combined. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. Serve sauce over fish, beef, chicken, vegetables, or what-have-you.

Bonus Post: Blueberry-Lemon Scones

Late July is blueberry pie season here, and while I respect the tradition of pie-for-breakfast, I recognize that practice is less accepted outside of New England. (Though, when you think about it, how far is pie from blueberry danish or muffins or Pop-Tarts?) Anyway, if you can't fathom pie for breakfast or brunch, I suggest making scones as an alternative.

Bakery scones generally disappoint me -- too heavy or too dry -- but this home recipe won me over. It has a nice balance of flavors and moistness without being cloyingly sweet. The scones are definitely best eaten warm on the day you bake them. Revive day-old scones (if you have any) with a quick zap in the microwave.

Blueberry-Lemon Scones
(Adapted from Baking Bites. Makes 8 scones.)

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp cold butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup milk (see note, below)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 cup fresh blueberries, washed and patted dry

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Have on hand a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the flour mixture appears sandy and no pieces of butter remain larger than a pea.

Stir in the milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest with a fork until the dough comes together. If the dough is too wet, add in another tablespoon of flour. Knead the dough in your bowl for about 1 minute. Flatten the dough slightly, sprinke with blueberries, and gently knead or fold in the blueberries so they are evenly distributed in the dough.

Divide the dough in half and scoop each half onto the baking sheet, keeping a couple of inches between the mounds of dough. Flatten each mound into a circle about 3/4-inch thick. (You can do this by putting a piece of wax paper or parchment paper on top of the dough, and pressing down with your hand.) Slice each circle into quarters with a knife or bench scraper.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Note: I used skim milk, because that's what we keep in our fridge. Any kind of milk should work. I think more fat would just add to the creaminess of the scone, but I didn't test the recipe that way.

Week 8: Portion-Controlled Cobblers, and Other Delights for Two

With both girls at overnight camp for the first time, The Programmer and I are adjusting to having dinners as a twosome.

Full Disclosure No. 1: The best thing we ate this week did not come from our kitchen. Rather, it was a fancy-schmancy dinner we had during a weekend get-away to celebrate our anniversary. (Sample menu item: Pan-roasted duck breast with braised celery root, wilted Asian greens, pineapple marmalade, and seared foie gras.)

Back home, the cooking was decidedly more pedestrian. (Sample menu item: Tuna from a can; skinny eggplants, brushed with olive oil and charred under the broiler; and fresh beans, shelled, boiled, and served with just a bit of salt and pepper.)

Actually, that was a pretty good dinner, and the leftover beans were good cold, with some thyme and a drizzle of olive oil. Other simple delights from this week's basket:

• Beets -- roasted, sliced, and served at room temperature with feta cheese;
• Tomatoes -- chopped with cucumber and scallions for a chopped salad;
• And green beans -- steamed and mixed with fresh corn, tomatoes, basil, and oregano.

As it was our anniversary week, we needed a blueberry dessert, too. (Here's the explanation from last year, in case you missed it.) With only two of us at home, it seemed prudent to keep the baked goods to small quantities. Hence, mini blueberry cobblers.

Full Disclosure No. 2: I'm bending the rules with this recipe, as the blueberries didn't come in our CSA share this past week, but they did come from the farm. I'm sure somebody's CSA is providing blueberries now.

Portion-Controlled Blueberry Cobblers

(Recipe adapted from The Pink Apron, who started with an Apple Cranberry Crisp recipe from Smitten Kitchen, who in turn started with a Michael Chiarello recipe in Bon Appetit.)

Filling:
1.5 cups fresh blueberries
4 tsp Splenda granulated, or sugar
2 tsp corn starch
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind

Topping:
1/3 cup flour
2 Tbsp corn meal
4 tsp Splenda granulated, or sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
5 tsp chilled butter, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp fat-free milk

Process:
Toss together the filling ingredients until well combined. Divide among four (6 ounce) ramekins and set aside.

Place flour, corn meal, Splenda or sugar, baking powder, and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times to blend. Add butter and pulse until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Transfer to a medium bowl and add milk. Stir until ingredients are evenly moistened.

Distribute topping over the filling. Place ramekins in the oven and bake until the topping is golden and the filling is bubbly, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm. A little whipped cream or ice cream on the top wouldn't hurt.

Bonus Post: Easy as Pie

The Programmer and I have this thing about blueberry pie. It was the dessert that I made for our first anniversary dinner -- the one that came exactly a year before our wedding -- and we have celebrated each year with pie ever since. Lucky for us, our anniversary falls in July, at the height of the local blueberry season.

Blueberries were plentiful at the farm last week when we went to pick our own (yeah for that CSA voucher from earlier in the season!). We picked 3.14 pounds -- just enough, The Programmer astutely noted, to make pi. (Honestly, I'm not making that weight up; it was on the receipt.)

Our anniversary pie recipe comes from The Union Leader newspaper, which in those days ran a column featuring home cooks. It's a ridiculously easy pie. It's the kind of pie to make if you are a bit intimidated by the idea of making a pie. It's the kind of pie that can be made without turning on your oven. For me, it's the pie that launched a marriage, which is reason enough to make it every year.

Nita-Nee's Anniversary Blueberry Pie

Filling Ingredients

3 cups blueberries
water
juice of one lemon
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 9-inch pie crust, baked (not deep dish); graham cracker crust preferred (see note below)
whipped cream

Directions

Wash and drain the berries. Measure 1 cup berries, 2 Tbsp water, lemon juice, and sugar into a medium saucepan. Heat to boiling, then cook and stir 3 minutes. Blend together the cornstarch and 3 Tbsp water. Stir mixture into berries and bring back to a boil. Heat and stir until the mixture thickens and clears (consistency will be like jam). Remove from heat. Stir in remaining berries. Turn filling into pie shell and chill until set. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

Note

The original recipe called for a 9-inch baked pie crust, and you can certainly use any kind of tart or pie dough here. I have always used a graham cracker crust (remember what I said about intimidation). You can buy a prepared graham cracker crust -- I won't tell -- but it's easy (tastier!) to make your own.

Graham Cracker Crust

1.5 cup crumbs (20 to 22 graham crackers, or use the crushed crumbs from a box)
1 tsp flour
1/2 cup melted butter
2 Tbsp (scant) sugar
[3/4 tsp cinnamon -- I leave this out when I'm making blueberry pie, but it's good in other recipes]

Mix the crumbs with the flour and sugar (and the cinnamon, if using); blend with the melted butter. Press the crumb mixture firmly onto the bottom and sides of a lightly buttered 9-inch pie plate, to a thickness of about 1/4-inch. Chill crust 45 minutes to an hour before filling OR bake in a 375 degree oven for 7 minutes, then cool completely before filling.

Sugar-Free Variation

You can make the pie filling and crust with Splenda instead of sugar. Be sure to refrigerate leftovers, as Splenda does not have the same preservative qualities as sugar.