Seriously Delicious Raspberry Ricotta Cake (or rhubarb)

Seriously Delicious Raspberry Ricotta Cake 

Bon Appetit's cake is rated over 1000 times with a 4 1/2 stars and a whopping 97% said "I'd make it again" so I had to try it.  Kendall had brought me some homemade ricotta and I didn't want it to go to waste and I had some rhubarb that I wanted to use so I put the two together and I am obsessed with making it again!  Add me to the list.  It's more of an European coffee cake texture and not overly sweet, just perfectly sweet.  I hope this encourages you to try making this cake and use any kind of fruit you like.
I also added a crunchy nut topping for good measure.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups ricotta
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, blackberries or 2 cups sliced fresh or frozen rhubarb

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper or spray it with nonstick spray.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl.

Whisk eggs, ricotta, and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth then fold in the butter. Fold into the dry ingredients just until blended followed by the raspberries or other fruit, taking care not to crush the berries. Scrape batter into prepared pan and put additional berries on top if you would like or add;

Crunchy Topping.  Melt 2 tablespoons butter add 1/3 cup rolled oats, 1/3 cup chopped pecans and 2 tablespoons flour together and sprinkle on top of cake before baking.

Bake for 50 minutes, check to see if its done and probably bake 10-15 minutes more.  This cake looks brown at 50 minutes but it needs to be a little dryer, because the fruit is moist, before you take it out of the oven so it doesn't fall. 

Serve warm or cold, it doesn't matter because it still tastes delicious!

Crispy Pork Carnitas for Tacos

Crispy Pork Carnitas for tacos

I made these for McKay's birthday one year recently. We all fell in love with the delicious taste and was really easy to make.  I prefer the oven method but, if you have all day and want to use a slow cooker the directions are there too.  Just be sure and crisp them up before you serve them. 

Carnitas

• 4 pounds boneless pork butt (or shoulder)

• 3 teaspoons salt

• 2 teaspoon pepper

• 1 tablespoon dried oregano (or Mexican oregano)

• 1 tablespoon ground cumin

• 1 large white onion, cut into wedges

• 8 cloves garlic, or 4 teaspoons minced

• 2 limes , juiced

• 2 large oranges , juiced (or 3/4 cup orange juice)

• 3/4 cup coke or 1 mini can of dr pepper (Original or Mexican coke is ideal)
• 2 bay leaves
• 
  
• INSTRUCTIONS

Rinse and pat dry pork with a paper towel. In a cast iron pot with a lid put the meat and all the other ingredients on top of the pork and cover. Place in oven at 350 for about 5 hours.  Uncover the meat and cook for an additional hour letting the oven crisp up the outside of the pork. In the pan shred in large chunks for tacos.  The crispy outside and the soft inside of the meat is what makes it so good.  All the liquid in the pan will be absorbed when you shred it and will keep the meat moist.

Or you may cook it this way with more steps:  

Slow cooker method: In the bowl of a 6-quart slow cooker, add pork, salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, onion, garlic, lime juice, orange juice, coke, and bay leaves.
Cover and cook on low heat setting for 8-10 hours, or high heat for 5-6 hours (until the meat falls apart). After you cook it you will need to crisp in the oven or on the stove. 

TO CRISP IN THE OVEN:Transfer the pork to a baking sheet lightly sprayed with cooking oil spray (or lined with aluminium foil or parchment paper).
Pour 1 ladle full (about 1 cup) of the liquid from the slow cooker over the pork to season. Broil for 5-10 minutes on high heat until the meat becomes golden browned and crispy on the edges.
TO CRISP ON STOVE:Heat about 1 tablespoon of oil in a non stick pan or cast iron skillet over high heat. When pan is hot, add pork in batches of two or three, and sear until just beginning to crisp. Ladle over about 1/2 cup of left over liquid, and continue cooking until the juices begin to reduce down and the meat is nice and crispy!

TO SERVE:
Pour over more of the slow cooker juices once the meat has crisped for added flavour, just before serving! Serve in Tacos, Burritos, or in a salad!

Sue Clark's Granola

Toffee

1 large chocolate bar like Hershey's or your favorite chocolate bar grated on a box grater or food processor.
2 cups whole almonds that you roast and chop.  I sometimes use already roasted and salted almonds chopped.

Using a cookie sheet, lightly spread 1/2 of the chopped almonds followed by 1/2 of the shaved chocolate.

Then prepare the toffee:

1 lb. butter
melt and slosh around sides of pan
add:
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup karo syrup
add carfully in the middle of the melted mixture:
2 1/2 cups sugar

Cook on medium heat until sugar is melted, melting the sugar slowly is an important step in all candy making, turn to medium high heat bringing to a rolling boil and cook until carmely brown and registers a hard crack. Once it starts boiling do not stir. If you don't have a candy thermomoter (highly recommended) you can pour a small amount into ice water to check, it should not stick to your teeth, if it does it's not quite ready. Take off stove and pour over nuts and chocolate in small stream covering all of the cookie sheet. You will not be able to spread the toffee so slowly drizzle going in a circle and filling in until the pan is empty.  Do Not scrape the pan, it could turn the toffee to sugar. After the toffee is in the pan, sprinkle the rest of the shaved chocolate followed by the chopped almonds. Top with aluminum foil and press down gently. Cool completely, chop toffee with the tip of a knife to break into medium size pieces.

This recipe is not hard but does take some practice to get it right.  Don't give up, it's worth the effort to learn how to do it.  Please add your hints and tricks to this post so that everyone can make this Hickman family speciality.

Try using pecans and different kinds of chocolate for something different.

Very Lemon Bread

1/3 cup butter melted
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons lemon extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoon freshly grated lemon peel
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Lemon Glaze:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar

In large bowl, mix butter with sugar, lemon extract and eggs.  In separate bowl, sift flour with baking powder and salt.  To butter mixture, add flour mixture alternately with milk, stirring just enough to blend.  Flod in lemon peel and pecans.  Pour batter into greased and floured 9x5-inch loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Remove bread oven and with a wooden pick poke holes all over top of bread.  While loaf is still warm, drizzle lemon glaze mixture over top and let cool in pans soaking up all the glaze.  Wrap in plastic and store for 1 day to develop the intense lemon flavor before slicing to serve.

This recipe from the Creme de Colorado is full of citrus flavor and very good.  I doubled this recipe and put it in small loaf pans (6). If using small loaf pans bake for 20-25 min, checking to make sure they are done before removing from oven.

1 loaf or 3 small loafs

Cherry Nut Coffee Cake

1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs room temperture
1 cup sour cream

Topping:
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 16 ounce jar Maraschino cherries,
         drained and cut into small pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Grease and flour a flat bottomed tube pan or bundt pan.  In a large bowl, mix together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter and eggs.  Fold in sour cream.  Pour or spoon 1/2 batter into pan and smooth with a spatula. Mix topping ingredients of sugar, pecans, cherries and cinnamon: sprinkle 1/2 topping mixture over batter in pan.  Pour remaining batter into pan.  Sprinkle with remaining topping.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
10-12 servings

This luscious coffee cake from the Creme de Colorado cookbook, will typically have a cracked top and a delicate pink color.  You can glaze cooled cake with a thin frosting made with powdered sugar, butter and a little milk thin enough to be able to pour it in thin lines over top of cake.

Wasatch Mountain Chili

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 15 ounce can hominy, rinsed and drained
1 15 ounce can great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 14 ounce can reduced-sodium chicken broth
9 ounces cooked chicken breast, cubed
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup shredded colby and Monterey Jack cheese, Monterey Jack, or cheddar cheese (2 oz.)
Bottled green salsa
White corn tortilla chips
Fresh cilantro leaves

In a large saucepan cook onion in hot oil over medium heat for three minutes.
Stir in hominy, beans, chicken broth, chicken, lime juice, cilantro, cumin, and pepper.
Cover and bring to boiling over high heat, stirring occasionally.
Serve topped with cheese, salsa, tortilla chips, and fresh cilantro.
Makes 4 (1-1/4-cup) servings.