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Monday, March 21, 2011

Monday Munchies with cookies

Good Monday Morning!  I hope everyone had a good weekend.  We are closing in on the end of Spring Break.  Technically, today is Fair Day when school is canceled so that kids showing animals in the local fair can be there without an absence from school.  My two are still too young to be involved, but I have many fond memories of participating in fair activities and hope that they will someday too.
  Yesterday afternoon we made some delicious cookies that I wanted to share with y'all.  A while back I'd bought some ricotta cheese for baked spaghetti and my family loved it so I thought I'd find what else you can do with ricotta.  The next week, I got an email from Food Network with a recipe for Giada's Lemon Ricotta cookies and I filed it away in my brain to use the ricotta to make those.  
  But then I didn't have any lemons yesterday and about 6 oranges, so...our Giada's Lemon Ricotta cookies became The Wilsons' Orange Ricotta cookies.  DELICIOUS!  I mean so delicious that all four of us loved them and the kids have been begging for them for breakfast today.  I'd say that's a successful cookie recipe...and easy to boot!  So...here is Giada's recipe with my changes in orange!

Lemon/Orange Ricotta Cookies with Lemon/Orange Glaze

Based on a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis
Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 cups sugar (I cut this down to a scant 1 1/2 cups since oranges are sweeter than lemons and they were plenty sweet enough.)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice  (I used half an orange I just squeezed the juice over the bowl)
  • 1 lemon, zested  (I used the zest from half an orange since oranges are so much bigger)

  • Glaze:
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice  (I didn't measure here but just poured some orange juice in...)
  • 1 lemon, zested  (And I didn't zest the orange for this step since I think I overpoured in the last ingredient!)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Cookies:
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl combine the butter and the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon/orange juice, and lemon/orange zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie I just used my cookie scoop and made sure it was really full ) onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes.
Glaze:
Combine the powdered sugar, lemon/orange juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Spoon about 1/2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours. Pack the cookies into a decorative container.

  I had every intention of showing you a picture of the kids eating said delicious cookies, but I took them on the macro setting on accident (forgot to switch it back!), so Oren was out of focus on every single one and I'm NOT letting them eat more just for the sake of a picture...then there'd be none left for me!  ;)

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