Day Twenty-Seven: Dippity Do

I'm trying not to fall asleep as I write this. It's been a lonnnnnnnnnnng Tuesday.

But I'm glad I stuck it out, because this recipe was definitely worth checking out.

I made baked ricotta, inspired by this recipe from 5 Ingredient Fix.

I did tweak the recipe. I think the Food Network one was a little more umm... Mediterranean. I used what I had on hand, so it turned out a little more Latin inspired.

The Recipe
1/4 C Part Skim Ricotta
1/2 tsp Ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp lime zest
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 an egg (which basically turned out to be most of the white and half the yolk)
Salt and pepper to taste

The recipe calls for you to strain the liquid out of the ricotta for about 10 minutes. Well, I left my strainer at Coree's house like, forever ago (I'm ALWAYS leaving things behind) and so I just used a wet paper towel, and let it "strain" for about 20 minutes. It gave off zero liquid, and was already pretty creamy and unliquidy so I guess just use your best judgement as to whether you think you really need to take that extra step.

I mixed the rest of the ingredients into the ricotta, and poured the mixture into the pan.



Into the Easy Bake for 35 minutes, as directed by the recipe.



The recipe says it should get puffy in the middle and brown on top. Mine didn't. I'm guessing that's because the EBO temperature is a little less than 375 and it probably needs a longer cooking time. Or maybe the lime juice did something. I really don't know. What I DO know is that the end result I got was still pretty good. The ricotta was creamy, not heavy or too dense, and had absorbed all the flavours really well. I bought a little bag of corn chips just for this experiment, and the baked ricotta really was a great dip. I can totally see serving this at parties.

I would like to try it Claire's way, with the orange zest and the warmed olives on top, but I gotta tell ya, the chili powder and lime made a pretty good combo, as well.

I love recipes that you can tweak to make your own, and this is absolutely one of those. You can make it Mediterranean, or Latin, or maybe add some Greek spices, or sundried tomatoes, or whatever fresh herbs you can think of and as long as you follow the basic recipe you've got a winner. You could also make this a sweet dip by adding a little confectioners sugar (dissolves faster) and chopped fruit with mint and get a whole new flavour profile.

Plus, it's really pretty inexpensive.

And that, my friends, is our show. I'm off to go sleep this Tuesday out of my system. G'night!