I recently had the good fortune to develop recipes for Mezzetta and they are now on the Mezzetta site!
Keep an eye out for my post on Spaghetti Pie. And if you like it spicy be sure to try the Utica Chicken Riggies.
By now you all know how much I love Kalitsunia, and clearly, if you count the number of times ricotta appears on my site you know how much I love ricotta. So this recipe should be no surprise at all!
Saturday, August 13 was our annual family reunion in Manteca, CA. We LOVE being able to have it at the farm and I want to give a shout out to the Dimotakis family for being willing to host and for creating a lovely shaded environment for us to enjoy the hot valley summer day (99 this year, with a dry wind). Also this year we got to meet a new (to us) relative! One of our Ohio cousin’s daughter, Kiki, and her boyfriend, Kevin and the star of the day, their dog Phillis joined us. Great to get to know them and to welcome them to the West Coast branch of the Dimo family.
I make a point of making a traditional family recipe whenever the family gets together. It’s important to me that the younger generations still have the opportunity to enjoy the flavors that we had growing up. I typically make Kalitusnia, the pan-fried ricotta turnovers that my Yiayia made, and had intended on doing the same this year. However after I got home from work, cooked dinner, washed up, it was around 8:00PM, and I just couldn’t imagine spending the next two hours cutting and frying Kalistunia.
I had plenty of mint and ricotta in the house, and I didn’t want to waste it, so I decided to use those ingredients to make muffins, fast and easy, good with lunch or on their own. I visited my neighbors lemon tree to brighten the muffins with lemon zest and juice, and used olive oil instead of butter in the recipe to keep with the Greek theme. They came out great, moist, and tender. The olive oil and ricotta will keep these muffins moist for several days. Or you can freeze them and just defrost a few whenever you want to eat them.
Recipe
This recipe made 11 muffins-I scooped mine larger, but you could get 12 with a smaller scoop.
Heat oven to 375°
Line cupcake pan with cupcake papers
1 ¾ C flour
1 C sugar (add more or less depending on if you want them as a breakfast item, or as a side to lunch or dinner)
1 T baking powder
¼ t baking soda
1 t salt
¾ C ricotta (I use whole milk ricotta)
1/3 C lemon juice
¼ C olive oil (use lemon pressed olive oil if you have it for an added boost of flavor)
Zest of one lemon
1 egg
1 t vanilla
½ t lemon extract
¼ C finely chopped mint
¼ C sanding sugar (I like to use large granule sugar, however if you don’t have it, good old regular sugar will do).
In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and add everything up until the mint. Stir to combine well. Fold in the chopped mint.
Spoon the batter (I like using a 4 oz. ice cream scoop) into the prepared muffin tin. Sprinkle the tops with sugar and bake 15-20 minutes or until the muffins spring back slightly when touched. They don’t get very brown so it’s easy to think they are underdone.
Makes 11-12 (depending on how you scoop them) muffins.
