Staying In No. 42
Whipped ricotta. Skillet chocolate chip cookies. Stanley Tucci.
Welcome! This is “Staying In,” a Sunday newsletter with recipe ideas for your week ahead. Every other Thursday I also publish a “Going Out” edition where I review a restaurant, bar, or activity here in Portland. Want even more recommendations? Check out pdxrecs.com and follow RR on Instagram at @rileysrecs. Enjoy!
This week’s Staying In includes two dishes inspired by Portland restaurants. The first: roasted carrots and whipped ricotta, modeled after Bellwether Bar’s springtime menu. Theirs is served with hazelnuts and agrodolce and is perfect in every way, but I’m doing a chili butter to make it more accessible for weeknight cooking.
The second dish is the whipped ricotta toast from Cafe Olli, a lovely employee-owned bakery and restaurant on MLK. They serve it with citrus marmalade, bee pollen, and lemon. I don’t have citrus marmalade or bee pollen (and I’m guessing you don’t, either) so, as promised in last week’s Staying In, I’ll use the leftover apricot jam called for in the chicken wonton salad recipe.
Happy eating!
✨ Inspo ingredients: ricotta, bread, and apricot jam ✨
DINNERS
Whipped Ricotta, Carrots, and Chili Butter | Steak
Pasta alla Nerano
Mushroom and Cabbage Tacos
Egg Scramble | Arugula Salad
BREAKFAST
Whipped Ricotta Toast and Apricot Jam
DESSERT
Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie
Notes:
Not sure how I’ll cook the steak yet, but this is one of my favorite recipes.
I’ve been watching a lot of Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy lately, which reminded me of how much he loves Pasta alla Nerano. He and his wife (Emily Blunt’s sister!) make it on a weekly basis.
For the ricotta toast, use whatever leftover whipped ricotta you have from the carrot dish.
No recipe for the scramble. I’ll probably use some leftover zucchini from the pasta dish and whatever else I have in my fridge.
Whipped Ricotta, Carrots, and Chili Butter
Kylie Mazon-Chambers | Cooking with Cocktail Rings
Using carrots with stems still intact will yield the most aesthetically pleasing dish. You will have to scrub the shit out of them to get dirt out, but I think it’s worth the effort. Other than scrubbing, the recipe comes together quickly. It’s just a matter of melting butter with red pepper flakes and a bit of paprika, whipping the ricotta in a food processor or with a whisk with a bit of maple syrup, and then roasting the carrots for 20 minutes. This would work with greek yogurt or labneh or another vegetable like broccolini.
Mushroom and Cabbage Tacos
Martha Rose Shulman | New York Times (Gifted Link)
I can’t believe I’ve never shared this recipe here before. This is my go-to when cooking for vegetarian friends or if I’m camping. It’s also a very quick weeknight meal. You just cook cabbage and mushrooms in salsa verde (Trader Joe’s has a great one, but any store-bought variety works) and serve with tortillas and cotija cheese. The meal comes together in under 15 minutes and exceeds vegetarian taco expectations.
Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie
Samantha Seneviratne | New York Times (Gifted Link)
We have an unspoken tradition in my Bachelor watch group that whoever hosts provides some kind of dessert. Sometimes, this means whatever random treats we have on hand like Girl Scout cookies. Other times, friend of RR, Kendall, gets slices of pie from Lauretta Jean’s. Often, when it’s my turn, I turn to this skillet chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’s one bowl, incredibly forgiving, and makes you question all the recipes that insist cookie dough be prepared in advance and coddled like a spoiled two-year-old. All you have to do is whip everything together with a spatula and spread into a cast iron skillet. Truly cannot be easier.
Going Out No. 22: Scotch Lodge
Mini Itini No. 3: Holy Cannoli
Going Out No. 21: Chicken Shops
If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!
