Tasty Tuesday: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

There is nothing I hate more than wasting food.  I hate throwing food away that has rotted in my fridge.  Before I had a strict budget for food, this was never an issue for me.  Now that I spend hours each week planning my grocery list, clipping coupons and researching where the best deal is, I would rather skip my daily rationing of chocolate than let food rot. 

Rotting food is the theme for this week's Tasty Tuesday with City Wife, Country Life!

Let me rephrase that before you all get sick: The theme is NOT letting your food rot!  (Oh boy, this sounds appetizing, huh??)

I made a variation of this amazing Macaroni and Cheese the other day.  I substituted whole milk for the half and half and I used 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese instead of "processed" cheese.  $7.00 for velveeta????  I don't think so!  (I made the original recipe of mac 'n cheese for guests a few weeks ago and it truly is fantastic if you want to shell out for the all the different cheese!)

I was left with 1 cup of ricotta cheese and had every intention of cooking with it again.  I completely forgot about it until yesterday morning!

So, I quickly hopped on the internet and looked up recipes with ricotta.  I didn't want to make pasta with it, so I looked for something sweet.  I found the winner!

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Sfingi!

Ingredients

1 pound ricotta cheese

2 eggs

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 quarts vegetable oil for frying

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions

1. In large bowl, combine ricotta, eggs, sugar and vanilla. Mix together baking powder and 1/2 cup flour. Fold into ricotta mixture. Add enough of remaining flour to make a thick batter. Let rest 1 hour.

2.Heat oil in large heavy saucepan over high heat until a small amount of batter dropped in oil sizzles and starts to color. Drop batter by teaspoons into hot oil and deep fry until golden. Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

3.Stack sfingi on serving platter in a pyramid. Drizzle stack with honey and dust with confectioner's sugar.

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I only did a half recipe since that's all the ricotta I had.  These are AMAZING!  And they help to feed my always lurking funnel cake addiction.  I followed the advice of one reviewer and put the dough into a ziploc.  I just squeezed out small teaspoon size balls and dropped them into the oil.  Much easier to work with than a spoon and sticky dough!

This is the first time in a year that I have allowed "frying in oil" in our home since the last incident.  Jason and I don't eat anything fried unless we're out at a restaurant. Well, last year, he decided to make homemade potato chips.  I was in the kitchen with Leo rolling the meatballs and Jason needed the pan for the meatballs so he decided to cool off the oil with water.  Yup, it exploded everywhere!  We're lucky he wasn't burned.  His arm was burned a bit, there is oil all over my ceiling and carpet that will never come out.  And it took 3 washes with vinegar to get the floor cleaned.  But we're so lucky to be safe! 

I banned all deep-frying in our house for a long time and it was worth it to bring it back again.  These little fried cheese balls are delicious!!

And, since we cannot deep fry without some sort of problem, here is the spoon I was scooping them out of the oil with.  WE CANNOT WIN!!

Okay, fast-forward 1 hour.  I'm feeling sick.  I ate too many of these delicious confections.  I am also feeling super guilty.  Not for over-indulging.  I'd do it again (if there were any left).  But I'm feeling guilty because I will scramble to make a dessert but when I get a lot of veggies from my CSA crop share, I always forget to get cooking before they get rubbery and old and usually end up throwing a bunch away.  It's embarrassing and lazy!  I get a lot of classics: onions, squash, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, etc.  I'm good about cooking with those.  But I also get a lot of ????'s - like a daikon radish, leafy greens (or are they stems of root vegetables??), super spicy chilis, beets.  I just don't know what to do with these sometimes. 

Not this week though!  My sister-in-law mentioned making soups now that fall is upon us.  DING!!!  Eureka!  This is a simple concept for the experienced cook.  I have only been cooking for a year and making my own soup seemed so daunting.  I'm still learning!  So, I googled "turnip and daikon" and came across Turnip Soup with Daikon.  I had all the ingredients from my crop share this week!

Turnip Soup with Daikon

2 turnips

Leafy greens

One daikon radish

1 onion,

5 cloves of garlic

1 tomato

3 chili peppers (Not a chance I would survive that torture: I only used 1!!)

2 cans of chicken broth (optional - water is fine)

water

1. Turn on the chicken broth (or water) to medium high heat and throw in your diced onion and garlic to let them simmer.

2. Cut up the daikon and turnip and add to the pot and stir.

3. Tear the greens into large chunks and add them to the pot.  Add enough water to cover the greens and let the soup come to a boil.

4. Chop up the tomato and chili and add them to the soup.  Let the soup boil for 5-10 minutes.  The veggies will be tender but not overcooked!

This soup had just the perfect amount of spice for my sensitive mouth (I don't do hot and spicy foods) and was very filling!  AND, I felt significantly less guilty about the Sfingi!!

So there you have it - two ridiculously opposite dishes.  The caloric value of one serving of Sfingi is more than the ENTIRE pot of soup.  Okay, I might be exaggerating (but it's close!!), however, I do feel like I evened my day out with the soup.

I am also excited that I made a pot roast to use up the rest of the CSA veggies.  This is the first time, in the entire year I have belonged to the CSA, that I have not wasted any of the food.  Ta-da!!!!!