Turkey Barley Soup

Servings: 6
Preheat: 
Prep Time: 1 hour
Source: New York Times

This mellow, velvety soup filled with barley and vegetables is a perfect place for your leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Adapted from Cristiana N. de Carvalho of Massachusetts, it’s savory, herby and very warming on a cold winter evening. If you want to make your own stock from the turkey bones, the soup will be even richer. But store-bought stock works just as well and makes this straightforward recipe quick to put together. Brown rice makes an excellent barley substitute, though you may have to add a few minutes to the cooking time. —Melissa Clark

Ingredients: 

3 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into ½-inch coins
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced or finely grated
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves
2 teaspoons fine salt, plus more as needed
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 thyme sprigs
4 parsley sprigs, plus 1 cup coarsely chopped parsley leaves and tender stems, plus more for garnish
1 bay leaf
2 quarts turkey or chicken stock, preferably homemade
¾ cup pearled barley
2 to 3 cups shredded or chopped leftover turkey
1 lemon, halved

Directions: 

Step 1
In a large soup pot over medium-high, melt butter, or heat the oil until shimmering. Add carrot, celery and onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned at the edges, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in garlic and sage, and sauté for a minute, until fragrant. Stir in salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne.

Step 2
Tie the thyme and parsley sprigs and the bay leaf together with a piece of kitchen twine to make a bouquet garni and add to the pot (or just throw the herbs directly into the pot; you’ll just have to fish them out later).

Step 3
Add stock and barley and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until barley is almost done, about 30 minutes. Add turkey and cook until barley is tender, about 10 to 15 minutes longer.

Step 4
Remove from heat and remove the bouquet garni or herbs. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into the soup, and stir in chopped parsley. Taste and add more salt, pepper and lemon juice, if you like. Cut the remaining lemon half into wedges. Garnish soup with more parsley, and serve with lemon wedges.

Thanksgiving Stuffing

Servings: 6 to 8
Preheat: 350
Prep Time: 1 hour 20 min.
Source: New York Times

This deeply savory, buttery sage stuffing builds layers of flavor with each step. First, whole sage leaves fry in melted butter for a pretty garnish that offers pleasurable crispy bits. The butter ends up browned, nutty and infused with the herb’s woodsy aroma, and helps chopped sage, fennel seeds, poultry seasoning and cayenne bloom for a fragrant blend that tastes like sausage. Milk in place of watery boxed stock means there’s a base of richness that only dairy can provide. The combination of white bread and cornbread results in a classic but amped-up Thanksgiving stuffing with textural integrity and a hint of sweetness to boot.

Ingredients: 

8 ounces crusty white bread, such as country loaf or sourdough, cut into ½-inch dice (about 6 cups)
8 ounces store-bought or homemade cornbread, cut into ½-inch dice (about 3 cups)
½ cup unsalted butter
10 fresh sage leaves, plus ⅓ cup coarsely chopped sage (¾ ounce)
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon salt-free poultry seasoning
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
Salt and black pepper
2 celery stalks, finely diced
2 cups whole milk, plus more as needed

Directions: 

Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread all the bread cubes on a large sheet pan and bake until brittle, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely on the pan. (The cooled bread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.) Raise the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Step 2
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Dip a wadded-up paper towel into the melted butter and grease a 1½- to 2-quart shallow baking dish or pan with it. Unwad the paper towel and line a plate with it. Add the whole sage leaves to the butter and cook, stirring occasionally, until the speckled milk solids at the bottom of the pan start to brown and the sage leaves become crisp, 2 to 4 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the sage to the paper towel-lined plate.

Step 3
Add the chopped sage, fennel seeds, poultry seasoning and cayenne to the browned butter and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 30 to 60 seconds. Add the onion and season generously with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the celery and continue cooking for 2 minutes. Stir in the milk and heat until steaming. Taste and add salt and pepper; the milk should be assertively seasoned.

Step 4
Transfer the toasted bread cubes to a large bowl. Pour the hot milk mixture over the bread and gently toss with two spoons until the bread is thoroughly soaked; add more milk if needed. Spread the stuffing in the buttered baking dish and cover with foil. Bake until warmed through, 10 to 15 minutes. Uncover and bake until the top is crispy and a little darker in color, about 10 minutes. Scatter with the fried sage leaves and serve.

Sheet-Pan Chicken With Apple, Fennel and Onion

Servings: 4 to 6 Servings
Preheat: 425
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Source: New York Times

Chicken thighs are roasted with classic fall ingredients for a quick, flavorful sheet-pan supper. The toasted fennel seeds subtly amplify the anise flavor of the roasted fennel and play nicely with the apples and onions. Look for an apple on the tart side as it will naturally sweeten as it cooks in the oven. If you want to use bone-in chicken breasts you can, just make sure to cut the cooking time by a few minutes so they don’t dry out. Serve with a bright, bitter green salad flecked with blue cheese and toasted walnuts.

Ingredients: 

2 teaspoons fennel seeds
2½ to 3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, patted dry
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced (about 1½ cups)
1 medium fennel bulb, tough outer leaves removed, cored and thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
1 tart apple, such as Mutsu (Crispin) or Granny Smith, halved, cored and cut into 8 wedges
4 sprigs rosemary
Flaky salt, for serving

Directions: 

Step 1
Heat oven to 425 degrees. In a small skillet, toast the fennel seeds over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until fragrant, about 2 to 3 minutes. Pound into a coarse powder with a mortar and pestle or, alternatively, roughly chop. In a large bowl, toss together the chicken with 1 tablespoon olive oil and the fennel seeds and season well with salt and pepper.

Step 2
Place the onion, fennel and apple slices on the sheet pan. Toss with the remaining olive oil and season well with salt. Spread in an even layer. Add the chicken skin side up on top of the vegetables and lay the rosemary (distributing evenly) on top of the chicken. Roast for 40 to 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the onions, fennel and apples are softened and have begun to caramelize at the edge of the pan.

Step 3
Turn the oven to broil and move the oven rack to sit right below it. Remove and discard the rosemary sprigs and broil the chicken for 1 to 2 minutes until the skin of the chicken is crispy and golden. Season with flaky salt.

Chicken with Tomatillo Sauce

Servings: 4
Preheat: 400
Prep Time: 1 hour
Source: https://glebekitchen.com/chicken-with-tomatillo-sauce/

Chicken with tomatillo sauce delivers big Mexican flavours and is easy enough to make any night of the week.

Ingredients: 

Chicken recipe
6 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
1 1/2 lbs tomatillos
2-3 jalapeños – seeded and minced (optional)
1 large onion – finely diced
3 cloves garlic – crushed
2 tsp creole seasoning – plus more to season the chicken
up to 3/4 cup chicken stock
olive oil
salt – to taste
cilantro – to garnish

Creole Seasoning
5 tablespoons paprika
3 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions: 

Pre-heat your oven to 400F.

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the tomatillos for 10 minutes. Drain and chop.

Heat a skillet large enough to hold the chicken in a single layer over medium heat. Coat the chicken thighs with olive oil and season liberally with creole seasoning. Film the skillet with olive oil. Place the chicken, skin side down and cook until golden brown. Remove the chicken from the skillet and remove all but 2 Tbsp of fat.

Saute the onions and jalapeños until soft, around 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Mix in the tomatillos and 2 tsp creole seasoning and cook for 2-3 minutes. Now add 1/4 cup chicken stock and nestle the chicken in the sauce. It’s critical to keep the skin above the liquid or it will get soggy.

Roast the chicken until you get an internal temperature of 175F, about 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on the dish. If the sauce gets too dry (like it looks like it might burn) add another 1/4 cup chicken stock.

When the chicken is done remove the skillet from the oven. CAREFUL!! POT HANDLE WILL BE VERY HOT!!

Remove the chicken and set aside. If the sauce is too runny place the skillet over medium heat and reduce until you get a saucy but not runny consistency. If it’s too dry, add a bit more chicken stock. Adjust for salt. Garnish with a bit of cilantro. Serve the chicken over the sauce.

Apricot pistachio squares

Servings: 16 or 25 bars, depends on how you cut them
Preheat: 350
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Source: Smitten Kitchen

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RECIPES
apricot pistachio squares
AUGUST 7, 2014 JUMP TO COMMENTS
Let me just get the obvious out of the way because I know what you’re thinking: what am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be packing for our move, which is less than 24 hours from now? These are all valid questions, but you see, there is history here, a long history of kitchen-related procrastination. Two days before our last move, I sheeted pasta and peeled favas. I spent the last week of my pregnancy stocking the freezer with foods to bribe charm labor and delivery nurses with. When I was done with that, I made a cake for people coming to visit the new baby. When my induction was trudging along pitifully slowly, I pulled out my laptop and wrote up a new recipe I’d made in the days before. Thus, it should be no surprise that on Tuesday, with a totally straight face, I made the argument by turning the last splash of heavy cream, handful of chocolate chips and a half-pint of vanilla ice cream leftover from this into hot fudge sauce, I was “packing.” But yesterday, I didn’t even have an excuse; I just needed a break from having exasperating conversations a store that lost the mattress we ordered and could maybe get us a replacement sometime in September, arrgh.

pistachios and apricots
apricots everywhere this summer

Ahem. I’ve been in a bit of a fervor this summer over the apricots from Red Jacket Orchards. I shared a photo of them the other day and someone asked me what I was going to make with them and I was confused. Make? With apricots? Why on earth would you make something with apricots, when you could eat them as-is, even four in a row as my son did before my dropped jaw yesterday. But then the next wave of procrastination hit and why, yes, making something with apricots was a brilliant idea!

whirling the pistachios

making the cookie base

In another era of my life, this would have been a tart. I would have made a tart shell and pressed it into a fluted, removable bottom tart pan, trimmed the overhand, pricked it all over with a fork, filled it with pie weighs and par-baked it before filling it elegantly. This all feels way too fussy for my current lifestyle — and by “lifestyle” I mean “barely managed chaos” — and so I made bar cookies instead. Bar cookies are your friend. The crust can be whizzed up in a food processor and pressed into the bottom. You parbake it with no docking and no pie weights, and while it’s in the oven, you use the bowl of your food processor that you didn’t even wash (because la dee da, it doesn’t matter) to grind the pistachio frangipane filling.

pistachio paste filling
ready for the oven
baked

Frangipane is usually made with almonds; frangipane is delicious with almonds. But what I really want to eat with apricots is nubby green pistachios, and so I made a pistachio paste instead. As the sole purpose of this baked good was to allow me to avoid handling the real things in my life that need to be handled, and I was very distracted while baking it, my expectations were very low for the results. I figured it would be a disaster and one day, preferably in my new kitchen, I’d make it again properly. But the kitchen faeries were with me — it’s like they wanted me to willfully ignore my to-do list! And who am I to argue with faeries?! — and these are actually wonderful, buttery and rich but not too sweet. For a bar cookie, they are downright elegant. As a way to evade a big looming deadlines, astoundingly effective. Now, who wants to come over and help us pack?

apricot pistachio squares

One year ago: Kale Salad with Pecorino and Walnuts
Two years ago: Leek, Chard and Corn Flatbread
Three years ago: Peach Butter
Four years ago: Everyday Chocolate Cake
Five years ago: Lighter, Airy Pound Cake
Six years ago: Key Lime Meltaways
Seven years ago: Mixed Bean Salad

Apricot Pistachio Squares

This recipe is lightly spun from this pear-almond tart from Dorie Greenspan, with a simpler crust and streamlined steps. This is the kind of bar recipe that should theoretically be flexible to use with other ingredients. You can estimate roughly need twice the weight in pistachios if you’re buying them in their shells.

Ingredients: 

Crust
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, cold is fine

Filling
3/4 cup (a scant 4 ounces or 110 grams) shelled unsalted pistachios
1 tablespoon (10 grams) all purpose flour
Few pinches of sea salt
6 tablespoons (75 grams) sugar
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter, cold is fine
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon almond extract, 2 teaspoons brandy or another flavoring of your choice (totally optional)
1 pound firm-ripe apricots

Directions: 

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cut two 12-inch lengths of parchment paper and trim each to fit the 8-inch width of an 8×8-inch square baking pan. Press it into the bottom and sides of your pan in one direction, then use the second sheet to line the rest of the pan, perpendicular to the first sheet. (If you have an 8-inch square springform, you can skip this and just butter it well.)

Make the crust: Combine the flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into chunks, and add it to the bowl, then run the machine until the mixture forms large clumps — that’s right, just keep running it; it might take 30 seconds to 1 minute for it to come together, but it will. Transfer the dough clumps to your prepared baking pan and press it evenly across the bottom and 1/4-inch up the sides. Bake for 15 minutes, until very pale golden. For the sake of speed, transfer to a cooling rack in your freezer for 10 to 15 minutes while you prepare the filing.

(Don’t have a food processor? You might have an easier time using softened butter and preparing this cookie-style: cream it with the sugar with a hand mixer, then spoon in the salt and flour, beating until just combined. It might help to chill this mixture a bit before pressing it into the pan, or it might feel too greasy to easily spread.)

Make the filling: In your food processor bowl (which I never bother cleaning between these steps), grind your pistachios, sugar, flour and salt together until the nuts are powdery. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the machine. Run the machine until no buttery bits are visible. Add any flavorings and egg, blending until just combined.

Spread filling over mostly cooled (warmth is okay but it’s hoped that the freezer will have firmed the base enough that you can spread something over it) crust. Cut apricots in half (or, you might find that you can tear them open at the seams with your fingers) and remove pits. From here, you have a few decoration options: you can place the apricot halves in facedown or up all over the pistachio base. You can do as I did, which is cut them into strips, then slide each cut half onto a butter knife or offset spatula, tilt it so that it fans a little, and slide it onto your pistachio filling decoratively. (With this method, I ended up not using all of my apricots.) You could also arrange the strips like petals of flower around the pan, for maximum pretties.]]

Bake the bars for 60 minutes, or until they are golden and a toothpick inserted into the pistachio portion comes out batter-free. This might take up to 10 minutes longer depending on the juiciness of your apricots and the amount you were able to nestle in. Let cool completely in pan; you can hasten this along in the fridge.

To finish, you can make a shiny glaze for your tart by warming the jam in a small saucepan until it thins, and brushing this mixture over the top of the cooled tart. Or, you can keep it rustic with just a dusting of powdered sugar, as I did. (This step is not necessary- JO and ES skip it)

Cut bars into squares — chilled bars will give you the cleanest cuts. Keep leftover bars chilled.

Pickled Mustard Seeds with Honey & White Peppercorns

Servings: 1 Cup
Preheat: 
Prep Time: 
Source: Food 52

These bright golden pickled seeds, which burst in your mouth, are a satisfying combination of both spicy and sweet, and serve as an unexpected substitution for traditional golden mustard. Around our home, we like referring to them as our “mustard caviar.” —Angela Brown

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup yellow mustard seed
3/4 cup white wine vinegar, plus 1/4 cup
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon whole white peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions: 

Thoroughly rinse the mustard seeds in a fine mesh sieve. Add the drained seeds, 3/4 cup of the white wine vinegar, and the salt to a bowl and set aside. Allow the seeds to soak at room temperature for one hour.

Add the honey, turmeric, peppercorns and red pepper flakes to the seed mixture, gently stir and pour into a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium high heat, being sure to stir the bottom and sides of the saucepan regularly, and continue to cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool (the mixture will continue to thicken). Once the seed mixture has returned to room temperature, stir in the remaining white wine vinegar. When stored in an airtight jar and kept refrigerated, the pickled mustard seeds will keep well for about 3 months. * Note: The seeds will continue to absorb liquid while they are refrigerated. In order to avoid a condiment that is too thick, you can periodically stir more white wine vinegar into the jar, about 1 tablespoon at a time, whenever necessary.

We did not add pepper flakes or add 1/4 cup of wine vinegar

Sweet and Salty Cream Cheese Tart

Servings: 8 to 10
Preheat: 325
Prep Time: 45 minutes, plus cooling and chilling
Source: Alison Roman

The nice thing about this cheesecake is that it doesn’t require a water bath or any sort of special baking pan: More shallow than a traditional version, it gets baked right in a pie plate (or tart pan, if you’ve got that). While there is juice inside the cream cheese filling, it’s the fresh sliced citrus on top that makes this cake Creamsicle-like, so don’t skip it. The ultimate do-ahead dessert, this cheesecake can be baked three or so days in advance, just make sure to wrap it tightly as cream cheese tends to easily pick up on that “fridge” scent.

Ingredients: 

FOR THE CRUST

8 ounces Ritz crackers or Nilla
wafers (see Note)
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted
butter, melted
Pinch of kosher salt

FOR THE FILLING
1 pound (2 8-ounce packages) full-fat
cream cheese, preferably room
temperature, or 2 cups labne
1 cup sour cream or full-fat Greek
yogurt
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons fresh grapefruit,
lemon, lime, or orange juice
Flaky sea salt
Fresh citrus, halved or sliced (optional)

Directions: 

1. Make the crust: Heat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Pulse cookies in a food processor until you’ve got a nice fine crumb (but not a powder). You can also do this by hand if you like, by placing the cookies in a resealable bag and crushing or smashing with a skillet or rolling pin, but you will need a food processor for the filling.
3. Transfer crumbs to a medium bowl and add brown sugar and butter, followed by a pinch of salt. Using your hands, mix until the crumbs are evenly coated and the mixture has a nice, wet-sand texture.
4. Press the crust onto the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate, tart pan or springform pan. (Alternatively, you could use a cake pan lined with parchment. You can even use an 8-by-8-inch baking dish here, although expect a slightly thicker outcome.) Use the bottom of a measuring cup or small bowl to make sure the crust is really pressed in there, otherwise the cake could be challenging to cut later on.
5. Bake the crust until it is lightly golden brown at the edges (it gets baked one more time, so best not to overdo it here), 10 to 12 minutes.

6. Make the filling: Combine cream cheese, sour cream and granulated sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process until the mixture is extremely smooth and well blended, a minute or two, scraping down the sides as needed to incorporate any stubborn chunks of cream cheese. Add eggs, grapefruit juice, and a pinch of kosher salt and keep processing until it’s even smoother and creamier than before (a miracle!), another 30 seconds or so.
7. Pour filling into baked crust (you may have some leftover filling depending on your chosen vessel) and bake until mostly set (a little jiggle is fine), 20 to 30 minutes. The filling should not brown at all.
8. Turn oven off and open the door a crack. Let the tart sit in the oven for a few minutes before transferring it to a wire rack on the counter to cool completely. Then place the tart in the refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour. (This is to prevent any unsightly cracks from appearing on the surface, which can happen when there is a sudden or drastic change in temperature.)
9. To serve, scatter fresh citrus slices on top and sprinkle with a little flaky salt.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Servings: 4 Mini Loaves, one 9X5-Inch loaf, or one 12-cup bundt cake
Preheat: 350
Prep Time: 
Source: Fine Cooking – Nov/Dec 2020

Banana bread, delicious on its own, is made better (and even more kid-friendly) with the addition of chocolate chips.

Ingredients: 

4 oz. (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened; more for the pans
10-1/2 oz. (2-1/3 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for the pans
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup mashed very ripe banana (2 large or 3 medium bananas)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions: 

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour four mini loaf pans, one 12-cup Bundt pan, or one 9×5-inch metal loaf pan.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk the ingredients well to combine.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium mixing bowl, mix the butter on low speed with the stand mixer’s paddle attachment or on medium-low speed with a hand mixer until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and continue mixing on low speed until slightly fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth between each addition. Add the bananas, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and mix until blended.

Stop the mixer and add half the flour mixture. Mix on low speed (for either mixer) until the flour drifts are almost gone. Add half the buttermilk. Mix until blended, and then repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk. Continue mixing until smooth, scraping the bowl to make sure the batter is even. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.

If using mini loaf pans, divide the batter evenly among the four pans (the pans should be about two-thirds full). If using a Bundt or full-size loaf pan, spread the batter in the pan (again, filling the pan no more than two-thirds full.) Smooth the top of the batter. Bake until the loaves are golden and a skewer or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes for mini loaves (60 minutes for a Bundt pan and 60 to 70 minutes for a full-size loaf pan).

Let the loaves cool in the pans on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes to give them time to set and then turn them out onto a rack and flip right side up to cool completely.

Chocolate Chip-Raspberry Muffins

Servings: 12
Preheat: 350
Prep Time: 
Source: Fine Cooking Issue #77

These muffins, laced with tart raspberries and sweet chocolate chips, would make a romantic wake-up for a Valentine’s Day breakfast.

Ingredients: 

1 lb. (3-1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. table salt
1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
5 oz. (10 Tbs.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen (no need to thaw)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions: 

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil (or spray with cooking spray) the top of a standard 12-cup muffin tin (cups should be 2-3/4 inches across and about 1 inch deep) and line with paper or foil baking cups.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, butter, milk, crème fraîche or sour cream, eggs, and egg yolk until well combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold gently with a rubber spatula just until the dry ingredients are mostly moistened (the batter will be lumpy)–there should still be quite a few streaks of dry flour.

Sprinkle the raspberries, chocolate chips, and vanilla extract onto the batter, and fold them in until just combined. (The batter will be lumpy; don’t try to smooth it out.) Do not overmix.

Use an ice cream scoop if you have one with a “sweeper” in it; otherwise, use two spoons to spoon the batter into the muffin cups, distributing all of the batter evenly. The batter should mound higher than the rim of the cups by about 3/4 inch. Bake until the muffins are golden brown and spring back lightly when you press the middle, 30 to 35 minutes. (The muffin tops will probably meld together.) Let the tin cool on a rack for 15 to 20 minutes, then use a table knife to separate the tops, and then invert the pan and pop out the muffins.

Italian Ricotta Cookies

Servings: 6 dozen
Preheat: 350
Prep Time: 1 hour, plus 2 hours’ chilling
Source: New York Times

Jessica Hulett’s tender, cakey ricotta cookies taste like the white part of the best black and white cookie you’ve ever had. The recipe comes from Ms. Hulett’s grandmother Dorie, who used to flavor the cookies with anise, if she used flavoring at all. Adding lemon zest gives the cookies a fragrant brightness. We approve. —Melissa Clark

Ingredients: 

2 sticks (1 cup) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
425 grams sugar (about 2 cups)
1 ¾ cups ricotta cheese (15 ounces), preferably fresh
Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
480 grams all-purpose flour (about 4 cups)
10 grams baking soda (2 teaspoons)
4 grams fine sea salt (about 3/4 teaspoon)
450 grams confectioners’ sugar (about 4 cups)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup to 1/2 cup milk, as needed

Directions: 

Using an electric mixer, cream 2 sticks butter with sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add ricotta, lemon zest and 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and beat well. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl down with a rubber spatula, then beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Cover dough and chill for at least 2 hours and up to a week.

Heat oven to 350 degrees and line several cookie sheets with parchment paper or nonstick liners. Shape tablespoons of dough into balls. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake until pale golden on the bottom, about 15 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.

Melt remaining tablespoon butter. Whisk confectioners’ sugar to break up any large lumps, then whisk in melted butter, lemon juice, remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and enough milk to make a spreadable icing. Spread icing on cooled cookies, then let set for at least 20 minutes before serving.