Ricotta Chocolate Chunk Cookies

So, we ended up with having about six pounds of ricotta cheese in our house, all at once...it happens. Therefore, I was willing to try and recipe that had ricotta in it, especially if it wasn't lasagna. This recipe was good too, because I could therefore give the cookies away to people that had sent me grad presents. Hopefully they like ricotta, but the flavor is not really there, its mainly for the nice puffy-ness that these cookies get. Putting them in the freezer also makes them more puffy instead of getting flat when you cook them. Try them out if you one day also have tons of ricotta to use!

Adapted from La Kocinera

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 bar dark chocolate

1/2 cup dried cranberries

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar, whipping until well blended and slightly fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla.

To the wet mixture, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mixing well to combine. Take a sharp knife and cut up the chocolate bar into smallish hunks. To this mixture, add the chocolate bar chunks and cranberries (or any dried fruit you like), again stirring until well blended.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Once chilled, form the cookies into balls (about the size of golf balls) and put them on the greased cookie sheet, or as I used, a Silpat (which you don't have to grease). Cook them for about 14 minutes, maybe a little more, depending on your oven. I cooked them for seven minutes and then rotated the cookies sheet so that the ones in the back didn't get too brown, then put them back in for 8 more minutes. There will be about 24 cookies.

Father's Day special

What to serve to the dad that loves all things lemon? Well a lemon brunch, of course! I'm thinking lemon waffles or pancakes, and then later of course a lemon dessert! Yum! Lemon cocktails, perhaps?

Look's like it'll be lemon meringue pie! This is dad's favorite kind of pie, and I have never tried making it before...

I borrowed Martha Stewart's pie recipe, from her 1985 edition of "Pies and Tarts"