Recipe: Ricotta Tots

I’m a distributor for the Pampered Chef, as many of you already know. I’m not really supposed to talk about it online, because of publicity regulations, but I recently stumbled upon the blog of a Consultant who links from her blog to her personal Pampered Chef website (BIG no-no!). So until they clamp down on Kristy Chowning, I feel it’s not a big deal to mention products on my blog.

To get to the point, though, I have tried several recipes in the past few months that I’d never tried before, because of PC. We make food for our shows and our cluster meetings and so on, and some of the recipes are really good. The other day I glanced at a certain recipe in a PC cook book belonging to a fellow Consultant, and it sounded scrumptious – but I didn’t note it down.

Instead, when I got home, I tried to approximate it. It turned out quite yummy! (As I was making them, I was all like, “I hope these turn out okay,” and Sean was all like, “Um, it’s fried cheese. What’s not to like??”) And I came up with the name Ricotta Tots all by myself. Try this:

Put one container (500 ml)’s worth of ricotta cheese in a bowl. Add a generous amount, like maybe a quarter cup, of (preferably fresh grated) parmesan cheese and one egg. (I actually did two eggs but if I did it again I’d just use one.) Press two or three cloves of garlic into the mix, along with a couple tablespoons of flour, a sprinkle of salt, and a whole bunch of fresh ground pepper. Mix it all up. Heat some vegetable oil to medium-high in a pan, and drop the mixture into the pan by the tablespoonful. The tots will need to cook for several minutes on each side – depends on your stove, though. Just play it by ear. Makes about 30 tots.

Since we’re talking about it openly, I will just also mention that this process was made easier by my garlic press, my pepper and salt grinders, my stainless scoop that empties itself out when you squeeze the handle, and my Microplane grater for the parmesan (it makes gorgeous, fluffy grated cheese or zest or whatever – every time I use it I want to sing a little song about how I love it). I’m not trying to sell you, I’m just saying. I relish my tools.

Anyway… this household enjoyed Ricotta Tots. We served them warm with marinara sauce – a salad would go nicely as well. If you try them, please let me know how they go!

On the next episode, we’ll talk about Moroccan Crostini, okay?