Palm Springs and Truffled Ricotta with Honey

Sun Diego Eats
Sun Diego Eats - Fresh Food & Casual Cooking

This past weekend I rounded up some of my friends and their significant others, booked us a gorgeous house in Palm Springs, packed wayyy too much food, drove us out to the desert and had us a grand ol’ time in the 105 degree dry heat.

Palm Springs

World Cup 24/7 …not really there were only 4 games during the time we were there but still.

We cooked, we drank, we watched the World Cup, we tanned, we barbequed, we swam, we napped, we blended, we ate, we made s’mores, we played Cards Against Humanity and we swam some more. And the best part is that we did it all in a house that looked like this:

Even though it was only a weekend (plus a half day on Friday) it felt like so much longer. We definitely want to do this again and especially in a house with such a readily equipped kitchen. Renting a big house (with enough people) is so much more affordable then getting hotel rooms for everyone, this ended up being $140 per person for the whole weekend (cleaning included), while rooms for 2 at the Parker Palm Springs are $429 per night…on sale! I mean I still want to stay at the Parker some day (it’s gorgeous) don’t get me wrong, but it was great to have a house all to ourselves. Plus it had beach towels, bath towels, bath products, an iPhone speaker and every other hotel amenity plus an amazing kitchen to cook in. The kitchen was fully loaded with all kinds of cookware, tableware, spices and even a Vitamix blender. And it was all very carefully labeled in particularly neat OCD-like touch. Be still my heart.

The kitchen.

Now for the food part. This is one of my most favorite appetizers ever and I order it everywhere I see it, my favorite versions are from Davanti Enoteca in San Diego and Locanda Verde in NY. If you want a peak at this amazing appetizer at Davanti check out this post on brunch at Davanti. Not necessarily a breakfast food but I never go there and not order it.

Bread, Figs, Honey

This appetizer is pretty simple: bread, cheese, honey. More specifically focaccia, truffled whipped ricotta, and honey. Davanti uses honeycomb but honey will do just fine/ is cheaper / is easier to find / is easier to spread on bread without accidentally taking the entire chunk of it yourself and leaving no honeycomb for anyone else.

Truffled Ricotta with Honey

Oh right, I added figs to it too, because figs are in season and they are delicious. Not necessary but highly recommended if you like figs.

RECIPE: TRUFFLED RICOTTA WITH HONEY AND FOCACCIA Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound of fresh ricotta
2 teaspoons of truffle oil (if you wanna be a baller and use real truffle be my guest…also invite me over so I can havez sum plz)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 loaf of focaccia
2/3 cup of honey
olive oil
figs (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Using a blender of food processor blend ricotta until completely smooth. This might take a while and you might have to prod it around if you don’t have a fancy blender. Do not be discouraged. I don’t either.
Once smooth add in truffle oil, salt and pepper, blend again to combine and then set aside and refrigerate. This can be prepared ahead of time and is best served cold as it thickens up the ricotta.
When ready to serve heat up wide frying pan at medium high heat, slice the focaccia into 1/2 inch slices, brush both sides with olive oil and set on hot pan to toast both sides.
When brown on both sides put on platter. Add in a container with the honey and a bowl of the cold whipped ricotta. If desired add figs (or other fruits of your choice as well)
Eat!

Look Faye, for once my nails are painted :O

+ Fig

Hot, crisp bread with cool creamy ricotta and sweet honey? Amazing. A perfect appetizer for hot weather that requires minimal slaving over the stove. Some prosciutto could be nicely employed if you wanted to tip the scales a bit towards the savoury side of life.

We ate it like this, with rose wine with cubes of ice in it. Not very classy but what else are you going to do when it’s 107 F and you’re the first ones to get to the house so the air conditioning isn’t on yet? We cooked a whole bunch more but I kind of forgot to take pictures of it all. There were burgers and hot dogs, bacon and eggs for breakfast with avocado and tomatoes, breakfast quesadillas, grilled tri tip, guacamole, horchata rum popsicles, barbecue chicken, corn on the cob, salami pasta salad, oreo and coconut parfaits, pão de queijo, mint mojitos, fresh strawberry margaritas, grapefruit vodkas and lots of bloody mary’s for the girls. One notable favorite was Brandon from Kitchen Konfidence’s unbelievable Heirloom Tomato and Peach Caprese Salad. I only had nectarines so subbed those in. The classic caprese flavors with sweet juicy nectarines/peaches and a slightly sweeter balsamic dressing was the PERFECT side.

Heirloom Tomato and Peach Caprese Salad

And right before I served it we were deciding what to do with the one leftover avocado from the guacamole and so we did this:

+ avo

California Caprese anyone? So that’s about it. Clearly we didn’t have enough fun in the sun because the the bf and I just booked 5 nights in Hawaii…leaving this Friday! I’m preparing a couple posts that hopefully I will be able to post by email but if it gets eerily quite from my side you’ll know why :)