Goat Milk Ricotta and Pumpkin Butter: The Perfect Halloween Treat

This week marks the last outdoor markets at Oak Park and Green City Market. It’s also Halloween. In the spirit of the season, we have a couple of special treats for our valued customers: fresh ricotta and pumpkin butter. To inspire you to buy lots of ricotta, we’re providing you with a relatively simple recipe for ricotta gnocchi. If you’ve never made these delicate, delicious little pasta pillows (ESPECIALLY with OUR goat milk ricotta), now is your chance.  This is the last batch of ricotta for the season. 
The pumpkin butter is made with our home grown, organic banana squash—looks like a giant torpedo pumpkin.  Molly is busy in the kitchen cooking down the pumpkin as I write this week’s newsletter. 
Also back by popular demand at the Urbana Market (and maybe our Chicago Markets if we make enough) are the goat cheesecakes. Molly has taken over kitchen duty while Alisa awaits the arrival of her baby (and boy is she ready!), so Molly has made a slightly different recipe for her Chevre Cheesecakes—it’s pretty much all Chevre, eggs and sugar with a graham cracker crust.  They should be as delicious as the ones that Alisa made. We will also have a limited number of jars of our house made blackberry sauce to accompany the cheesecakes.

Cheeses Available This Week

• Fresh chevre
• Angel Food
• Little Bloom on the Prairie
• Ewe Bloom—last of the season
• Krotovina—last of the season
• Roxanne
• Whole Goat Milk Ricotta

Ricotta Gnocchi Recipe
(Recipe from Epicurious website; Gourmet Magazine, April 2008)

• 2 cups whole-milk ricotta (1 pound)
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3 ounces), divided
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 1 (2-inch) rosemary sprig
  
  Preparation

1.Stir together ricotta, eggs, 1 cup cheese, nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Add flour, stirring to form a soft, wet dough.
2.Shape dough on a well-floured surface with lightly floured hands into 2 (1-inch-thick) ropes. Cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces with a lightly floured knife. Put in 1 layer on a lightly floured parchment-lined baking sheet.
3.Cook gnocchi in 2 batches in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water), adding a few at a time to pot and stirring occasionally, until cooked through (cut one in half to check), 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain in colander.
4.Meanwhile, cook butter with rosemary in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-low heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes.
5.Toss gnocchi with brown butter in skillet and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese. Season with salt.
Enjoy!