A few weeks ago, one of my blogger friends sent me a message encouraging me to go to foodiefights.com. This is a battlefield for competitive bloggers. I don’t like to think of myself as competitive, but who am I kidding? I’m a surgeon. We were born competitive. We dream competitive. I had to do it.

Previous battles have been lemon and potatoes, and rhubarb and coriander. These do not sound so difficult to me. Unfortunately, they asked me, when I signed up for this month’s battle, what food would I throw into the ring. Cauliflower?! I had so much of it in the refrigerator I did not know what to do with it. I belong to an organic food club, and cauliflower and apples have been heavily featured lately. Someone else came up with the raspberries, trust me. What a combination. It set me quite a challenge.

I thought about it a lot. I knew I could easily make a cauliflower slaw with raspberry dressing and be done with it. But, well, did I mention that I’m a surgeon? I can’t just take the easy way out. I needed to come up with something creative, different, unexpected. I hashed over ideas. Could I make cauliflower into a dessert? How about gnocchi, ravioli, a souffle? Ice cream? I’m sure any of these would have worked out. But could I get anyone to eat cauliflower ice cream with raspberry sauce?

On Saturday, inspiration hit. I had been wanting one of those mini cheesecake pans for weeks now. I looked for it at Sur la Table, Target, the King Arthur website. No luck. Even Williams-Sonoma’s website no longer had it. So I went to the Williams-Sonoma in Coral Gables this weekend, to see if they still had one. And they did! And that’s when it came to me – cheesecake! Cauliflower cheesecake. Not sweet. Not heavy. Mini ricotta-cauliflower cheesecakes. But how to include the raspberries? A sauce would be possible, but, well, lame. And how could I be sure it would go well. Be truly delicious. I was not seeking to just meet the criteria, but to create a dish worth eating and enjoying.

So, here it is: a triple-layer ricotta cauliflower mini cheesecake. And believe me, it was delicious. The flavors went well together. It was pretty. It smelled amazing while it was baking.

I made home-made ricotta, because I had been dying to try it since the Daring Cooks challenge made ricotta gnocchi (no, I did not participate this time around, but expect upcoming participation!) You don’t have to. I feel certain grocery store ricotta would be fine. But, really, it was so easy, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, the next time I make gnudi, I will definitely make it.

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I cannot believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I posted. I have never gone that long. To say that the last two weeks have been stressful is an understatement. But I have survived, and I have returned. This week’s recipe is worth the wait.

Recently I was invited to a Saturday night cocktail party. I had been to the farmer’s market that day, and had come home with heirloom tomatoes, green onions, and fresh ricotta. I had frozen puff pastry that I had made previously (and will post this week). I did a quick Google search and came up with this recipe from the Washington Post for Fresh tomato and ricotta tart. I thawed out the puff pastry and set to work mixing ricotta and slicing tomatoes. I had a large yellow and a large red tomato. They were both a little on the wet side. I laid them out on paper towels to dry a little while I rolled out the puff pastry and mixed the cheese.

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I have to be honest. I have enough material to blog every day for the next month. What I don’t have is time to blog and cook. So my choices are stop cooking or only blog the very best of what I cook. That being said, this is without a doubt one of the best recipes I’ve made all month! I apologize that not everyone can get ramps. If you can’t get them, use green onions or spring onions or baby leeks.

This recipe was in Food and Wine April 2008. The original recipe was by Tony Mantuano, who wrote my favorite Wine Bar Food and owns Spiaggia’s in Chicago. I fiddled around with it a little. I didn’t have any mozzarella and I don’t really like it on pizza anyway. I had really good, really fresh ricotta cheese. I had ramps, of course, because in my last post I told you that I mail-ordered them. I ordered 3 lbs of ramps. Who knew how many ramps that really was? And then I also bought Vidalia spring onions. So I will be in oniony goodness for days yet to come.

And don’t worry, I’m not going to stop cooking.

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I grew up in New England, and have only lived anywhere else for about 5 years. You would think I would have eaten ramps before in my life. Especially at Girl Scout camp, where I tried fiddleheads a few times. But no, I wait until I move to Florida, where they don’t grow, to decide I would like to try them. Of course, for a long, long time, I did not eat leeks, onions, scallions, any of those things. Thank God my tastes have changed.

So, anyway, it’s ramp season, but they do not grow in Miami. So, I mail-ordered some from Earthy Delights. I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t very locavore of me. But they are healthy! They have vitamins C and A, iron, fiber, and all those nice anti-cancer sulfur compounds.

This month’s Bon Appétit had some great recipes. I found a few other great recipes, and I made one up – Gnudi with Tomato, Pea, and Ramp Sauce. So I thought I would share them with you.

Ramps and Buttermilk Biscuits with Cracked Coriander

Ramp and Sausage Risotto

Scrambled Eggs with Ramps, Morels, and Asparagus

Seared Salmon with Linguine and Ramp Pesto

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