Cherry-Ricotta Bruschetta

I continue to struggle with looking at a bunch of ingredients and imagining a meal. In general, I follow recipes and make a few changes to account for ingredients available or to suit my tastes. But yesterday, a friend and I came across fresh ricotta and the most beautiful fresh cherries. The cherries were slightly tart so I thought they would make an amazing “dessert alternative” or a somewhat sweet appetizer.

We topped toasted baguette pieces (also from the market) with some of the ricotta, pitted cherries, mint, and a touch of honey.

Ingredients (serves 4, multiply as needed):

• 1/2 a baguette (or 8 pieces)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 oz fresh ricotta
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon mint, chopped
• 24 cherries, pitted
• 1 teaspoon local honey

Preheat your broiler to high. Begin by pitting your cherries. I used the OXO cherry & olive pitter. Chop the mint.

Slice the baguette and arrange on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil.

Broil for one minute or until the bread is crispy (watch the bread under the broiler, it can turn from toasted to burnt really quickly.) Top each piece of bread with fresh ricotta. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, you only need a 1/4 teaspoon for all of them. The salt will help bring out flavor so you need very little on each baguette.

Sprinkle the mint evenly among the bread slices.

Top each with 3 cherries. If you want, you can top with more mint.

Drizzle the honey over each slice and serve.

We had this after dinner and it was the perfect end to the meal.  It wasn’t overly sweet but the honey came through nicely. The cherries tartness works well with the creamy ricotta, crispy bread, and mint.

The cherries tend to roll away so hold them in place when you bite in (except for the cherry you are biting into of course!)

I also love that we were able to find all of the ingredients at a local farmers market.