Mint Pea Ricotta Toasts from the Wicked Healthy Cookbook

I’ve got a real springtime breakfast treat in store for you guys today, (it involves some of my favorite springtime flavors, including fresh peas, mint, and lemon), and is coming at you courtesy of my friends’ beautiful and delicious new cookbook, Wicked Healthy. The summer before last I had the pleasure of shooting this cookbook, and it was such a blast and I was so in awe of the passion that these guys have for good, real food. If you’re unfamiliar with Wicked Healthy, it’s a food blog run by two brothers, Derek and Chad, who are extremely passionate about plant-based cooking and are *actual magicians* when it comes to transforming simple ingredients into incredible meals. The cookbook is full of inspiring recipes, beautiful storytelling, and vibrant rich imagery, and I know you’ll love it as much as I do.

As for these toasts, they involve mixing fresh peas with lemon zest and vegan ricotta (you can substitute regular ricotta if you’d like), then spreading this flavor-packed mixture on toast and topping it with fresh mint and delicious slivers of summer squash. It’s super easy, fast, simple, and tasty—so pretttttty much everything you’re looking for in a breakfast dish.

As a side note, I’d originally planned on posting this a month ago, but forgot to upload the photos to dropbox off of my desktop computer before I left for my month-long trip to New York + Europe, so they’ve been sitting at home ever since and that’s why it’s taken me so long to post. I had this grand plan of getting all my blog posts written out and scheduled ahead of time for this past month that I was out of town, but of course that immediately went to sh*t once I realized how much packing I needed to do and all the summer-izing of the garden that needed to be done before I left. Plus some other last-minute work projects that came up, too. ANYWHO, now I’m back and getting into the swing of things again, which means catching up on emails, cooking a ton (I barely cooked while away! It was very strange.), and doing SO. MUCH. WEEDING. The fennel bulbs self-seeded this year and now around every one of my 6 fennel bulbs there are literally HUNDREDS of tiny baby fennel bulbs that need to be taken out of the ground before they take over the yard. Don’t get me wrong, I like fennel very very much…but not much more than 100 fennel bulb’s worth. Ugh.

Also! I just opened registration for a 1-Day Photography, Storytelling + Branding Intensive in my hometown of Portland, Oregon this summer! There’s only 2 spaces left, you can read more + register here, I’d love to have you come visit me in my hometown!

Okay that’s all for now, (I promise I’ll write more about my trip in the next post!), the dogs are going crazy to be let outside and I’ve got to get a little caffeine in me to help combat this jetlag. Love you guys lots and hope you’re enjoying the warm spring weather!!

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Mint Pea Ricotta Toasts

A delicious, quick, healthy, and easy breakfast from the Wicked Healthy Cookbook, out in stores now! A few things to note, you can make the mint pea ricotta up to 5 days before you plan on using it, so it's a great idea to make a batch on Sunday and then use it for morning toasts throughout the work week. Additionally, the original recipe calls for 4 cloves of roasted garlic but I swapped it out for 2 raw cloves of garlic for ease of use/speed in the recipe below. If you want to roast some garlic for the mint pea ricotta, though, feel free! Also, if you'd rather not grill the bread, you can just toast it in a toaster while you're grilling the zucchini/squash to speed things up. Enjoy, friends!

Course Breakfast

Keyword lemon, mint, pea, ricotta, spring, toast

Servings 2 people

Author The Wicked Healthy Cookbook

Ingredients

Mint Pea Ricotta

• 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 cups ricotta (Kite Hill makes a great vegan ricotta if desired)
• 2 tablespoons Shallots, minced
• 2 tablespoons shredded (thinly sliced) fresh mint leaves
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons flake sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Mint Pea Ricotta + Zucchini Toasts

• 1/2 small yellow summer squash
• 1/2 small green zucchini
• 1 drizzle extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lemon
• 4 slices whole grain bread
• 1 cup minted pear ricotta (above)
• 1 pinch garlic or chive blossoms, optional
• 1 handful mint leaves
• flake sea salt
• freshly cracked black pepper
• 4 snap peas or English peas in the shells, split in half lengthwise, optional garnish

Instructions

Mint Pea Ricotta

1. If using fresh peas, blanch (boil) them in a small pot of boiling water for 20 seconds. Rinse under cold water to col them down. If using frozen peas, just thaw them.

2. Coarsely chop the cooled peas and transfer to a mixing bowl.

3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Use immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 5 days.

Mint Pea Ricotta + Zucchini Toasts

1. Heat a grill or grill pan to medium high. Use a mandoline or vegetable peeler to slice the squash and zucchini into wicked-thin ribbons. Lightly toss the ribbons with a drizzle of olive oil, then grill briefly to mark both sides. Set aside.

2. Cut the lemon in half and grill cut-side down until lightly charred, about 2 to 3 minutes. Grill each slice of bread until lightly toasted but not burnt, a few seconds per side.

3. Spread the ricotta mixture on each slice of toast and top with the sliced grilled zucchini and squash, overlapping and twisting a couple of slices for a better aesthetic. Sprinkle on the garlic flowers (if using), a few leaves of mint, a pinch of flake sea salt, and some cracked black pepper.

4. Just before serving, squeeze the charred lemon over the toast. If desired, place two halves of the snap peas on each toast and serve.