Healthy Hostess: Cherry Sauce and Prosciutto Crostini

Happy National Cherry Month! To celebrate cherries I pushed myself to cook with them for Food and Nutrition magazine (see the original piece). Not in a sweet dessert way. Not plain outta the bag. Actually cook with them. It was hard. I had to reprimand myself and the husband many, many times for eating almost all of them before I could recipe test. Eventually, this cherry sauce was created. In this sauce, cherries blend with red wine and spices which makes it perfect for layering on a creamy skim ricotta on crunchy ciabatta (vegetarians stop here) and topped with salty prosciutto. 

I'm really in love with how this recipe turned out, both visually and from a taste perspective. Seriously, it's my laptop desktop background right now. And I rarely eat meat.  Like many of the recipes on Healthfully Ever After, when I create something it always works best when it has the following elements: sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy, tart/acidic. The first time the husband and I really figured out the components for success was with this basil pistachio popsicle with reduced balsamic. He's really great at analyzing and breaking down why things work. And every time we really obsess over how good a new recipe is...it meets those markers. 

Cherry Sauce Prosciutto Crostini

Makes 7 large slices 

Ingredients:

Cherry Sauce

• 1/2 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 3 1/2 Tablespoons Pino Noir 
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 cup cherries, pitted and chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Ricotta Spread:

• 1/2 cup fat free ricotta
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Other ingredients: 

• prosciutto
• ciabatta bread

Directions: To make cherry sauce, pit cherries, chop and add to a medium sized pot. Add additional sauce ingredients, stir and cover for five minutes to soften cherries on low/medium. Remove lid and increase stove top to medium heat so sauce begins to simmer. Continue to stir and simmer until the sauce is thick and reduced (about 10 minutes).  To create the crostini, slice ciabatta bread and toast. Mix ricotta ingredients in a bowl and spread over crostini. Spoon on cherry sauce over the bread and top with a slice of prosciutto.

And for anyone else south of the Mason Dixon line, the husband says that country ham kicks prosciutto butt, so feel free to substitute that!