It's All About the Garnish!

Sunset Magazine Win!

Yay! After losing in New York (again) my mood brightened quite a bit when I learned that I had won the Sunset Magazine Fresh Cheese Recipe Contest. There were two categories:  Sweet and Savory - of course I chose savory, and concocted a puff pastry - ricotta - arugula -shiitake pocket with some spicy tomatoes on top.

The prize? Tickets to the Artisan Cheese Festival in Petaluma this Saturday, plus the gala 8-course gourmet dinner that night, with town car transportation! Fancy! I've also been invited to speak at the Ricotta Seminar, to talk about my recipe with 40 guests.

Here's the recipe:

SAVORY EGG AND RICOTTA SQUARES WITH SHITAKES AND ARUGULA

Serves: 4

Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes***

• 2 sheets frozen puff pastry dough, thawed
• 6 large eggs
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
• 1½ cups shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tsp. salt, divided
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup lightly packed arugula
• 1 cup fresh ricotta cheese (from the February 2010 issue of Sunset)
• 4 Roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 tbsp. sriracha (garlic chili paste)
• 1 cup fresh fromage blanc (from the February 2010 issue of Sunset)

1. Preheat oven to 425° degrees. Slice puff pastry sheets into quarters and place 4 on an ungreased baking sheet. Chill all 8 puff pastry squares while you make the filling.

2. Whisk together eggs and 1/2 cup water in a medium bowl. In a large nonstick skillet, melt 1 tbsp. butter over medium-high heat and swirl to coat pan. Add mushrooms, 1/2 tsp. salt, and the pepper; cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes or until mushroom edges begin to brown. Stir in garlic and arugula and cook until arugula wilts.

3. Add egg mixture and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until eggs are almost set. Fold in ricotta and let cool 5 minutes.

4. Spoon egg-ricotta mixture into center of each pastry square, dividing evenly. Place a reserved square on top, aligning the edges and pinching together. Poke center of each square with a fork. Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

5. Melt remaining 1 tbsp. butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add tomatoes and sriracha and cook, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes.

6. Transfer squares to four plates, then top each with 1/4 cup fromage blanc. Spoon tomatoes over fromage blanc, dividing evenly.

***Note:  I'm not sure why, but Sunset seems to think it'll take 1 hour and 20 minutes to make this dish. No way! If it truly took that long, I wouldn't want to make it. I'd be willing to bet you can do it in 30 minutes or less. 

Here's a link to the page at Sunset.com

The EASIEST App: Mushrooms, Onions and Butter!

I made a fun new dish for the housewarming party event, and it got such rave reviews, I must share:
I researched online and ended up combining a few different ideas together to make something that I thought our group would enjoy. We all watch carbs and fats. One of us is vegetarian. We all loooooove heavy and rich and succulent dishes. So I made a hot mushroom and cheese dip...

You, too can make this and appear to be a rock star. This dish is ridiculously easy and reminds me of how a few simple ingredients can really be all you need. In a saucepan:

• One container of sliced mushrooms (crimini for more flavor but I'm not sure it would matter either way)
• one small onion chopped
• 1/4 cube butter

Bring this in a saucepan to a mushy mess (five minutes??) and add two tablespoons of flour (stir it in!!!), a cup of low-fat sour cream, a few squirts of lemon, a tablespoon or so of parsley and a shake or two of salt and pepper. Here we would say "salt and pepper to taste" but to be really clear, you will need to first taste your dish, then add a shake of salt, then taste again. And don't go crazy. Stir and taste and add and repeat. Like a tango in your kitchen. And definitely note that we'll be adding a lot of parmesean cheese over the top of this and stick it in the oven. This means a lot more salt will be added, as parmesean cheese is a very salty one! So be super careful with seasoning.

I can tell you that its going to be smelling quite good. So don't eat yet though. This entire process took hopefully ten minutes right? Now that you have reduced the mixture on the stove and added the key ingredients, you will transfer this from the saucepan into something that may look like a serving dish and be appropriate to be put into the oven. A Corian bowl or something. Sprinkle a generous amount of parmesean cheese over your mixture. Cook for 15 minutes. And serve with thinly sliced bread or crackers. The key versatility perk here is that you could take this from the saucepan to a "holding pattern" (fridge, car, whatever) for a few HOURS and then stick it in the oven for 15 to serve as a hot dip. I recommend for holiday parties and for fun. Plus with low-fat ingredients and all, this is not that bad for you. Not that you'd ever know........

Weeknight Cocktail Hour (Quick and Easy Apps)

I'm racing out the door this morning with a short shopping list in hand for tonight's festivities. I've got a few friends coming over to see my new house (yes this is why you haven't heard from me lately...). They're coming right after work so I'm going to be very strategic in what I provide for appetizers, so I don't have to scurry as I get home! Here are a few options that you could provide in a similar situation:

Easiest

Fruit and Cheese Tray:

• Blocks of fancy cheeses
• Multiple cheese knives and a fancy serving dish or butcher block
• Crackers and bread
• Fruit and nuts (grapes, almonds, etc.)

Pretty Easy

Dips and Dunkers

• There are so many dip recipies that take two seconds to make, or pick one up in the deli section. Put the dip in a fancy dish and make your guests feel special.
• Dunk carrots, celery and other creative veggies.
• Dunk sliced bread or crackers (or chips if you want to be naughty)
• Warm dips are even fancier and often you can prepare ahead and reheat when guests arrive

Not Easy

I don't recommend the following if you have to work during the day

• Homemade hot wings or any other meaty appetizers
• Stuffed mushrooms (fabulous but labor intensive and they don't hold up well if you do them the day before)
• Anything else from scratch. Hey the guests don't need to know. Just make it APPEAR that you spent tons of time on things, don't actually do it.... :)

Just remember that they are there to see you, visit with each other, and relax. The food is just a perk. Make the presentation special and the food simple--- they'll love it.

Curing the Bleu Cheese Blues

On the topic of salad dressings yesterday I remembered that I have a great and really simple recipie for homemade blue cheese dressing that kicks the butt of any store bought brand. I think it rocks because of the amount of blue cheese that actually goes into the dressing - more of the good stuff. I am 100% certain that this simple and inexpensive freshly-made version of your favorite dressing will change your shopping habits from now on...

• 1 carton of crumbled blue cheese (no need to go with a high-end brand here, we are spicing it up with other stuff)
• 1 small container of buttermilk
• 1 cup of sour cream - I use fat-free to counteract all the blue cheese. :)
• 1/2 cup of mayo (again, low-fat is fine for this)
• 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar
• 1 pinch of garlic powder
• Salt and lots of pepper to taste

Mix one cup of loosely packed blue cheese and one cup of buttermilk together with a fork. The mixture will start to loosen up and turn an ugly shade of moldy blue/green. It will look more appetizing soon, don't worry! Mix in the remaining ingredients and be sure to add a fair amount of pepper. This is my favorite part of the dressing. Before proclaiming it finished, stick it in the fridge for a while, at least an hour, and let the flavors meld together. Retaste- you may need to add more spice. This lasts for at least a few days and is soooooooo good.

Breakfast in Bed - Oooh La La

Why isn't there a company that delivers breakfast? Like Dominos but better... I was thinking about breakfast in bed this morning. I'm a fan of whole grain and low sugar breakfasts. And coffee. Lots of coffee. We rarely celebrate the 'event' of breakfast. I love breakfast in bed, or breakfast with the family before opening presents on Christmas morning. My dad likes to do "short order cook" breakfasts with pancakes and eggs hot off the grill. By the time the last set of pancakes and eggs is made, the others have gone cold. So our tradition is to eat them as they come. Informal. Good.

So how do we make breakfast special but easy? It's a tricky meal. The cook will not want to be up for hours preparing things. Here are a few easy shortcuts for making it work:

• Fruit salad. Prepare everything the night before EXCEPT the bananas and strawberries. Add those in the morning. Toss with fruit juice to freshen it up. Plop some whipped cream on top.
• Strata. If you're cooking for a big group, breakfast strata is elegant and hearty. There are so many great recipies for this traditional breakfast dish. It's like a breakfast lasagna. Layers of bread, spinach, sausage or bacon, cheese. A one-pot meal. The great thing about strata is that it must be drenched in beaten eggs overnight to soak the entire dish, and pulled out to bake in the morning. Hard to mess this dish up!!!
• Coffee bar. Spice up the morning coffee with a selection of accessories (garnish!) such as cinnamon, cocoa powder, whipped cream, or the fixin's for Irish Coffee. This also works with tea.
• Fresh squeezed anything. Carrot juice mixed with raspberries. OJ with a hint of strawberry. Mango lemonade. Anything. Unique, homemade but really quick and simple (if you have a juicer....)
• Decor. Throw on a tablecloth and dress up the table with some white roses. Pull out those funny little bowls you've never used, or the teacups your grandmother gave you. It doesn't take much!

One last sage piece of advice. Don't forget to brush your teeth. :)

Savory Tart (Puff Pastry Pizza)

A while back, Jen made her "Saucy Tart" (which says quite a bit about the author, natch), and it was good. But now, because Fall is in the air, I wanted to make something a little more meal-like with the puff pastry languishing in my freezer.
The thing to remember about tarts, galettes and the like is that there are no rules. They're really just open-faced pies.
Simply take a bunch of flavors you like (that you think will go together), chop them up, and sprinkle them about. Here's what I did:* Thaw out your puff pastry first, as it's super hard to deal with and will crack if it's still frozen.
* Preheat your oven to 450, and bake a sheet of it on a (greased) cookie pan for ten minutes.
* While it's pre-baking, gather and chop your fillings.
I chose:
Carmelized Red Onions
Tri-tip (leftover from the night before)
Tomatoes (salted and peppered)
Chopped Green Onions
Crumbled Bleu Cheese
* Sprinkle your fillings evenly over the pre-baked sheet of puff pastry.
* Take another (raw) sheet of puff pastry and cut it into whatever shapes suit your fancy and place them on top.
* Bake for another ten minutes. Slice and serve!

Turning Down the Heat

Congrats Jamie and Family for sweeping the fair contests! Woohoo!!! And she didn't mention that it was one of the hottest weeks we've seen here in the Valley. This week, completely tired of the 100+ degrees (and a horrible a/c), I decided to do a weeklong ban on cooking. With my stove, grill and oven off limits, what is there to make? I made some fantastic salads, sandwiches, got creative with leftovers, and overall had a fun time experimenting with cold options. One of my favorites-- instead of baking a dessert for the 4th of July, we had a fantastic fresh fruit salad with raspberries, plums, peaches and melon (all really sugary and sweet), and spooned large quantities of homemade whipped cream on top. To make it a little more classy, I added a splash of Grand Marinier in the whipped cream. Wow it was good. And not that bad for you either.

I also went very rustic one night for dinner, pulling out the old-school Italian sandwich idea and revamping it with a Napa flair. I bought a skinny baguette and fresh (in water) mozzerella, clipped some fresh tomatoes and basil, and made a really nice and basic sandwich. I mixed up a clove of minced garlic and a large amount of fresh chopped basil with some olive oil, salt, pepper and balsalmic and let it sit for a while. In the meantime, I thinly sliced the cheese and tomatoes and then tossed them in with the mixture. I let the whole thing marinate for a while and put it on bread. Wow so good. And really fresh flavors. Very filling and balanced meal - carbs, protein from the cheese, veges. Sometimes simple is a really good thing. In a smaller quantity this could easily be an appetizer, but why not make it a meal?

Saucy Tart (Savory Galette)

Baking and cooking require time, technique and personality. If you haven't guessed already, I'm not a detail-oriented person and I love recipies that allow creativity in presentation. So rather than putting together a tart (often these look like super-glazed thin pies with meticulously arranged fruit designs on top), I like baking galettes. A galette is the messy version of a tart. And it sounds so French. So fancy. So now we make a free-form tart, using the following technique, and involving ANYTHING you want for the filling (I'll explain later).

Savory Galette Appetizer:

• 1 frozen pie crust
• Crumbled fresh goat cheese or crumbled gorgonzola (small package)
• 6 or more fresh ripe plums or figs
• Fresh thyme or rosemary
• Splash of olive oil, pinch of salt and sugar if needed

Lay out the frozen pie crust on a cookie sheet. In the end, we want to fold the edges up and over the filling, by about an inch. Crumble a generous layer of cheese into the middle of the pie crust. Chop and crumble a nice amount of fresh thyme or rosemary on top of this layer. In a bowl, combine thinly sliced fruit, olive oil and salt. Taste and add sugar if needed, based on sweetness of the fruit. Put the fruit on top of cheese in a thin layer and wrap the edges of the crust up and around the fruit. Pop it in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes, maybe more(check it after 30 to make sure the crust isn't overcooked). This is soooooo good. I made it last night for a dinner party and tried three different combinations. Goat cheese gets really creamy when it is cooked, but the flavor of the gorgonzola and figs with rosemary was the crowd favorite.

Now the great thing is that this Galette idea is super simple, and can be modified to be a dessert. Thinly slice apples. Add cinnamon and sugar, perhaps some currants too. Add about two tablespoons of flour. Toss and use this as your filling. The only secret you need to know is that when you use a runny fruit (apples get really juicy when you cook them - and peaches may just not work for this), you need to add some flour. Otherwise you will have serious issues with the crust, and may have a big puddle in your oven when you're done.