Housewarming Cooking: The Pictures

Finally! Well my Vegas Vacation came at a bad time for those of you waiting for the pictures from the party you’ve been reading about for weeks. Well, here they are. The chicken skewer tower, the slow-cooked BBQ pork, the panzanella, the homemade doughnuts and corn chips, the pineapple cream cheese wontons, the onion goat cheese tart, the pigs in blankets and the ziti cups are all there. Plus there are even shots of Julia’s incredible cupcakes, famous chocolate chip cookies and fabulous cheese tray. Enjoy!

Housewarming Cooking: No Puff of Smoke

Welcome back to the longest housewarming party ever! In case you missed my posts from last week on not one, but two meat dishes, as well as some crunchy, crispy snacks I made for our housewarming party, you can still catch up. And you can be the first to read below about the fun I had with one of my favorite special party ingredients: frozen puff pastry.

I don't use puff pastry all that often but I like to have fun with it when I do because it’s so easy to use – and so delicious. It only takes a few minutes to bring the sheets to room temperature once outside of their packaging, and once they're thawed, they can be unfolded, rolled out, employed, baked and eaten all in short order. I used three sheets of pastry and made two different but delicious bites for the party.

The first dish was easy as…tart? Since I wanted to make sure that I had enough interesting food for vegetarians as well as meat eaters, I decided to make a little onion, goat cheese and herb tart. I rolled out a single sheet of puff pastry and placed it in my pie dish that I had sprayed with a little Pam. I pressed it around the edges to give it a rustically messy crust. I thinly sliced an entire red onion and loaded all of the pieces into the shell, so it was heaping. I then crumbled three ounces of goat cheese in and around the onions and added salt, pepper and some broken leaves of thyme and sage. Lastly, I drizzled a little red wine vinegar over the onions. I placed the tart in a 350 degree oven for about twenty minutes at which point it was perfectly golden and puffy. I sliced it in to bites before serving. The onions were crispy and tangy and the cheese added some further cool, creamy tang. The pastry brought it all together via the puffy crust that everyone loves. A very nice little vegetarian crowd-pleaser.

Now you want to talk about historically good crowd pleasers? Pigs in a blanket. That's what I used my other two sheets of puff pastry and two packages of all-beef kosher hot dogs (the thin ones) to make. Those crispy, salty, puffy, smoky comfort classics were definitely a hit. I laid seven hot dogs on each of two sheets of puff pastry that I had rolled out. Then I made little cuts in the pastry so that each dog had its own little parcel of pastry that I then wrapped each one in. I placed all fourteen on a sprayed baking sheet and baked in the oven for about twenty minutes until they too were golden and puffed up. I cut each pig in half and served them out with some pressed-dry sauerkraut and some spicy mustard. These condiments add a special zip to the pigs that make them amazing. As you can imagine, these were very popular and got snarfed off the table quicker than I can say “woof woof” or “oink oink” – or should I say they were gone in what seemed like a puff of smoke.

Both puff pastry dishes were simple, tasty and popular. You can't ask for much more in the realm of party food, which is why I don't. I just use more and more often.

Julia's Dinner Party: Amuse-Bouche

Well, Julia graduated from the University of Michigan last weekend. Congratulations to her, finishing in three and a half years! To celebrate Julia's momentous occasion back in Michigan, I decided it would only be fitting to throw her an equally momentous dinner party with her Mama Mary (Happy Birthday!), her sister Erica, and members of my family (Mom, Dad, Jacob, Hill and Chris). I did the cooking and Mary the hosting, and it all went off swimmingly – at least according to the eight other consumers of my cooking. So unless one of them steps up to write a more revealing review, I'll break it up and tell you a little bit each day. Starting of course with the opening bites of cheddar, sage and tomato in puff pastry.

So to make my amuse-bouche, I started with one sheet of frozen puff pastry. I unfolded it and pulled it apart so it would thaw faster and left it out on the counter for 45 minutes at which point it was thawed and feeling much like a dough.

I cut the dough into 32 square-like shapes by stacking the puff pastry and cutting. I wanted 16 of the squares to be on the larger size, with 16 on the smaller size. Maybe a square inch for the bigger ones and a square centimeter for the smaller ones, but I was not exact nor were they all exactly squares.

I laid the 16 larger squares onto a baking sheet and then added two shavings of extra sharp cheddar cheese on top of each one. I tried for each shaving to be as long and thin as I could, so they covered a lot of the square. I then added a half slice of a small tomato on top of each cheese/pastry square. I used little Campari tomatoes by slicing them and cutting each slice in half. Roma tomatoes would also work. To my tomato, cheese and pastry stack I added a single, small, fresh sage leaf, and then I covered each stack with the associated smaller square of pastry as a top. To finish them off, I put a little extra smidge of cheddar on top of all the tops and then cracked some black pepper and drizzled a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil over the tray.

At this point the tray can really sit out or in the fridge until ready to be baked off, which is what I did. So it worked well as a prep-ahead dish. Right when people were coming, I popped them into a 400 degree oven until they were puffy and golden. This was under ten minutes, but I really did it by sight. When the dough is puffy and the cheese melted, they are done and ready to be served hot!

And after the 16 were gobbled up by the hungry dinner attendants before I could say “amuse-bouche” three times, I knew they were winners. When I tried one myself and tasted the golden, savory treat that it was, I appreciated the cook just a little bit more for saving one for himself.

More tomorrow on the salad course.

Puff Up Your Sweet Tooth

I can't think of a more fun ingredient to work with than puff pastry. It's delicious, easy, and you can do a lot of creative things with it. And no pretense here – it is not a health food at all; it's got plenty of butter in it. But every once in a while, it is certainly a worthy treat in both savory and sweet applications. I did an awesome little savory one not so long ago with puffy Asiago straws. I had a little left over in my freezer and wanted to use it for a improv little treat. I had just the thing: mini cinnamon rolls and mini jelly rolls. Yum!

The first thing to do is thaw the sheet of puff pastry. There was not even a full sheet left, so it was perfect for one mini cinnamon roll and one mini jelly roll for each of us, and no leftovers.

Once the piece was thawed, I brushed one side with some melted Smart Balance. I then cut it into long strips, about three quarters of an inch wide or a little more. On two of the strips I generously sprinkled a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. On the other two I spooned a thin layer of raspberry preserves. Then I began rolling each one from its end into a roll, taking care not to let any of the precious ingredients spill out. I turned each on its end and placed them spread out on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet. It's important that they don't tip over in the oven, so I pushed each one down on the bottom so that it wouldn't be prone to tip. Lastly, I brushed a little more Smart Balance on top and sprinkled the lightest amount of sugar over the layers.

I then placed the sheet in a 400 degree oven for 17-18 minutes. As you might expect, these little rollups that were probably no more than an inch in diameter when they entered the oven, puffed up to several inches wide. They were puffy, crispy and golden on the outermost layers and dense and moist in the center layers. Sticky and delicious, sweet and indulgent of course. And so easy to make! Maybe that's a dangerous thing. I'll have to avoid the frozen puff pastry in the grocery store again until I have another special treat to use it for.

Little Puffs of Heaven

If you need an absolutely delectable appetizer or finger food, I have an easy and simply lavishing recipe for puffy Asiago cheese straws. I originally gleaned the concept of cheese straws from Ina Garten on the Barefoot Contessa television show. Of course, when I went to make them recently it had been upwards of a year since I had watched them being made and I forgot nearly everything, so I had to improvise a little. Needless to say, they came out better and more luxurious than I ever remember Ina’s looking. Maybe one of my little tweaks actually improved them.

What you end up with is a golden, flaky “straw,” with deliciously nutty Asiago cheese melted throughout. They are a little on the rich side, but you can cut them into hunks or cubes and serve more people from them. Or you can enjoy an entire straw yourself! They are as tender and buttery as you can imagine, and the girls I served them to could not stop oo-ing and ah-ing.

You need a few ounces of Asiago cheese, shredded with your grater, Micro planer or food processor. You also need one sheet of thawed, store-bought puff pastry. As Ina would say, get the “all-butter” variety (read: no trans fat, but this is no health food). Truthfully, that is all I remember from her recipe. I rolled out the puff pastry a little bit so it was thinner than the standard sheet. I then drizzled a little extra virgin olive oil over the top and rubbed it in with my hands, so that it lightly covered the entire sheet. Then, I sprinkled the cheese evenly over the surface and sprinkled just a little salt and pepper. I sliced it into four “straw”-like pieces length-wise and twisted the puff strips like a ribbon as I laid each down next to one another on a cookie sheet. Most of the cheese side ended up covered, on the inside of the ribbons. That was just fine. I sprinkled a little more grated Asiago over the tops and then stuck them in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes.

I took them out and was simply wowed by how puffy and soft and crispy they were. I let them cool for 5-10 minutes and then we all dug in. They were gone in a finger-licking blink of an eye, but they were so easy that these fan favorites will be made again very soon!