Rosie Rings In The New Year With Spanakopita.

 

 I can't believe I've made it this long without making spanakopita.  And now, I have finally corrected that error.  In case you're unfamiliar with this dish, it's a savory Greek pie with crisp layers of phyllo pastry encasing a spinach and feta cheese filling.  I have made my own phyllo dough years ago when I made baklava from scratch, but because of time constraints and the fact that I'm just plain lazy right now, I'm using store-bought phyllo sheets.  The dish comes together in minutes, then bakes for about an hour until the pastry is crisp and delicately browned.  Then it's crackled-cut and served.

 It's festive.  It's fun. And it's perfect for the between Christmas and New Years no-man's land.

You'll find lots of versions of spanakopita, so I just went along, picking and choosing with whatever  ingredients I had.  You'll want phyllo sheets, unsalted melted butter, olive oil, spinach, onions, scallions, dill leaves, parsley, feta,  eggs, milk, and cream.

 

 

  Rosie's Spanakopita

 For 1 - 10" x 6" x 2" glass baking dish

2 5-oz bags fresh spinach (If you have more, no problem. My original recipe called for 2 pounds spinach, but I wasn't making another trip out. If you decide to use more spinach, just add in an extra egg and more milk, cream, and feta to compensate for the extra spinach. This is a case where "more is more!"

1/3 cup chopped onions

1/3 cup chopped scallions

3 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup 2% milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup finely chopped dill leaves

1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

1/2 tsp kosher salt

freshly ground pepper

1/2 lb feta cheese, crumbled

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted

16 sheets, phyllo pastry (approximately 12" x 16") at room temperature

 

In a heavy 10-12 inch skillet, heat a few tablespoons olive oil over moderate heat, then add onions and scallions, stirring frequently, and cook about 5 minutes.  Stir in spinach, cover, and cook for about 4 minutes.  Add dill, parsley, salt, and pepper, stirring constantly for about 7 minutes, uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Transfer spinach to medium bowl and let cool a bit, then stir in the milk/cream mixture.  Add in the feta and slowly beat in the eggs.  Taste test and adjust seasoning if necessary.

 

 Heat oven to 300°.

 

With a pastry brush, coat bottom and sides of baking pan with melted butter.  Line the dish with a sheet of phyllo, pressing the edges firmly into the corners and against the sides of the dish.  Brush the entire surface of the pastry with more butter, spreading it all the way to the outside edges.  Lay another sheet of phyllo on top.  Spread with butter, and continue constructing in this fashion until you have used 8 layers of phyllo sheets.

 

Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the last layer of phyllo and smooth it into the corners.  Then place a sheet of phyllo on top, brush with butter, and repeat with remaining layers of phyllo and butter as before - 8 layers.  Roll up or trim excess pastry from around the rim of the dish and brush top of pie with remaining butter.

 

Bake in a 300° oven about one hour, rotating halfway through, until pastry is crisp and delicately browned.   Remove from oven, let cool a bit, then cut into serving squares or rectangles.

 Here's everything I'm using.  As I said, if you want to go with more spinach, by all means do.  Just add more of everything else.  This is not written in stone.

Choppy.  Choppy.

Mincey.  Mincey. 

Sauté onions and scallions in olive oil.

Add in spinach and cook.

Remember to stir.

Add in parsley and dill.

And cook until liquid is evaporated.

Remove spinach mixture to bowl, let cool a bit, and add milk/cream.

Add in feta.

Stir in beaten eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now let's start the assembly:

 

Brush phyllo sheet with butter.

Layer and butter 8 sheets.

Spinach mixture in.

Smooth it out to edges.

Continue layering with phyllo sheets and butter on top.  8 more sheets. 

Bake in 300° oven and mine was ready in about 55 minutes. 

Crackling Good!

OH, how festive!

Oh, how delicious!

This is a wonderful dish with which to celebrate the new year 

And that's one of my favorite photographs in the background of Reba and my granddaughter.  All a girl needs is a the perfect hat, a pair of boots, and a good dog!

Yes.  My house is lived in and all the stools are topped with books, magazines, and recipes.

I didn't even bother to edit it out. 

I told you I was lazy. 

Ooooh.   I love those cracklins!

Enjoy.

Happy New Year!

Cranberry Creations For Christmas

 

 Cranberry Creations For Christmas

For the Christmas holidays, I decided to use festive cranberries in both savory and sweet offerings.  Cranberries make their way to our markets just once a year so I’m taking advantage of them now for my holiday menus.  I’m featuring cranberries in a delectable sauce accented with orange for both puff pastry appetizers and a baked pear dessert.  Along with selected cheeses and nuts, I have some perfect combinations for your holiday enjoyment.

 

 For my puff pastry appetizer, I’m using store-bought puff pastry.  I’ve made puff pastry dough before and it’s quite time-consuming and exacting.  The dough is made by repeatedly rolling, folding, and chilling a butter block of dough which creates hundreds of layers.  The moisture in the butter turns to steam when baked and this causes the dough to rise into those flaky, buttery, airy, and crisp layers we love.  If you’re not making your own puff pastry, there are options out there in the frozen dessert aisle of the market.  As far as brands go, I recommend Dufours Puff Pastry.  If you look at the ingredients list, the first item, being the dominant ingredient by weight, is butter.  Other brands list their first ingredient as enriched wheat flour and have no actual butter in the product.  Puff pastry is all about the butter, so go with Dufours.

 Rosie’s Cranberry Sauce

1 cup cranberries, picked over  (Discard any bruised, shriveled, soft, or blemished berries.)

Juice and zest of 4 mandarin oranges (¼ cup orange juice)

¼ cup brown sugar

Combine all ingredients in small pan over low heat.  Cook at bare simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 15 minutes.   Let cool to room temperature.

 

 

 Puff Pastry Appetizers

1 sheet Dufours puff pastry, gently rolled into a 6 x 12” rectangle, and cut into 12 equal pieces

About 12 TB cranberry sauce

12 cubes of cheese (See note below.)

Toasted nuts, chopped (See note below.)

1 egg white, beaten, for wash

 Rosie Note:  

I’m  pairing 3 different cheese with 3 different nuts:

·         Bleu cheese with walnuts.

·         Brie cheese with pistachios.

·         Goat cheese with pecans.

 Don’t forget to lightly toast the nuts first.  Toasting concentrates and intensifies the nutty flavor.

As for the cheese and nut pairings, I happen to like those particular flavor affinities, but you could certainly substitute different melting cheeses and nuts here for your own palate-pleasing combinations.

 

Place each piece of puff pastry into a buttered mini-muffin tin, pressing dough over the sides to anchor.

 Divide cranberry sauce equally among each pastry – about 1 TB per pastry.

Nestle a cube of cheese in center of sauce.

Brush egg wash over pastry dough.

Bake at 400° for about 13 minutes or until golden brown, rotating muffin pan halfway through.

Remove from pan and place on serving dish.  Press a sprig of rosemary into the centers, maybe spatter with a few thyme leaves, and sprinkle toasted nuts over top.

  

Goat cheese and pecans.

 

 Bleu cheese and walnuts

 

Brie cheese and pistachios.

  

Next, I have a versatile sweet and savory baked pear dessert.  Again, I’m offering 3 choices of cheeses with nuts, or you can use your own flavor combinations here.  The rosemary-infused honey-butter sauce brings this dish to another level, deliciously complementing both pear and cheeses.

 

Baked Pear Dessert

 Pears, sliced in half and scooped out in centers, allowing for filling

Cranberry sauce (Recipe above.)

Rosemary-infused honey-butter sauce (Recipe below.)

Cheese cubes – bleu cheese, brie cheese, and goat cheese

Sprinkling of toasted nuts - walnuts, pistachios, and pecans

Sprigs of rosemary

 

 Honey-butter sauce

 In small sauce pan, combine:

2 TB unsalted butter

¼ cup honey

Several sprigs of rosemary

Heat ingredients over low heat, mashing rosemary with a wooden spoon to infuse the flavor.  Cook low and slow until butter is melted and ingredients are well-combined.

 Arrange pear halves on a baking sheet and brush generously with honey-butter sauce.

Bake 15-20 minutes in 375° oven.  Fill centers with 1 -2 TB cranberry sauce and add cheese.  Brush again with honey sauce and bake until cheese is melted and gooey, about 10 minutes.  Apply more honey sauce and sprinkle with toasted nuts. Again, I prefer walnuts with bleu cheese, pistachios with brie cheese, and pecans with goat cheese.  Place a sprig of rosemary in each center and serve.

 

Bleu cheese and walnuts.

 

 

Goat cheese and pecans.

 

 

 Brie cheese and pistachios.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Rosie Makes Tomato Soup.

 

 

Weather - cool, cloudy.  

Tomato soup requested.

And thus, it is so. 

 

Maybe I should do 

whole recipe in haiku. 

That would be a kick. 

 

At the beginning,

We have our ingredients. 

And so we embark.

 

 

 

Nothing like soup on a gray, cloudy, cold, rainy day.  It's like a hug for your stomach.  Mr. Hawthorne has been jonesin' for some tomato soup lately, so that's what we're having today.

 

Rosie's Tomato Soup 

2 TB unsalted butter 

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced 

1 14.5 oz. can chopped tomatoes

2 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped (Not really necessary, but I had them on the counter and they begged to go into the pot, so they did.) 

1 cup chicken stock 

1/2 tsp kosher salt

scant TB sugar

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup chopped basil

1/2 cup cream

grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese 

basil chiffonade  (A chiffonade is a French technique for cutting basil. Stack the leaves on each other, roll the pile up lengthwise like a doobie, and make thin slices across.  You end up with long curls of basil.)

 

 

Rosie Note:  I have to admit I used boxed stock.  Didn't have time to chase down one of the chickens in the backyard, wring her head off, and throw into the stock pot. But by all means, you go ahead.

 

In a medium pot, heat 2 TB butter over medium heat until bubbly and foamy.  Add onion and sauté 2-3 minutes until softened.  Add in the garlic and sauté for a minute.  Always be careful not to burn garlic; it gets bitter.  

Add in the can of chopped tomatoes.  I happened to have 2 tomatoes sitting on the counter that were looking at me longingly, so I peeled and threw them into the pot.  Add salt, sugar, and pepper.  Sugar tames the acidity of the tomatoes.  Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Add in the 1/2 cup basil. Partially cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.   

Purée the tomato soup.  I use an immersion blender. 

Add in the cream.   Heat through.

  Taste test and adjust for salt and/or pepper.

 

 

To serve, add basil chiffonade on top and sprinkle on some grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese.

 And I like to have a nice grilled cheese sandwich on the side for dipping.

 

                                         Now for the step-by-steps:

 

    

My mise-en-place.

Get everything ready so all you have to do is reach out and grab it,

not have to go tearing through a pantry or cabinet only to find it's not there. 

Chopped onion into the foamy butter.

Then the garlic.

Pour in the can of tomatoes.

I used Muir Glen.

                                               Add in the chopped fresh tomatoes.

                                                    Add in the chicken stock.

                                                     A good bit of pepper.

                                              Some sugar.  Balances the acidity of the 'maters.

                                                                Basil.

 

                                                            Immersion blender.

                                                            Handy little gadget. 

                     If you don't have one, ladle a little bit of soup into a blender.

  

                Don't fill it full of hot soup, then try to purée it. You'll have a mess. 

 

                                        Blend it until you get the consistency you like.

                                           I like my purée/chunky.  

                                            The best of both worlds.

                                                          

Add a little cream for enrichment.

Immersion blend some more.

                                                                    Et voila!