Normally when I have people over for dinner I don't do the old-school Sunday dinner roast and potatoes (mostly because I am terrible at judging roasting times and I have a fear of serving overcooked meat). I finally decided to take the challenge however, and luckily Canadian Beef has a website that gave me exact cooking times by weight to acheive lovely medium-rare goodness. I wanted to change up the sides though, so I modified this pie slightly from Donna Hay's Seasons, which I received as a Christmas gift and is one of the most beautifully shot cookbooks I have ever seen.
Kabocha, Spinach & Goat Cheese Pie (serves 6):
tomato paste
1 small kabocha/butternut squash, peeled & sliced
1 small onion, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 roll PC puff pastry (1/2 package), thawed
spinach
150g goat cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
Using President's Choice pastry over Tenderflake is practically a necessity. PC comes in 2 rolls which are very easy to use, rather than the flat blocks that take forever to roll out yourself.
Preheat oven to 200C/390F. Cook onion and squash 15-20min until tender and set aside to cool. Roll out pastry to about half it's original thickness, then cut in half and place one half on a lined cookie sheet or baking pan. Spread with tomato past then top with the remaining ingredients. Place the second half of the pastry on top and press or roll the edges to seal. Brush with the egg and bake 30 minutes until golden.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Kabocha, Spinach & Goat Cheese Pie
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Asparagus Tart
As a stay at home mom, I have been doing more than the usual amount of ladies lunches and brunches. With the spring influx of asparagus, I decided to make an asparagus tart. It was very easy since I never make my own pastry. It's the kind of thing you can make that will make your guest feel special, but that won't take you all day to make.
Asparagus Tart:
One box of puff pastry (rolled out)
One bunch of Asparagus
5-6 good sized mushrooms, sliced
2 eggs, beaten
A wedge of brie
Chives, salt and pepper to taste
Start by baking the asparagus and sliced mushrooms for 5 minutes at 425F in olive oil salt and pepper. This just makes sure they will be cooked through even if the asparagus is thick.
Take the puff pastry and roll up the edges a bit. Poke some holes in it with a fork or knife so that it doesn't bubble up while cooking. Lay out the asparagus and mushrooms to cover. Brush the edges of the pastry with the egg, and then pour the remaining egg over the tart. Cover with slices of the brie and chives and bake for 20-30 minutes (until pastry is brown). The second time I made this I added some slivers of onion, which added some nice flavour. Yum!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Pizza Dough - Take 1
Being a stay at home mom now, I keep trying to make more things from scratch. Part of the reason is that I want things to be healthier (without a bunch of preservatives), and it is usually less expensive and tastier to have anything made from scratch. Other Edmonton food bloggers seem to be big fans of Peter Reinhart, so I looked up his Neo-Neapolitan Pizza dough recipe. Ours ended up a bit heavy, so I will have to try it again and see if I can work more air into it and let it rise better. This is a picture of the cheese pizza I made with it. Hopefully the next round goes better.
Pizza Dough:
5 cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
2 teaspoons salt (or 3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt)
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 to 2 cups room-temperature water
Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or mix in an electric mixer. After you've combined all of the ingredients, set the dough aside to rest for 5 minutes. Stir again for 3 to 5 minutes, adding more water or flour if necessary. Generally speaking, you want the dough to be wetter and stickier than your typical bread dough. It should be dry enough that it holds together and pulls away from the side of the bowl when you mix it, but it doesn't need to be dry enough to knead by hand.
Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Place each one into an oiled freezer bag.
If you aren't going to bake them that day, you can throw the bags into the freezer. They'll stay good in there for at least a month. The evening before you intend to bake them, move the frozen dough balls to the refrigerator to thaw.
If you intend to bake them later that day, place the bagged dough balls in the refrigerator. Remove them from the fridge and let them warm to room temperature an hour or two before you intend to bake them.
Remember that, as a baker, time is your friend: longer, slower rises at reduced temperature result in better tasting bread. But sometimes you don't have the luxury of time - that is OK; this dough will still work well if only given an hour or so to rise at room temperature. Allowing pizza dough to rise is more about giving the yeast time to bring flavors out of the wheat than it is about leavening. Most of the leavening occurs when you put the active dough into the hot oven, so you don't need to wait until the dough balls double in size.
Top with your pizza toppings and bake at 450 F for 5 to 7 minutes or until the cheese and dough are brown.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mushroom Black Bean Pinwheels
The other day I was on Tastespotting, and The Review Lady had posted a picture of a black bean and mushroom pinwheel, but did not have the recipe. Well, it looked delicious, so I added it to my list of favourites, vowing to invent something based on the picture in the near future. Well, when I was making a vegetarian meal when a couple of friends came over, I thought "black beans, that would add some substance," and it was ON. I am 100% sure this did not taste like the inspiration pinwheel, but it was delicious!
Pinwheel:
1/2 package puff pastry (one of the two Tenderflake squares)
1 tsp olive oil
10 mushrooms
1/2 can black beans
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 tsp cumin
As per the pastry instructions, defrost and roll out the puff pastry. Saute the mushrooms in oil, and as they are finished, sprinkle in the cumin. Drain and rinse the black beans, and smush them with your hands as you add them in. Mix everything together, and spread evenly over the surface of the pastry. Sprinkle the parmesan over evenly as well.
Gently roll the pastry into a tube shape. Try not to loose the filling. Cut it into even sections about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick.
Spray a backing sheet with cooking spray (to avoid pastry sticking), and place each roll with a flat side on the sheet. If you have some extra parmesan, you may want to sprinkle a bit on top.
Back at 375 F for about 20 - 30 minutes (until golden brown) and then serve. When I made this for the girls, it went over very well, but when i made it for my husband he said it tasted a bit like a Taco Bell burrito. He seems to think that anything made with cumin does, but what does he know?
I made them as full sized appetizers, but if you cut the dough in half so that the wheels are smaller, they would make a tasty finger food.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Spanakopita from Scratch
I was chatting last night with my brother's girlfriend, and she was wondering what to do with her days off now that all the holiday stuff was done. I suggested she take some time to stock the freezer to make her life a little easier once she was back at work. I figured that along those lines, I would post one of my favorite freezer recipes. As I have mentioned in the past, I really like making and eating Greek food. Ages and ages ago when Tyler Florence was hosting Food 911 on the Food Network, he featured the following spanakopita recipe, that I have been accepting compliments on ever since. They are a bit labour intensive (it'll take an hour or a bit more), but the results are so good that I keep making them anyway. You can make about 40 small ones, but I like to make dinner sized ones instead, as they take less time and feel more worth the effort.
Spanakopita:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green onions, white and green parts
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds fresh baby spinach, trimmed, washed and roughly chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
12 ounces crumbled feta
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tbsp oregano
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted
1 pound phyllo pastry sheets
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
Heat olive oil in a large skillet and place over medium heat. Saute onions and garlic for 3 minutes until soft. Add the spinach, season with salt and pepper, and continue to saute until the spinach is limp. Add lemon juice, remove from heat and place in a colander, and squeeze out excess liquid. Set aside to cool. The filling needs to be cool and dry to prevent the phyllo from becoming soggy. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with feta, coriander, and nutmeg. Season, then fold in the cooled spinach mixture until well blended.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, brush 2 baking sheets with some melted butter. Unroll the phyllo dough and lay a sheet flat on a work surface. Take care to keep the phyllo covered with a damp, not wet, towel as you work to prevent drying out and becoming brittle. Brush the sheet with melted butter, and repeat with 2 more sheets of phyllo, stacking on top of each other. With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the sheets lengthwise into halves to form 2 3-inch strips.
Place a heaping teaspoon of filling near 1 corner of the layered phyllo strip. Fold the end at an angle over the filling to form a triangle. Continue to fold the triangle along the strip until you reach the end, like folding up a flag. Brush the top with butter and dust with Parmesan
, place on prepared baking sheet, and cover while preparing the remaining pastries. Repeat until all the filling and phyllo strips are used up. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the triangles are crisp and golden.
Alternately, you can freeze the uncooked triangles, and cook the same way from freezing (may take 5 extra minutes). They freeze so well I love to keep some in my freezer for days when I don't have time to cook, but still want to eat real food.
