puff pastry

Asparagus Prosciutto Tart

April 24, 2017

When asparagus is on sale at Trader Joe’s right before Easter you stock up and figure out what to do with it later. Oh, that’s not what you do? I guess it’s just me. I figured I could do a lot with asparagus, from adding it to an omelet or frittata to roasting it and serving along side some chicken or beef. I knew I would use it, I just didn’t quite now how.

After a quick inventory check of fridge and freezer, I realized I had everything I needed to make a savory asparagus prosciutto tart. The perfect Spring brunch dish!

Start by blanching the asparagus by dumping the trimmed asparagus in boiling water for a few minutes then transferring to an ice bath. The asparagus will turn bright green and be slightly tender.

Prepare the puff pastry by creating a 1/2 inch border and poking holes with the tines of a fork in the center then bake until it’s slightly golden.

While the puff pastry is puffing up in the oven, make the filling. Mix together marscarpone cheese, sour cream, and egg, shallot, lemon zest, parsley, and Parmesan cheese.

Take the puff pastry out of the oven and if you see that your puff pastry has been stubborn and puffed up even where you poked holes, press it down with the back of a spoon. Spread the marscarpone mixture into the cavity that you created, leaving the border untouched.

On top, add a thin layer of prosciutto. If you really like prosciutto, knock yourself out and add more than one thin layer. Top that with the asparagus and even more Parmesan, because this thing needs more cheese.

Once the puff pastry is nice and golden brown and the asparagus is tender and slightly roasted, it is done!

I topped mine with a little bit more lemon zest and parsley. And if you read last weeks post, you know I also topped this with some creamy hollandaise sauce! The perfect condiment to go with asparagus!

If you are an asparagus lover like me, then you will find absolutely no fault with this asparagus prosciutto tart. It was absolutely delicious and the perfect brunch for Easter! It would also be great for Mother’s Day!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:152]

Lightened Up Chicken Pot Pie

December 30, 2016

I wasted absolutely no time putting two of my Christmas presents to good use. The first, as you can see, is this beautiful pie dish. One of my very thoughtful and perceptive friends got this for me after noticing that I never make any pies on the blog. Well, there was a good reason for that…I didn’t have a pie dish! Now I do, so let the pie baking begin!

The second is Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook. Another wonderful friend, who is also a big foodie, got this for me so that we try some of the recipes together. But I wasted no time and picked out his chicken pot pie recipe to try on my own first.

The trouble is that Thomas Keller, while a genius, doesn’t necessarily write the easiest recipes. Also, the chicken pot pie recipe was certainly not the healthiest. And after a food-filled holiday, my husband and I were craving something a bit healthier.

I started by sauteing the pearl onions in a bit of olive oil until they were slightly browned. I then added in the carrots, celery, and sweet potato, which is not only more flavorful, but much healthier than your average potato.

After a few minutes, I added in the chicken stock so that the veggies could soften up and become nice and flavorful. I also added some cooked chicken breast and frozen peas.

While all that was going on, I made a bit of a roux to thicken up the stock and make that creamy sauce around all the chicken and vegetables. Instead of a roux, Thomas Keller’s recipes calls for about a cup of bechamel sauce, which is rich, delicious, and very heavy. In other recipes, you will often see people add butter, flour, and heavy cream to get the same effect.

To lighten up my chicken pot pie, I made a roux/bechamel hybrid by mixing together butter and flour until I had a tight paste, then I whisked in some light milk and…..

Greek Yogurt!

My favorite healthy substitute!

After adding my roux to the pot, the stock tightened up immediately and became this creamy sauce that coated ever thing. It looked and smelled just like the filling in some of my favorite chicken pot pies.

The last change I made to the recipe to make it a bit healthier was to swap out the pie crust for some puff pastry. The pie crust alone probably adds a quarter if not a half of the calories to your average chicken pot pie. But the flaky puff pastry cuts out some of the calories and fat, and is equally delicious!

The worst part about this recipe was the waiting! We waited almost an hour for this bad boy to bake. But it was certainly worth the wait!

The puff pastry crust on top turned golden brown and nice and crusty, like you would expect from your chicken pot pie.

Once it was out of the oven, we wasted no time digging right in. We each had three slices of this pie, which probably negated any of the calories I saved by making all those healthy swaps. But we couldn’t help it…it was so good! I definitely didn’t taste “healthy”. Even though I didn’t follow Thomas Keller’s recipe to the T, I still learned a lot of took used a lot of his tips, which is why I am sure this resulted in one delicious dinner!

And in case your wondering…I did the math.

Mr. Keller’s recipe would have come to a whopping 1,500 calories per serving.

My recipe, was only 400! We probably could have finished off the pie and still consumed fewer calories than one of servings of his. I will certainly take that any day!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:111]

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

Pretty Rosette Peach Tartlets

August 5, 2016

If you are looking for an impressive dessert you can bring to your Summer parties, I have got the recipe for you! Don’t let these little peach tartlets fool you, they are actually really easy to make and only require six ingredients.

Peaches

Puff Pastry

Mascarpone

Sugar

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

I’m sure it wasn’t the ingredient list that concerned you about this recipe. What you are probably thinking to yourself is, “there is no way I can make these look like a rosette!”. Ok, you may not be thinking that, but that’s what I was thinking. I was willing to give it a try, but was convinced that they would end up looking like crap.

Sure the first one wasn’t my best, but I got the hang of it really quickly!

I’ll show you exactly how I made them.

First, I sliced a couple peaches into very thin slices. Like, I sliced them just about as thin as I could. In hindsight, using a mandolin would have been a good idea to get consistently sliced peaches.

Next, I unfolded a puff pastry sheet and rolled it out so that it was pretty thin (it should be thinner than what you see in this picture). Then I cut it into 6 strips. I spread out the mascarpone mixture onto each strip.

Now comes the tricky part (hint: it’s not that tricky). To make the pretty rosette pattern with the peaches, I layered the peach slices one on top of the other along one half of the puff pastry strip making sure that a significant portion of the top of the peach was sticking out. On some of the tartlets, I added a second layer of peach slices just below the first. Not only did it help me use up all my peach slices, but the ratio of peach to puff pastry was much better.

Then I folded the other half of the puff pastry up and rolled the entire thing into a tight spiral. The trick to getting the peaches to roll is to put your thinner peach slices on the end that will be in the center and the thicker ones on the outside.

I placed each of the tartlets in a muffin tin then sprinkled some more sugar and nutmeg over the top of the peaches. All that was left to do was bake them and pray they still look like rosettes afterwards.

And once they were out of the oven I breathed out a big ol’ sigh of relief because they turned out super cute! Not to mention, they are delicious with a side of some vanilla ice cream!

Don’t they look like they just walked out of a bakery? You could totally impress your friends with these pastries, don’t you think?

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:63]