This little ditty is a treat my wife found recently and asked me to make to help feed the crowd that was joining us on the 4th of July. As it turns out, what with other goodies we had made along with treats that guests brought, we didn't even have to dip into these babies.
Snacks
Cherry Hand Pies
It seems that over the past year whenever we had guests that offered to make a pre-dinner nibble to have with cocktails, they decided to craft something using frozen puff pastry dough. Given that each of these folks brought a fresh box of pastry sheets with them, and used only half a box to make their appetizer, we recently discovered that we had 83 half used boxes of puff pastry in our freezer (no wonder we're running out of room there).
As I was starting to panic, wondering what the #@*& we were going to do with that many pastry sheets, my wife found this simple but delicious recipe in our latest issue of Bon Appetit. This recipe is for little cherry pies, using a combination of fresh and dried fruit, but any type of fruit would work. Beware though, if you're using a really juicy fruit you may need to up the amount of cornstarch used in order to guarantee a nice thick filling for your pies. I'm thinking fresh apples and dried cranberries would be lovely, or how about peanut butter with a fresh strawberry compote, or dare I say, Nutella with some orange marmalade? Oohhhh…..
Edamame and Cilantro Purée
This past Sunday I attended what must have been the 5th or 6th H.S. graduation party for my oldest son Grid, and his classmates. Despite the rather frigid temps at the beach where the party was held, and the fact that some of the kids HAD to have been suffering from party fatigue (it seems that current fashion dictates that EVERY family of a graduate must host a party in order that their kids remain in good standing with their class), a great time was had by all. Calypso Hurricane rocked the house, and even pulled our young star Boris to the stage to lay down a sweet bass track for the band. Entwistle would have been proud.
Blood Orange Frozen Yogurt
How many of you have ever made your own ice cream? It's really easy isn't it? I mean, whether you've got a motorized "old-style" bucket ice maker, one of the cool Cuisinarts where you pre-freeze the canister insert, or a full fledged commercial monster with it's own built-in compressor (like me, he says shamefully), making home-made ice cream is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your kitchen.
And your kids….are you kidding me? Want to be their hero…….like, forever?
Make ice cream with them and bask in all the glory that is rightfully yours.
Nutella Banana Bread
Fate dealt me a lovely hand last week when I found a bag of chopped hazelnuts in the pantry that were getting a little long in the tooth and needed to be used. I can't remember why I had bought them in the first place, in fact, I can't remember buying them at all…..dang memory.
My first thought was to toast them and toss them into a grain and veggie based salad to have with some grilled chicken over the weekend, and as I was rifling through the grain bin to find a suitable partner for the nuts, I glanced overhead and found a half-eaten jar of Nutella in the chocolate bin above.
Pistachio and Dried-Cherry Biscotti
I found this recipe in the latest Bon Appetit magazine, and knew immediately that I wanted to make it. First, because I’ve NEVER made biscotti before (I can hear my late Italian grandmother rolling over in her grave at this news), and second, because while I haven’t yet dined at Locanda Verde, I’m a huge fan of it’s Chef-Proprietor Andrew Carmellini, and have heard great things about the restaurant’s pastry chef, Karen Demasco. When I saw Karen’s name associated with these biscotti, I knew they’d be great.
Sweet Potato Chips!
Making this gorgeous treat hardly requires a recipe at all. In fact, crafting homemade potato chips is so easy, and the results so delicious, that once you give ’em a try, I bet you’ll think twice before buying store bought chips again. Really….. still warm from the fryer, and seasoned with a generous sprinkle of salt, they are very hard to beat.
I first pursued making sweet potato fries and chips as a means of getting the kids to take more of a liking to them….um….that would be the sweet potatoes, not the chips and fries. It’s funny, but while they all love potatoes, and adore all things sweet, when you put the two together, not one of them would eat them. I’ve baked them, steamed them, and smashed them, and always the answer was the same….no thanks.
Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chunk Cookies
When Muppet had a hankerin’ for some peanut butter and chocolate action last week, we thought of a couple different ways to satisfy her craving. First, was to make a batch of Buckeyes, which are always a hit, but to me seemed out of season. Is it just me, or do you all find Buckeyes to be a winter holiday treat? It seems that the only time I EVER see them is when they are being served at a holiday cookie swap, or as part of a dessert party spread at a Christmas open house.
Her next thought ran to modifying her world famous ganache filled cupcakes to have a peanut butter ganache filling, which was an idea I was totally getting behind until I looked at the clock and realized that we didn’t have the time for such an elaborate undertaking…ugh. What we settled on were these lovely peanut butter cookies dotted with milk chocolate chunks, that come to us courtesy of the original Baked: New Frontiers in Bakingby Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.
Pumpkin Date Bread
Not unlike our recent “Tortilla and Chicken Lasagna”, this treat came to be as a means to use up some hangers-on in our pantry. A recent inventory turned up a few cans of pumpkin puree leftover from holiday baking, as well as some medjool dates that were starting to show their age and dry a bit. We always have a few boxes of dates lying around, because they are an easy and healthy sweet treat for our after school scavengers, and terrific with a spot of tea as an afternoon pick-me-up for us elders. Sadly, one of our boxes of dates got buried under some nuts in the pantry and languished there until their skins turned papery, robbing them of their normally glossy curb-appeal.
Chocolate Chunk and Cherry Skillet Cookie
I had my three-deep stack of beautiful cast iron skillets pulled out the other night, and while I was grabbing my monster-large 18″ one to make a braised sausages and balsamic onions dish (stay tuned for this one), I pulled my 11″ one aside to try this skillet cookie recipe that I found on Heidi Swanson’s site, 101 Cookbooks a few weeks back. I was looking for an easy dinner – dessert combo as we were all packing for school vacation week ski trips, and we didn’t have a lot of time to be futzing in the kitchen.
