Sausage Pocket Pies

These pies are the perfect travel food--flaky, delicious, meaty, filling, and portable.  Grab a bunch to take to a baseball game or on a picnic.  Or just eat them for dinner with a lovely green salad.  They're delicious!  The best part about them, though, is that you can make them ahead of time.  You can either refrigerate or freeze them after they're made, and then pop them in the oven when you are ready to eat.  

Sausage Pocket Pies

Ingredients:
1/4 pound ground Italian sausage meat
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tsp)
1/4 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4" cubes (or another very tart apple)
1 stem thyme, leaves picked (or 1/4 tsp dried)
1 small stem rosemary, leaves picked (or 1/4 tsp dried)
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1/2 tsp dried)
2 T Craisins or raisins 
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 T vegetable oil
1 T butter
1 package Puff Pastry (2 sheets), thawed for 40 minutes
1 egg + 1 tsp water, for egg wash

Prepare two baking sheets with parchment or silpat mats. Have on hand a small bowl filled with water. Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large skillet, cook the sausage over medium-high heat until cooked through.  Remove from pan and crumble; set aside.  In the same large skillet (don't wash), heat oil and butter over medium high heat.  Add onion and saute for two minutes, or until soft and lightly browned.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant and lightly brown, about 1 minute.  Add apples and saute until slightly tender, about 3-4 minutes.  Add thyme, rosemary, parsley, and Craisins, as well as the sausage.  Stir all together and cook for about 1 minute to meld flavors.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Remove from heat.

Working with one sheet of puff pastry at a time (cover and refrigerate unused sheet until ready to use), cut into nine equal squares (you can cut the sheet first into thirds by cutting along the two fold lines, then cross-cut into nine squares).

Place a tablespoonful of filling in the center of each square.
 

Dip one finger in the bowl of water, then rub wet finger along two adjoining edges of a filled square of dough.

Fold the dough corner-to-corner to create a triangle.  Using the tines of a fork, press the edges together to seal. Place pocket pie on baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining squares and dough.

When all the squares have been filled, you can either bake immediately or refrigerate or freeze the pocket pies.  To refrigerate, cover baking sheet tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.  When ready to bake, follow baking instructions below.

To freeze, cover baking sheet tightly with plastic wrap and place entire tray in the freezer.  When pocket pies have frozen completely through (at least overnight), remove to a plastic bag to store.  When ready to bake, follow the directions below.

In a small bowl, combine the egg and 1 tsp water with a fork or whisk.  Brush egg wash over each pie. Bake pies at 400F for 20-25 minutes, or until puffy and browned.  Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 18 pocket pies.

Chocolate Wows

This morning my husband was flipping through one of my cookbooks looking for inspiration and happened upon this recipe.  He asked me to make it, and since it meant I could do my two favorite things, namely bake cookies and eat chocolate, I gladly agreed.  The cookies are rich and chocolaty, with a good amount of cocoa flavor and the little bit of nuts to give it crunch and heft.  The outside is nicely crisp and the interior is fudgy like a good brownie.  In a word, Wow!

Chocolate Wows
Recipe by Good Housekeeping

Ingredients:
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup butter
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups pecans, chopped
6 oz (or 1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F and grease three cookie sheets.
In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.
In a heavy 2-qt saucepan, melt chopped chocolate and butter over low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth.  Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat eggs and sugar until light and lemon-colored, about 2 minutes.  Reduce speed to low and add melted chocolate mixture, vanilla, and cocoa/flour mixture.  Beat until blended, then increase speed to medium and beat 2 minutes.  Stir in pecans and chocolate chips.

The finished dough is very soft, more like cake batter than cookie dough.  Drop a rounded spoonful of the batter onto a cookie sheet, then using the back of the spoon spread it into a 2-inch circle.  Repeat with remaining batter, keeping cookies 2 inches apart. 
Bake cookies at 325F for 15 minutes.  When cooked, the tops should be shiny and cracked.  Cool 10 minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.

Hiatus

I've been on a brief hiatus, with week one being a vacation and week two being taking care of all my sick kids, who decided they'd welcome me home in the worst possible way.  But there are more delicious recipes coming, I promise!

Rosemary Rib Roast and Roasted Vegetables

Friday I decided to have a little Passover meal for our family.  I'm Christian, not Jewish, but someone had given me a nice two page mini-Seder script.  We'd been talking a lot about Passover in relation to the Holy Week of Christ's life, and so it seemed like a good lead-in to Easter. 

The ceremony itself went quite well and the kids did remarkably well, considering they mostly had to sit still and taste things they didn't like, such as parsley and horseradish.  They did like the matzo and the charoseth, but they were happy to get to the real full meal part of the Seder.  Their favorite thing was opening the door to look for Elijah, which is mostly amusing because my son's name is Elijah. 

For the meal we started with matzo ball soup (I cheated and bought it pre-made), latkes, and then had Rosemary Rib Roast with Roasted Vegetables.  In case you've never made a rib roast before, it is an extremely tender piece of meat, and is just delicious!  When you combine it with fresh rosemary and garlic and perfectly roasted vegetables, it's heaven!  You can use the vegetables I used, or you could use sliced eggplant, baby new potatoes, cauliflower, asparagus, turnips, and/or sweet potatoes.  Be creative!

Rosemary Rib Roast and Roasted Vegetables
Adapted from Epicurious.com

Ingredients:
3-4 lb Beef Rib Roast, boneless (or cut if from the bone if you can't find a boneless one)
4 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves picked
2 T minced garlic
2 T vegetable or olive oil
1 T kosher salt
2 zucchini, sliced into 1/4" slices
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" pieces

2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1/4" slices
4 oz mushrooms, washed and sliced

In a small bowl combine garlic, rosemary, oil, and salt.  Rub generously onto all sides of meat.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours. 
Preheat oven to 350F.  Remove roast from refrigerator and remove plastic wrap.  Place roast in a lightly greased 9x13 roasting pan (or larger) and sprinkle vegetables around it. 
Bake at 350F for about 1 1/2 hours, or until roast registers about 130 degrees on a meat thermometer.  Let sit for 15-30 minutes before slicing and serving.
Serves 6.

Portuguese Sweet French Toast

I've been debating with myself about posting this recipe.  Not because it's bad--in fact it's the best French Toast I've ever had, which is why in the end I decided to post it.  But in order to make it, you'll need to have Portuguese Sweetbread, which is not particularly accessible to most people.  Portuguese Sweetbread (see picture below) is a round artisan-style bread, with a very deep brown, soft crust and a whitish-yellow interior.  The texture is soft and spongy, and the flavor is sweet, with hints of lemon and orange and vanilla.  It's amazing.  And not just for French Toast--also for things like paninis with ham and swiss cheese. 

Portuguese Sweetbread

So check your local bakery to see if they have it.  If not, then here's what you'll need to do:

Step One: Go to your local bookstore or library and get the book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," by Peter Reinhart.  Spend a day or three reading through it, because even though it's a cookbook, it's an amazing read.  Or maybe just to me.  Anyway...

Step Two: Starting early in the morning, make Peter's recipe for Portuguese Sweetbread, following the directions explicitly. Do not, under any circumstances, get annoyed that your bread is not rising as quickly as it should and therefore just move on to the next step.  Trust me on this one.

Step Three: Go to bed.  Making Portuguese Sweetbread takes a full day. 

Step Four: In the morning, slice nice thick slices of the bread, around 3/4"-1" thick.  Make the recipe below.

Step Five: Eat, then die.  There is nothing more you can do with life after this.

Portuguese Sweet French Toast

Ingredients:
4-5 slices Portuguese Sweetbread, cut 3/4-1" thick
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cardamom
Vegetable oil, or even better--leftover bacon grease, for frying
Butter, for slathering
Pure Maple Syrup, warmed

Heat a griddle or frying pan over medium heat.  In a shallow bowl or pie plate whisk the eggs, milk, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom until frothy and well-combined.  Place bread in egg mixture and let sit to absorb the liquid for about 30 seconds before flipping to the other side and doing the same thing.  Meanwhile, grease the griddle with oil or bacon fat.  Place the soaked bread on the griddle and put in another one to soak.  Cook for about 2 minutes per side, until the bread is soft and spongy again and is nicely browned. 

Remove from heat and put on serving plate.  Immediately butter the top side of the french toast.  Pour real maple syrup and serve.  Enjoy!

Serves 2, in case you want to share.

Blueberry Scones

 So a few weeks ago I posted the recipe for scones, and said that I had already posted the recipe for my blueberry scones.  This week I looked and noticed that the blueberry scone recipe is not here!  Something I have to amend immediately!

This recipe is from America's Test Kitchen and is absolutely amazing.  Also, they use a great technique for cutting in butter that both saves time and improves texture, and I've applied it to lots of other recipes since then. 

These scones are buttery and flaky and sweet and oh-so-good.  I'm drooling just thinking about them.  If you, like my ridiculous children, prefer them plain you can make them that way, but they're really better with some berries.  I've also made them with blackberries and raspberries with great success. 

Blueberry Scones
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen


Ingredients:
8 T (1 stick) butter, very cold (frozen is good)
1 1/2 cups blueberries, either fresh or frozen
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 cups flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
1 tsp grated citrus zest, either lemon, lime, or orange (or a combination)
2 T melted butter
1 T sugar

If using fresh blueberries, check them over for stems, etc., then put them in the freezer until ready to use.

Using a box grater, grate the cold/frozen butter into a bowl.  Place in freezer until ready to use.

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and sour cream/yogurt.  Place in refrigerator until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 425F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or silpat, or lightly grease.

In a large bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and zest with a whisk.  Add frozen butter to the bowl and toss with fingers until thoroughly coated.  Add milk mixture to flour mixture, combining with a spatula until just combined.  Dough will be loose and may not have fully come together.  This is fine.

Transfer dough to a liberally floured surface.  Knead a few times until the dough comes together and isn't so sticky.  You may use another 1/2-1 cup flour at this time, which is fine.  Roll dough into a 12-inch square.  Fold down the top third of the dough, then fold up the bottom third, so the dough is folded like a business letter.  Then do the same thing with the sides of the dough, so you have a 4-inch cube.  Transfer dough to a floured plate and freeze for 5 minutes.

Transfer cold dough to floured work surface and again roll into a 12-inch square.  Sprinkle blueberries over the surface, pressing them slightly into the dough.  Using a bench scraper or thin metal spatula, loosen dough and roll up cinnamon-roll style into a tight log.  Lay roll seam-side down and squash the top with your hands to make it rectangular instead of round.  Cut into 4 equal squares, then cross-cut each square into two triangles.  (I frequently cut the big log into 5 instead of 4, and it works fine, it just makes smaller scones.)

Place the triangles on prepared baking sheet.  Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.***  Bake at 425F for 18-25 minutes, until tops and bottoms are browned.  Transfer to rack and let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 8-10 scones.

***You can also refrigerate or freeze these at this point.  Put the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator or freezer.  After refrigerating overnight, follow the same baking directions as above.  For frozen scones, heat oven to 375 and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Even bedhead is better when you're eating a scone.

Polynesian Grilled Steak and Pineapple

I'm always looking for new grilling recipes, and sometimes I find them buried under piles of my old recipes.  This is such a recipe.  I took what Cooking Light gave me and tweaked it, and added to it a bit, and came up with something that made me feel like I should be in the middle of the Pacific instead of the Mid-Atlantic.  I served it over rice, and with grilled asparagus, which I could put as a separate post (and maybe I will someday!). But for now, you can skewer asparagus into little "rafts" by laying four of them side by side, with their "heads" (the yummy end) up, and putting skewers through their "necks" and "knees," so to speak.  Then brush with oil (try sesame oil mixed with soy sauce and a bit of ginger for an Asian flavor!) and grill over low heat for a few minutes per side.  To Die For!

But now, on to the real recipe...

Polynesian Grilled Steak and Pineapple

Ingredients:
1 pineapple, skin and core removed and cut into 8 spears
1/3 cup soy sauce (I use the low-sodium, sometimes marked "lite")
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 T minced peeled fresh ginger
1 T honey
1 T minced garlic
1 1/2 pounds flank steak, skirt steak, or similar steak
Additional honey for drizzling, optional

Take one pineapple spear and puree it in either a blender or food processor.  Pour it into a bowl or large ziplock bag.  Add soy sauce, green onions, ginger, 1 T honey, and garlic.  Shake or stir until well mixed, then add steak.  Marinate for 1-4 hours, turning over half way through.

Prepare your grill and heat to medium high.  Remove steak from the bag but DON'T throw away the marinade.  Grill 3 minutes per side on medium-high heat, then 3 minutes per side on medium-low heat, pouring 1/3 of the remaining marinade on top of the steak each time you flip it.  Meanwhile, grill the pineapple spears over medium-low heat, turning every 3-4 minutes, until tender.  They will probably take a few minutes less to cook as the steak.  

Remove everything from the grill and arrange on a serving platter.  Drizzle honey over the pineapple, if desired.  Let the meat rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting across the grain into thin slices.  Serve over rice.
Serves 4-6.