Janet Cooks!

While we wait patiently for me to compile pictures and recipes from September's gathering, here are some recipes from Janet.

Blueberry (or any fruit) Puff Pastry Tarts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Mix:
one eight-ounce package of cream cheese
one-half cup of sugar
one tablespoon of lemon zest
one teaspoon of vanilla (or almond) extract; set aside.

Place puff pastry shells (thawed) one 10-ounce package on prepared cookie sheets. I like to use parchment for ease of clean-up.

Brush each with milk and sprinkle with tubinado sugar.

Bake in preheated oven until shells expand and turn golden brown ~10-14 minutes. Do not over bake.

Remove shells from oven, use a fork to remove the cap from each and set aside.

Spoon the cream cheese mixture (~ 2 teaspoons) into each shell, top with fruit. Place puff pastry cap on top of each shell over the berries (fruit).

Return to oven, and bake until pastry tops are golden brown and the filling is warm, about 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

And what a beautiful fruit tart!

Finally, these are supposed to be the best chocolate chip cookies!

Nice Buns!

This meal began with my search for a recipe for slow cooker pulled pork, but along the way I decided to make my own buns also. It may be the carb addict in me, but I think the bread ended up being the star of the show.

I went with the recipe for Beautiful Burger Buns on the King Arthur Flour website. Teresa, you will be happy to know that I made absolutely no recipe modifications! I had not baked bread in a very long time and forgot how wonderful it smells. These were definitely better than the buns in the bakery section in the store, and forget about even trying to compare them to the buns in a bag on the bread aisle.

For the pulled pork, I just ended up winging it. I made a rub with brown sugar, salt, cumin, Emeril's seasoning, chili powder and black pepper. I added some worcestershire sauce, and cooked on low for about 8 hours. After draining off all of the fat and juice that cooked out of the pork, I shredded the meat with a couple of forks, added a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce, and cooked on low for another hour. I think Joe will be happy if this makes it into the regular rotation.

Fruit Tart

We were invited to a South African braii last weekend. After consulting with wikipedia, I learned that a braii is a potluck bbq! Joe checked with our hosts, and they requested that we bring a dessert. My favorite, of course!

We knew they were already going to have at least a couple of cakes, so I decided to make a fruit tart. I bought a tart pan at the restaurant supply store a few months ago and have never gotten around to trying it out.

I consulted with the trusty Food Network website, and decided on a Paula Deen recipe. I really don't think Paula can go wrong as far as dessert goes. Of course, I did make a couple of changes. Instead of using vanilla in the cream cheese filling, I used lemon zest and almond extract. Just my personal preference for cream cheese flavoring. Also, I just used an apricot glaze for the fruit instead of the glaze recipe Paula uses.

I was relieved that the crust came out of the tart pan easily. This recipe makes more of a shortbread crust than a pastry crust, but I that was fine for this type of dessert. It was very easy to work with also.

The recipe was for a 12" pan, but mine is a 9.5", so there was enough left over to make some tarlets. These did not make it to the party, but were used for the chef and her husband to taste the recipe! It was delicious. Thanks Paula!

August 30,2009 at Mary's!

In the rush of Sunday, I forgot my camera! And so did Tonya! So the pictures this month are from the INTERNET.


This month's theme was copy cat recipes from restaurants. Mmmmm!


Appetizer (Janet): Delicious steak with tomatoes, basil and a blue cheese dressing on froccia from a steak house.


Salad (Tonya): Carrabba's house salad. Very good!


Sides (Carol): The best cooked carrots I have ever had (with maple syrup, rosemary and butter) and crisp green beans with lemon and butter.

Brennan's Maple-Glazed Carrots with Rosemary

Yields 4 servings
3 qts. water
1/2 T salt
1 lb baby carrots, peeled
2 T unsalted butter
6 T maple syrup
2 t finely chopped fresh rosemary
salt and white pepper to taste

Bring water and salt to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.Add carrots and blanch about 4 - 6 minutes, drain and reserve. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add maple syrup and rosemary.Simmer about 1 minute. Add reserved carrots and saute until hot. Seasonwith salt and white pepper, serve immediately.


Bread (Teresa): Red Lobster's cheddar biscuit, sans all the greasiness!


Main (Mary): Red Lobster's tilapia. Really nice and crispy!




This Italian inspired dish features fresh tilapia baked with a delicious coating of fresh Parmesan cheese, butter and Parmesan crème.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 ea 5-6 oz Tilapia Fillets
Non-stick Cooking Spray
½ lb. Linguini, cooked

Parmesan Crust:

½ cup Panko Bread Crumbs*
½ cup Parmesan Cheese, pre-shredded

Parmesan Base:

½ cup Parmesan Cheese, pre-shredded
1 Tbsp. Parsley, dried
10 oz Prepared Refrigerated Alfredo Sauce

Parmesan Cream Sauce:

2 Tbsp. Fresh Basil, Chopped
¼ cup Chablis or Chardonnay Wine, optional
¼ cup Half and Half

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a 9X13 baking dish with Non-stick Cooking Spray. Place the 4 Tilapia fillets in the dish and set aside. In a small bowl, mix the Panko bread crumbs and ½ cup Parmesan cheese to make the crust for the topping. Set aside.

To assemble the Parmesan Base, place ½ cup Parmesan cheese, 1 Tbsp. parsley and the prepared Alfredo sauce in a medium bowl and stir well. Remove ½ cup of the mixture (reserving the rest to make the Parmesan Cream Sauce) and brush onto the 4 pieces of Tilapia, making a thick, even covering on the fish.

Evenly sprinkle the Parmesan Crust on top of the fish. Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 15-20 minutes or until fish reaches 140-150 degrees and the crust is golden brown.

Meanwhile while the fish is baking, make the Parmesan Cream sauce. Place the remaining Parmesan Base in a medium sauce pan, add the fresh Basil, Wine, and Half and Half and heat over medium heat until the sauce is simmering, stirring often. Toss the Parmesan Cream Sauce and the Linguini together and serve with the Parmesan Crusted Tilapia. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese if desired.


Dessert (Angie): Chili's White Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

I made it by preparing a boxed yellow cake mix (I used the butter recipe kind) in cupcakes. When the cupcakes were cooled, I sliced them in half and spooned some melted white chocolate bark in the middle. I put the tops back on and put some chocolate bark on the top too and then in the fridge to harden. For the side, I made a simple strawberry sauce with strawberries, corn starch and sugar, heated, then mashed.

To serve: heat the cupcakes about 30 second to a minute to melt the chocolate, spoon strawberry sauce around the plate and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top (or not!).

Casserole, Cake, Cookies - the 3 Cs

Two weeks ago, on a Sunday, I made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. I ate 3 before they were even cool, so I quickly realized I needed to take the offensive and get the cookies OUT OF MY HOUSE. I took them to work and passed them out to my friends. Apparently they were really good because 1 coworker keeps sending me emails reminding me how good those cookies were. I added 1 cup of chocolate chips to this recipe and it also suggested adding 1/2 cup toasted walnuts and 1/2 cup of pecans but I was out of nuts.

Last week I made Strawberry Streusel Cheesecake. It was easy and looked really pretty but I was not blown away by it. I think it was the strawberry pie filing... next time I think I will either use fresh strawberries or make my own sauce.

I also made Hearty Tex-Mex Squash Chicken casserole, which I got years ago from my sister but never made it, and invited my parents over for dinner. They helped me out by taking home some left overs and all of the cheesecake leftovers. Perpetual diet intact.

Hearty Tex-Mex Squash Chicken Casserole

Makes 8 generous servings

1 10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed
3 medium sized yellow squash, thinly sliced
1 large green bell pepper cut in ½ inch pieces
1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 tbs oil
3 cups cooked, shredded chicken (deli rotisserie works great)
12 corn tortillas cut in 1 inch pieces
1 can cream of celery soup
1 8 oz jar sour cream (I use light)
1 8 oz jar of mild picante sauce
1 4.5 oz can chopped green chilies, undrained
1 1.4 oz envelope fajita seasoning
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Drain spinach well, set aside

Sauté squash, bell pepper and onion in oil in a skillet over medium high heat until tender, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat.

Stir in spinach, chicken and remaining ingredients including 1 ½ cup cheese. Spoon in to lightly greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Spring remaining ½ cup cheese after removing from oven.

Fleur de Sel Caramels

This was a Barefoot Contessa recipe ... of course. I've had this episode saved on my dvr for several weeks and finally got around to making this this weekend.

This recipe is the perfect example of why I like online recipes so much ... the reviews! I was not really paying attention to measurements when I watched the episode since I would go to the website to get the recipe. When I scanned through the comments/reviews though, I noticed that many people pointed out that the recipe on the website was wrong. I re-watched the episode, and sure enough, the online version of the recipe only had about 1/3 of the sugar called for. Non-sweet caramels ... yuck.

So, here is the link to the online recipe, but the adjustments are: use 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 1 cup of cream.

Mine turned out just a little bit too hard. You cook them to 248 degrees, and once you start getting close, the temperature raises very quickly. I think mine probably got up to about 250 by the time I got it poured into the pan. They still turned out awesome though. Definitely the best caramels I've ever had.

An added bonus of making these was that Joe doesn't like caramels ... so more for me! He tried one of these though, and now he's a convert.

Brownies!

I made Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies for dinner at David's aunt and uncle's tonight. You all know my phobia about boxed brownies and not having a flaky top. Imagine my trepidation on making from scratch brownies!! Well... tada.. they were perfect! And flaky! The almond extract really made them taste so special too. I may add a swig to the next boxed mix I make. Very Sandra Lee-ish.