DB: Puff pastry

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

I really wanted to be inspired by puff pastry. But instead, I've been on a sandwich kick. After getting through 5 turns of the puff pastry last Wednesday with Allison, my pastry languished in the fridge while I started turning out sandwiches left and right. Too those who know me best, my sandwich kick is as rare as homemade puff pastry when one can go to the store and pick up a box of Dufour. See, I don't really like sandwiches. Well, I'll take that back, I really, really don't like making sandwhiches with big slices of slimy deli meat. My aforementioned hate of peanut butter makes a quick pb&j less pleasurable too. Now, if others want to make a sandwich for me, I'll assure you that it tastes much better than one I make myself.

So, I started with the Shroomwich. And followed up with a remake of the shroomwhich, 'cause it was THAT good. Then, breaking out Tom Colicchio's Wichcraft, I used my CSA arugula and celery to make Goat Cheese, with Avocado, Celery, Walnut Pesto and, in my case Arugula. I finished up with Onion Fritatta with Roasted Tomatoes and Cheddar for breakfast this morning. In the last two cases, my breads weren't what they should be but the sandwiches still rocked.

So back to the pastry. It's been chilling, and I knew I need to do something with (some of) it. So I made my Vols-au-vent, using the shot glass/juice glass method of cutting. They came out nicely, and, given the quick return of the fall weather, I made a quick simmer of some sliced apples with brown sugar, ginger, butter, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. With a side of vanilla ice cream, they were the perfect dessert to a goat cheese and celery sandwich.

And the leftover pastry became palmiers, rolled in the remaining sugar mixture from the apples.

Shroomwich

I stopped at the Roadshow, in search of the 8 grain, 3 seed bread. Sadly, their daily allotment of a single loaf was long sold. Bakehouse White, it was then- I had a last of summer BLT in mind, but changed my mind when I recalled this recipe, from Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen.

"This," said Allen "is a sandwich I could eat all winter." Mushroom duxelle and Emmenthaler cheese grilled to perfection, with a mushroom dipping jus and a side of parsnip chips. If your sandwich contains cream, you know that it's going to be delicious.

Celeriac

I love my CSA box. It's a bit like celebrating the good parts of my birthday every Tuesday during the growing season. The surprises are good, ripe tomatoes, and winter squash. We get carrots, potatoes, celery and broccoli that tastes nothing like its brethren in the grocery store. But 4 years into our CSA, I'm still occasionally perplexed. I haven't come up with a great use for kholrabi. We don't hate it, but usually I just grate it into some hash browns. We send the beets to our neighbors.

This year, the celeriac came earlier in the season than I remember in years past. In the midst of the some indian summer, mashed potatoes with celeriac just weren't on my radar. So I ended up with this recipe from Angelic Organics -- I tempered its beige-ness by putting it on a bed of arugula.

Celeriac and Apple Salad with Tarragon and Toasted Walnuts

4 c. water
juice 1 lemon

2 tart apples, cored and cut into thin slices
1 large celeriac, peeled, cut into matchsticks.
1/2 c. chopped walnuts, toasted

1 1/2tbsp white wine or rice vinegar
2 1/2tbsp mayonnaise
1tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
salt

Combine water and lemon in a large bowl. Add celeriac and apple and let stand for 15 minutes.

Drain celeriac and apple mixture, return to bowl. Add vinegar and toss.

Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour dressing over apple mixture and toss to coat. Add walnuts and toss again. Chill at least one hour, preferably 2-3 hours before serving.

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

I had serious deja-vu when I bit into these. I'm convinced that one of my grandmother's used to mail order cookies like this. I can visualize the black and gold box, and taste the tangy cottage/cream cheese dough. When I asked my mom if she remembered such cookies, her response was "well I know that neither one of them would have BAKED them." They weren't the cookie baking kind of grandmothers.

Despite the stickiness of the dough, these cookies got such rave reviews that I'll be making them again. They're soft, puffy, not too sweet, and each one has a delicious bite of this year's blueberry-orange jam.

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

It's the best kind of Tuesday morning after school starts. You know, the kind when you find yourself in the dentist chair while the kids are at school. Let me tell you, I'd way rather be a fifth grader - gym, cursive writing, and all -- and definitely a kindergartner, than hanging out in the dentist chair. Once I've gotten past the reclining chair part, it's all downhill. So while Dr. B drills, and drills, and drills (three fillings, baby!), I'm thinking about these turnovers. Trader Joe's is down the street, and I should have time to stop.

So while I wait for the anesthetic to wear off, stomach growling, lip turned down, slightly achy jaw, and of course, occasional drool, I worked on this dough. Probably not enough, however, to make it actually turn into a dough. I took this picture after the dough had been coerced into a rectangle to rest for a few hours. It seems that some parts of the dough were feeling bullied by other parts of the dough, so they chose not to join the rectangle community. And now, as I sense no real remedy, they'll learn to be friends in the garbage.

Totally kills me to waste 3 sticks of butter like that.

TWD: Chocolate Souffles

It seems that one doesn't need a fancy dinner party in order to serve a chocolate souffle. Sunday night, summer dinner is evidently a fine time to go hunting for ooh's, aah's and "mom of the year" comments from the under 12 set. The kids felt the dessert was duly earned after a dinner on the deck that included more than one wasp trying to crash the party.

I felt that the souffle fine -- enhanced by the Scharffen Berger chocolate that A. brought home from the Sunday NYT run, but a bit dry as well. No doubt due to an oven window in desperate need of cleaning.

The last day of summer

School starts tomorrow. For us, that means Kindergarten and 5th grade, as well as the annual dessert tradition that is now in it's 4th year. 4 years ago, when J. was going into first grade, he asked to celebrate the end of summer with a special dessert. For the life of me, I can't tell you what special dessert he chose. But when we repeated the tradition the following year, we had chocolate fondue. He's chosen chocolate fondue for the past two years as well. So it's often warm, and waspy as we finish our night-before-school dinner and bust out the fondue pot. No New Year's Eve's or Valentine's Day here -- it's all about Labor Day.

TWD: Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

Five years ago, we hosted a party for a group of people who worked with my husband. With 30 or so coming, we asked for everyone to bring a contribution. Fateful night, that was, as it has since been referred to as "the party where everyone brought chips." I'm not so much a chip person, although I am fond of TJ's salt and pepper potato chips and the tortilla chips from the Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory, so it took us months to munch our way through a half dozen or more leftover bags of Doritos.

Fast forward a few years, and I was more specific in my potluck recommendations -- another 30 coworkers, and one group brought apps, another sides, and the third dessert. Worked like a charm, but a seemingly forgotten one by last weekend. I'm a pretty organized person, but I try not to be too demanding, and for the smaller gathering, A. simply said that we'd do the grilling, and feel free to bring something to go alongside. Fearing his colleagues would run, not walk, to Meijer in search of chips, I planned cole slaw, potato salad, baba ghanoush and other CSA box inspired munchies. I made brownies and Dorie's Cheesecake Espresso Brownies for dessert.

So my brownies were made, and chilling in the fridge when the guests arrive. Our guests have unknowingly turned this party into "the party where everyone brought desserts" -- cupcakes, cookies, brownies... So my brownies sat in the fridge until Tuesday, when they travelled to the park for a loosely planned picnic. They were a bit dry on the bottom, in my opinion. And the more discriminating eaters actually asked for the cheesecake topping to be removed. I'm going to stick with the Katherine Hepburn brownies.