Brie Will Have a Good Time

This holiday season has been one of "what's in my pantry" toss stuff together food. Because with three kids, a full time job, and the holidays, who has time for much else?  As it is, my 10 year old made the Christmas cookies this year. Two amazing batches of chocolate chip!  But every so often I get a craving for something particular.  A friend of mine recently brought Brie and pears on toothpicks to a party. I swear I ate half the tray. I love Brie... Love it.  So of course I've been craving more.  And as I wandered around the over crowded grocery store the other day, it dawned on me I should do a baked Brie for a Christmas meal we attended last night.

Now, baked Brie is pretty basic. It's Brie. Baked until gooey.  And after much searching of the Internet, I found recipes to be fairly basic. Bake the Brie, drizzle honey, maybe some nuts.  But I was looking for more. So I wandered around the jammed grocery store looking for inspiration. Besides, the more time I wasted maybe the lines would get shorter? (Did not happen)

Roaming from aisle to aisle, throwing more things into my cart than I came in for to begin with, I rounded he dried fruit section and saw dates.  I haven't had dates in many years. I love dates. Dates are sweet. Dates have a great reference to one of my favorite movies Indian Jones. Dates... Yes dates! And other dried fruit! And that's how this recipe came to be. All the dried fruit I could think, and of course that "drizzle" of honey. Oh this was gonna be great. Let's play!

Ingredients

• Small wheel Brie
• Dried sweet dates
• Dried apricots
• Craisins
• Dried pomegranates
• Golden raisins
• Honey (I chose a Brazilian raw honey, only because I did not have a local honey in stock)
• Green apples

Steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Unwrap the Brie and place into oven safe bake wear or parchment lined baking sheet 
3. Cut four slices in top of Brie
4. Set aside until oven is warmed to temp 
5. Meanwhile...
6. Chop the dates, and apricots to be the same size as raisins, craisins, pomegranates.
7. How many of them Jenn?? - how much fruit do you want to serve over top? Little or lot? I had enough that when combined was about a cup and half
8. Put all chopped fruit into small sauce pan
9. Pour in honey, Enright to cover all fruit. I probably used 1/4 to 1/2 cup.
10. Bring to simmer and let the honey bubble around the fruit for 5-10 minutes so that fruit reconstituted a bit and absorbs the honey.

1. Once the oven is at 350, put the Brie in.
2. Let heat in the oven until soft and pliable. If you press down on top of cheese and it gives way easy, or starts to ooze out of the cuts you made.
3. Remove Brie from oven
4. If you baked in a bakeware dish, just pour the fruit and honey chutney right over the top, serve hot
5. If you baked on a cookie sheet, carefully remove Brie and place on plate, pour chutney over top, serve hot.

Slice green apples and serve as chips to dip. Don't bother serving this with actual crackers, the green apple tartness with the sweet fruit chutney and the bite of the Brie will be an explosion of flavor in your mouth.

Enjoy!!!

Ooey gooey amazingness going on right here.

Steak Bomb Omelette for Breakfast

So, recently, a blog that I follow:  Good Morning Gloucester had a Steak Bomb challenge, to determine who had the best steak bomb in town.  Now, I can only go so long hearing about Steak Bombs before wanting one.  I, of course, nominated my personal preference joint Captain Hook's.  As of today, the results are not yet in, but if Captain Hook's doesn't win, I say the competition was rigged.  Regardless, all that talk of steak bomb made me hungry for one, so of course, Thursday I went out and got one.  Can't go wrong.  Soft sub roll, piled high with steak, peppers, onions, salami and cheese.  And... per the usual, my eyes were bigger than my head, so of course I only ate half of it.  Wrapped the rest up and put in in the fridge for all good intentions to eat over the weekend for lunch.

Only I didn't eat it for lunch.  Come Saturday morning, it was calling my name for breakfast.  That's right, breakfast.  But I couldn't in my right mind have a steak bomb for breakfast.  Or, could I?  What if I wrapped it around some eggs!? 

So that's just what I did!  I made myself a Steak Bomb Omelette! 
(You spelled that wrong, Jenn... no I didn't, see?) 

So, out came the eggs and my spatula to play.


Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 T milk
• Cooking spray
• Insides of 1/2 leftover Steak Bomb 

6.) Setting your omelette

1. Dig out the insides of your leftover steak bomb and saute them up in a frying pan.  
2. While they are heating, crack 2 eggs into a bowl with 2T milk and whisk until well combined.
3. Once steak bomb is heated through, set it aside on a plate.  
4. Coat your pan with cooking spray and return to the burner
5. Pour in your eggs, turn to med-high heat and let them set.
6. Lift the sides and let the raw egg run under, creating layers and making your flip easier with less raw egg on top.  See picture to the right.  As the side cook, lift and allow more raw egg to go under.
7. When enough raw egg is no longer on top and you feel comfortable to flip, flip the entire egg like a giant pancake.
8. Add the steak, and 1 slice of american cheese to the pan like picture to the right.

9. 

   8.) Adding the steak bomb

   Fold the egg over to close in the cheese and steak bomb
10. Remove from pan, add to your plate
11. Serve with coffee

 Eat & Enjoy

Ohm Nom Nom

Talk about the most satisfying breakfast I've had in a long time.  Steak, cheese, eggs, salami, peppers, onions, more cheese.  Yeah, that hit the spot.  Definitely doing that again.

Got Dough? Make stromboli!

Tuesday night was pizza night in our house this past week.  I took dough out of the freezer, was all excited that I already had the necessary ingredients and was feeling ready to go.  It was 4:30, the dough should be defrosted by 6:30/7:00, this was great.  WRONG.  Pizza dough does not defrost in just 2 hours.  By the time Rob got home and we decided what to do, the dough balls were still frozen solid.  So the great husband that he is, he went to the grocery store and bought two fresh balls for pizza night.

This however, left me with 2 extra balls of dough and what to do with them....Didn't have time to do anything Wednesday night and who really wants pizza two nights in a row?  There was no time on Thursday, and Friday we went to the Topsfield Fair.  So there the balls of dough sat in my fridge exploding inside their bag they were rising so much.

Well, conveniently Saturday night, I had invited neighbors over for food and drinks, so it was time to play.  I've been craving an Italian Sub recently, so I thought an Italian cold cuts calzone or stromboli would fit the bill, just right.  But I've never actually made one.  Can't be too hard, roll up the meats, add some cheese, bake it, slice it.  Alright, let's play.

Ingredients: (makes 2)

• Mortadella - 1/2 pound sliced
• Salami - 1/2 pound sliced
• Hot Capicola - 1/2 pound sliced
• Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
• Now, I opted for Mozzarella because it's the cheesiest and I like things to be ooey and gooey.  My husband also prefers this cheese.  If I were making this for just me, I would be using sliced of provolone, since that's what really goes into an Italian sub.
• And of course, dough, 2 balls

Let's Play:

• Preheat oven to 475 degrees, place rack in center
• Roll out the dough, using flour so it doesn't stick.  You want it in a rectangle shape.  I made mine probably 12" x 18" - didn't really measure it, just guessing.
• Once rolled out start with the mortadella, lay it out, one slice on the other the long way, use half of your stash
• Then layer on the salami, i do a double row so it's the same width as the mortadella
• Then layer on the capicola
• Top it with some mozzarella cheese.
• Fold the left and right sides of the dough in on top of the meat
• This will prevent the cheese from seeping out the sides.  It should all start to look like this:

 

• Start at the bottom and now roll it, like you would a swiss roll.
• Once rolled, place it on a cookie sheet, or a pizza pan, that you've lightly dusted with corn meal so it doesn't stick.
• Repeat this and make a 2nd one. (providing you purchased ingredients enough)
• Place them in the oven for 10 minutes.  At 10 minutes, watch them to make sure they're not burning too much.  Start to gauge whether you "think they are done" - and just cook them maybe 2 minutes longer if you don't believe it's cooked through.

Sauce:

• While the stromboli is cooking there for 10 minutes  you may find yourself bored, so make this quick dipping sauce for them.
• 4oz can of plain tomato sauce
• Dump into a small sauce pan
• Add to it - garlic salt, basil, oregano - be generous here, it's a  flavorful sauce so you want them to really come through. 
• Bring to simmer and let simmer for the 10 minutes.  Taste, if not flavorful enough, add more Basil and garlic salt.

Slice the stromboli with a serrated  knife, not pressing down too hard, let the knife do its cutting.
Put sauce in a bowl, place stromboli around the bowl on your plate.
This makes a great appetizer for a party, it even makes a good meal if it's just 4 of you.

I Could Eat a Whole Bag of Mozzarella Cheese

It's pizza night at our house.  For a while we were doing every Thursday.  Changing things up now due to scheduling conflicts on Thursdays.  I grew up in a household where mom cooked dinner every night.  But dad, dad could make pizza.  And THAT was awesome.  We (my sister and I) would stand about the kitchen as he pulled and prodded and tossed and turned.  Sauce would flow and the mozzarella cheese was endless.  It would come out of the oven all hot and ooey gooey.  Many a tongue was burnt since we dove right in anxious to get the first bite of cheesy goodness.

Now that I have a household of my own, I pass this tradition down.  Kassidy doesn't like sauce.  No pizza sauce, no spaghetti sauce.  A blog for another time.  So, the solution was to make pizza rather than buy it.  But isn't pizza hard to make?  You ask.  But what about the dough?  You ask.  This my friends is pizza in 15 minutes or less.  By no means gourmet, but hey, let's play!  And for you parents out there, this is a great way to get the kids involved!  They can help at ever single step.

• Pre-heat your oven to 475 degrees, NOW, do not put the pizza in until it's 475
• Pizza dough - where can you get this?  Well, your local grocery store of course.  You didn't know that?  Yep, usually in the deli section "somewhere" - and most places do regular "white" dough, as well as wheat options.  I like the wheat, it tends to crisp up more.  But we usually just do the white.
• Now, if you want this dinner to take more preparation and longer than 15 minutes, this is where you can divert from the recipe.  Dough, cold, directly out of the store bag will work, just fine.  It makes a "heavy" crust, you can get it crisp.  But if you like a light and fluffy crust, you'll want to let this sit out for a bit.  Get a bowl, spray it with your cooking spray of choice, place the dough in, turn it once to coat both sides, cover it with a towel, and let it sit.  On the counter.  Don't worry, it's going to be fine.
• Ok, so we got the dough.  Give it a good splash of flour so it's got a light dusting on all surfaces.  Stretch it, toss it, roll it out.  Have fun.  Get it into a circle if you have circle pans, put it in a rectangle for cookie sheets.  I use 14" round pans I got at a certain W-mart store for $12 each.  LOVE them.  Before you put the dough on, give it a few shakes of corn meal.  Don't have cornmeal, give it a light dusting of flour.
• With the dough on the pan, move onto sauce.  I use plain old, no ingredients, store brand tomato sauce.  Small can, what is that like 4oz?  Spoon it out in the quantity you desire.
• Now, we play.  Spices!  Think ITALIAN. - Basil, Oregano, Parsley, Onion Powder, Garlic Salt - sprinkle high for even coating.  (Kids LOVE doing this)
• Cheese... Oh Cheese, how do I love thee, let me count the ways...... Mozzarella and lots of it.  I load it on.  You'd think I was having cheese with some dough rather than dough with cheese.  Oh yes, the ooey-ist and gooey-ist.  Often, I find that adding some cheddar, monterrey jack, provolone, parmessan... oh yes, cheese, I love you.  {drooooool}  Anyhow, load your cheese on.
• Toppings!  Time to play again.  Load it up.  Broccoli, pepperoni, mushrooms, chicken, pineapple, ham, linguini, peppers/onions... a blog for another time again... but choose your favorite and put it on.
• Oven - remember do NOT put it in if the oven isn't full 475 degrees.
• 10 minutes, don't open the door until the buzzer goes off.  And even then, don't open it, turn the light on and look at it.  Did the dough rise? Is it a golden brown color?  No?  Give it just 2 more minutes?  How about now?  no?  1 minute.  Keep watching it and pull when you think it's done.
• Cutting board, pizza slicer, put the slices back on the hot pan to keep them warm.
• Add your favorite cold beverage to a glass.
• Yum.
  
  This is our 1/2 cheese no sauce, 1/2 mushroom extra cheese pizza from tonight.