Puff Pastry: September's Ingredient of the Month

This month's ingredient of the month was puff pastry. I have come to really like puff pastry because it is so easy to use, and the finished product always looks like you were slaving away for hours, even though you were only slaving away for 15 mintues or so! Puff pastry is also incredibly diverse - it makes great savory appetizers, fabulous tarts, or can top soup in a ramekin to make a nice meal.

Before I talk about my puff pastry recipe this month, I wanted to let you know that FIGS are October's ingredient of the month. I have never cooked with figs before, but apparently they're in season right now, and I always see really delicious looking recipes using figs. So, please join me in October in trying a recipe with figs.

Ok, so back to puff pastry. I stumbled onto a recipe for palmiers, or 'elephant ears', using puff pastry and I was thrilled to learn how to make these delicious little cookies. I first had a palmier in Paris. I remember ordering one with a coffee at a quaint little outdoor cafe, and I thought the palmier was just delicious. A traditional palmier is made with sugar, but after looking online, you could really do so many variations on this recipe: you could add cinnamon or some other spice...or, you could make it into a savory appetizer, and use something such as parmesan cheese or pesto instead of sugar. Either way, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with these little treats. They would go great at a party when you're serving coffee.



This recipe comes from Ina Garten on the Foodnetwork. Hope you enjoy it.

Palmiers

Ingredients

• 2 cups granulated sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted (recommended: Pepperidge Farm)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine the sugar and kosher salt. Pour 1 cup of the sugar/salt mixture on a flat surface such as wooden board or marble. Unfold each sheet of puff pastry onto the sugar and pour 1/2 cup of the sugar mixture on top, spreading it evenly on the puff pastry. This is not about sprinkling, it's about an even covering of sugar. With a rolling pin, roll the dough until it's 13 by 13-inches square and the sugar is pressed into the puff pastry on top and bottom. Fold the sides of the square towards the center so they go halfway to the middle. Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly at the middle of the dough. Then fold 1 half over the other half as though closing a book. You will have 6 layers.

Slice the dough into 3/8-inch slices and place the slices, cut side up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Place the second sheet of pastry on the sugared board, sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar mixture, and continue as above. (There will be quite a bit of sugar left over on the board.) Slice and arrange on baking sheets lined with parchment.

Bake the cookies for 6 minutes until caramelized and brown on the bottom, then turn with a spatula and bake another 3 to 5 minutes, until caramelized on the other side. Transfer to a baking rack to cool.

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So, did you make anything with puff pastry this month? If so, please share what you made, and if you liked it, please share the recipe!

Baah-ston

I must say that Andrew became quite adept at impersonating the Boston accent by the time we flew home.

Before I move on to the here and now, I wanted to at least do a quick post about Boston, the other half of our East Coast /Nantucket trip. We seem to just eat up big cities and all the great culture, history, and sports they have to offer. Boston was no different. We took a step back in time to walk the Freedom trail, stopping along the way at Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, the Old State House, and various churches and meeting halls which were the hotspots of Abolitionist, Women's suffrage, and of course, Revolutionary ideals.

We also enjoyed cruising Boylston and Newbury streets, seeing the view from the top of the Prudential, visiting with friends in the quaint North End (the Italian district), eating cannolis from Mike's pastry (we ate them at the Red Sox game, and needless to say, our neighbors were drooling over them), and hearing the Boston Pops play (as part of Andrew's conference).

And, no visit to Boston would be complete without a visit to Fenway Park (a stroke of luck for us, considering that this was their 461st consecutive sell-out!). I loved the spirit and vivacity of the Red Sox fans. I was especially impressed with the crowd's rousing rendition of "Sweet Caroline". Even when the inning started and the music was turned off halfway through the song, the crowd continued belting out the last few lines of the song. I loved it - that's my kind of crowd!

Nantucket

We've all been to the one-year-old birthday parties when the birthday boy or girl first experiences a piece of cake and all the sugary goodness that they'd been missing for the past year. Most little ones have their eyes light up as they discover the joy of 'sweets' for the first time.

For me, this describes my first (and hopefully not last) trip to Nantucket. It was perfect. Magical, almost. We were there less than 2 full days, but it was definitely the highlight of our trip (I think Andrew would agree, maybe with the exception of seeing the Red Sox play).

We left our rental car behind and took the passenger ferry to Nantucket, an island next to Martha's Vineyard, that is approximatly 10 miles wide by 5 miles long. Instead of our car, we opted to experience the island by foot and by bike. It was utterly relaxing, and everything was breathtaking.

We stayed at a quaint B&B, which was home in the 1800s to a whaling captain and his young bride. One interesting thing about the historical houses on Nantucket - many of them have "widows walks", small balconies on top of the house. When Nantucket was considered the 'whaling capital', wives would climb up onto these housetop walks to watch and wait for the return of their husbands' ship. I'm guessing with a name like 'widows walks', there were quite a few ships that never returned.

Well, enough talking from me. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Minnesconsin

Andrew and I both suffer from something called going 120mph and cramming as much as we can into our days and then ending up exhausted. Often times, we feel like we have 28 hours of commitments, work, and play to fit into 24 hours.

So, it was such a pleasant change to slow things down and go on vacation! We certainly squeezed in a lot of fun things on the trip, but we also had some time to relax.

Our vacation felt more like two vacations back to back: the first was to Andrew's parents' home in Minnesota, and from there, the whole family road-tripped up to Door County, Wisconsin, a peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Door County is considered the Cape Cod of the Midwest.

Our time in Minnesota was perfectly low key. We enjoyed traipsing through the garden, picking the last of the raspberries and enjoying sweet cherry tomatoes to our hearts' content. I got to make a delicious apple pie with Jan, my mother in law. It was such a treat for me to learn from a pro, since crust-making is such a daunting task to me, and Jan can make a mean pie crust. I should have taken a picture of it, but perhaps we gobbled it up too fast. I spent some fun time on the lake with our nephews, jumping off the pontoon boat and enjoying the warm water, and with oodles of baseball fans, of course we took in a Twins game (even more appropriate since there are 2 sets of twins in the family!).

And last but not least, Jan & Larry took us to see the musical "Little House on the Prairie" starring Melissa Gilbert (as Ma). We laughed, we cried. The theater was beautiful, and the musical was completely wonderful (don't tell...but even the guys really liked it).

Mid-week, we headed off to Wisconsin. Maybe it's my Iowa roots or my general fascination with farming, but I loved the drive to Door County, watching the quaint farms with the big red barns that dotted the Wisconsin countryside. Our caravan was filled with sports lovers - so the trip would not have been complete without a stop at Lambeau Field, home of the Greenbay Packers. The girls are definitely outnumbered by this brood of boys :)



Door County was incredibly beautiful. It was filled with amazing state parks, picturesque beaches, quaint little towns, and beautiful lighthouses. I loved that it had so much character, and has not been taken over by Walmarts or McDonalds.

Here's one place we stopped with some major character: check out the sod roof of this Scandinavian restaurant that is maintained by goats!

We were thankful for such a nice time with family. Just look at our sendoff!