A couple of weeks ago, I made a recipe that required a few sheets of phyllo dough and then I was stuck with an open roll in the fridge. What to do? What to do? Well, this for one…

Now, you can make this recipe as written, making one galette of each or you can just double the ingredients for the kind of galette you want to make and make 2 of those. The 5 sheets of dough, 1 apple, squirt of lemon and 1 tbsp of butter will make two galettes, no matter which variation you choose.

Apple, Rosemary & Gruyere Galette vs. Apple, Pecan and Cinnamon Galette
5 sheets phyllo dough, thawed
1 apple (I used a gala)
squirt of lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar + 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together
1 handful pecans (about 1/4 cup)
1/2 tsp chopped, fresh rosemary
1 tbsp honey
1/3 cup gruyere, grated
1 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Lay one piece of phyllo down on a work surface. The long way. You know, horizontally. Cover the other pieces you are not using with a damp paper towel to keep them from drying out. Brush some melted butter on the dough. Sprinkle one half with the cinnamon sugar and one half with a little cheese — just a little.

Add another piece of phyllo down and brush with butter and sprinkle each half. Keep doing this until you’ve used all 5 pieces of dough. Cover with your damp towel.

Next, slice your apple up and squirt with a little lemon. Dived your apple slices in half. To one group, add about 1 tablespoon of your cinnamon-sugar mixture and the pecans. To the other half, add the honey and the rosemary. Toss both to combine. Do the best you can with the honey — it doesn’t really want to toss.

Now, cut the phyllo in half, vertically, seperating into the cinnamon sugar side and the cheese side. Mound the apple-pecan mixture in the middle of the cinnamon sugar dough and the apple-rosemary mixture in the center of the cheese dough. Bring the sides up. It will not cover the filling, just come up the sides a bit.

Brush each with remaining butter and sprinkle a little cinnamon-sugar and cheese on the respective tops.

Into the oven with them! About 30 - 35 minutes.

Let them rest for a moment or two and then nom-nom-nom-nom-nom!

I had a hard time picking my favorite. I think the cinnamon-sugar one would be great with a little vanilla frozen yogurt or ice cream and the cheese one…hmmm…maybe a balsamic reduction drizzle? Hell, they were good just as they were from the oven.

Okay, this will probably be the last post until next week. Wedding-Sunday is fast approaching! Everything seems to be going well and, dare I say it, to plan.

eeek!

This is super simple pasta. I first came across the recipe in like, 1997 or 1998 on, of all places, the 4AD mailing list. I know, wacky! I couldn’t find the original recipe when I set out to recreate it but what I could remember was: cottage cheese, milk, diced tomatoes, hazelnuts and tarragon. And I remembered thinking, huh, cottage cheese and pasta? But, it was quite tasty. You could also, of course, probably use ricotta.

So, here’s how I have been recreating this around the house lately. This dish also works excellently as a work lunch. In fact, that has been its purpose for us. I just pop it into containers and when it’s reheated in the microwave at work, the sauce is all creamy and good.

To eat right away, you probably want to toss the cottage cheese and everything in the hot pan, after you’ve drained the pasta, and then all the pasta back in. Heat gently over low heat.

Oh and if you see this and this was basically your idea and you posted the recipe to 4AD-L about 10 years ago, let me know and I’ll give you credit! So, everyone dig out your Cocteau Twins 12-inches and make some pasta!

Rigatoni with Hazelnuts, Tarragon and Tomatoes
1 lb rigatoni (more than rigatoni will work here)
1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped roughly (I add to a plastic bag and beat with a rolling pin)
1 container (16 oz) cottage cheese (either low fat or regular fat — no fat free)
1/2 cup low fat milk (I have used both fat-free and 2% here)
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
1/3 - 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 tomatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 shakes green Tabasco sauce
Salt & Pepper

Combine the hazelnuts through the Tabasco. Mix to combine. Add salt & pepper to taste. Cook your pasta in boiling, salted water. Drain and combine with the sauce. Pack up for lunches during the week, or warm gently on the stovetop for supper.

Awesome!

Image from Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm’s Website

I have been putting off calling the farm where we are purchasing bulk tulips for a crazy-awesomely low price, as I was scared all of the tulips had been killed off in our Freak April snow and 20 degree lows. I wanted to call and ask how the tulips were doing but I was kind of scared to know.

But after a quick check of their field report, it seems the tulips are alive! And the tulip fest has even been extended, as the flowers are in such good shape still! Hooray!

It seems tulips are tough little buggers.

Here’s a super, tasty soup recipe, especially if your weather is crappy (like ours has been). Or, if there are some sniffles and complaints of sore throats around the house. Oh and last weekend, when it was uh 80 degrees and sunny out, I took the flannel sheets off the bed. Note to self: the flannel sheets stay in the bed until June. Grr.

Ah, hey, I don’t want to scare anyone that’s heading this way in say, uh 2 weeks or so, but it we had hail, rain and uh, snow this weekend. But, I bet in a couple of weeks the weather will be B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! Really! Sure it will!

Okay, back to the food. This recipe is from the Shoalwater Restaurant and it is really good. I found it online a couple of days ago and couldn’t wait to try it. The lime and the ginger and fish sauce are just a fabulous combination. I altered the amounts a little bit to accommodate a whole can of coconut milk and I added some veggies that I needed to use up. Hooray!

Asian Chicken and Coconut Soup
Adapted from a recipe by Shoalwater restaurant
1 tbsp canola oil
1 small onion, diced
1 cup diced carrots
12 medium shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 large garlic clove, minced
3 cups Chicken Stock
1 lime, juice and finely chopped zest
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp ginger, minced
1/2 tsp roasted chili paste
1 14 oz can coconut milk
1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into small cubes
1 cup cooked brown rice
Garnish: Fresh cilantro, chopped

Add oil to a large soup pot and add chicken and brown briefly, 2-3 minutes. Remove and cover with foil until ready to use. To the hot pan, add the onion, garlic, carrots, chili paste and shitake mushrooms. Saute over medium heat until soft, about 6-7 minutes.

Add the stock, lime zest and juice, fish sauce, and ginger and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Add the coconut milk and chicken. Simmer for about 4-5 more minutes.

To serve, add about 1/4 cup of cooked rice to each bowl and ladle the hot soup over the rice. Garnish with cilantro.

This will serve about 4-5 bowls so there will be leftovers. Excellent.

I have been lazy. No other excuse. With that out of the way — Oh, little big head. You have such big teeth but you usually have such tasty recipes. Coincidence? I dunno.

If you can score some salmon, this is what you should do with it. I picked some up on sale! at Whole Foods. It was Alaskan salmon that was frozen on the boat and only $10.99 a pound. And it was very good here. I added pasta to the recipe to make it more of a one bowl meal. Also, I like pasta.

Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree
Recipe adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
Lemon Brodetto:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, diced (you can also use a green onion, if you don’t have a shallot)
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 lemon, zested (use the lemon you’ll be juicing — so you only need one lemon total)
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves

Pea Puree:
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
2 tbsp fresh mint leaves
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
Salt and Pepper to taste

Salmon:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 (6 - 8 ounce) salmon filets
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 lb pasta of your choice (orecchiette, rigatoni and penne would all work great)

To make the Lemon Brodetto, warm the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and saute until tender, about 7 minutes. Add the lemon juice, zest, and broth. Bring to a simmer, and keep warm, covered, over low heat. You can also easily make this ahead of time and just refrigerate until needed. Then rewarm.

To make the Pea Puree, combine the peas, mint, garlic, salt, and pepper in a food processor and puree. With the machine running, add the olive oil in a steady drizzle. Transfer the pea puree to a small bowl and stir in the Parmesan. Set aside. You will want to warm this before you put it on top of the salmon. In the Spring, you may want to warm this before serving. Not hot, just warm. What I did was pop it in the microwave for about 20 seconds. When it’s all hot and Summery out, I can see using this room temperature or slightly chilled.

To make the Salmon, warm the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over high heat. Season the salmon pieces with salt and pepper. Sear the salmon until a golden crust forms, about 4 to 5 minutes on the first side. This is also a good point to add your pasta to your boiling water and get that cooked.

Flip the fish and continue cooking for about 4 more minutes more depending on the thickness of the fish, and how you like it cooked. Remove fish from pan and cover with foil until you are ready for it.

To assemble the dish, add the tablespoon chopped mint to the Lemon Brodetto and divide between 2 shallow dishes.

Add some pasta to each dish. Don’t pile it on like a big bowl of pasta but more like the little pasta - broth bed for the salmon that it will be. Place a salmon piece in each bowl and add a generous spoonful of pea puree. A mint leaf makes a great garnish. Serve immediately.

So, so good.

This is a reader recipe in the current issue of Everyday Food. I didn’t change that much — I just opted to cook it in a slightly less hot oven (down from the original recipe’s 475 degrees for 60 minutes) and I added an onion in the cavity and broth/carrot/onion half on the bottom of the pan, as I tend to burn roasting pans without some liquid down there. And once you add broth, you might as well add some veggies.

Oh and I doubled the curry paste because, dude, that is good. Extra for dipping seemed like a given. And the best part? With only two if us, there’s roast chicken for lunch the next day!

Remember to check it after the first 20-30 minutes and cover it up as needed. The curry paste/honey will burn. A little is good, smoke billowing from your oven is bad. I covered after the first 25 minutes, then uncovered for the last 10 minutes of oven time. My chicken got a pretty dark but all was completely fine under the skin — moist and tasty! But, if I could back and do it again, I probably would have not uncovered it so long at the end — so, there’s a lesson for you.

Thai Curried Roast Chicken
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 tbsp red curry paste
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp roasted chili paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 5-6 pound chicken
1 onion, halved
2-3 carrots, chopped into 2-inch pieces
salt & pepper
1-2 cups chicken broth
limes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add the cilantro through the garlic in a food processor and combine. Divide curry mixture in half and set one of the halves aside, to be used as a dipping sauce. You can also just mix in a bowl if you like.

Rinse and pat dry your chicken (inside and out). Salt and pepper it generously.

Place one onion half inside the cavity and tie the legs together. Loosen the skin over the breast meat and run some of the curry paste under there. Then, slather the rest of the paste over the chicken and put on an oiled rack set in a roasting pan. Add 1 cup of stock to the bottom of the pan to prevent burning. Add veggies if you wish.

Roast for about 30 minutes, then cover with foil so the top doesn’t get too dark. Roast 45 - 60 minutes more, checking a few times to see if you need to add more stock to the bottom of the pan or adjust the foil for optimal browning/non-burning.

When white meat is 165 and dark meat at least 170, remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 - 15 minutes before carving.

Serve with lime wedges and coconut rice. We also had some sauteed green beans on the side which were really, really good. Also, bring out the unused half of the curry past for a dipping sauce. Mmm!

When I made this from The Big Book of Casseroles, I figured it would just be an okay workday lunch and we could use up some salmon we had in the freezer. That is why I didn’t take many pictures of it. But…but…it was good!

The original recipe called for ahi tuna which, personally, didn’t sound that good, but with salmon it was really tasty! I also swapped the papaya in the original for mango.

Oh and jwa liked the casserole too which is always high praise for cheap fish project dishes! Now, I probably wouldn’t use fresh salmon for this but for defrosted frozen salmon it’s perfect — hence the cheap fish (about $7/pound at Trader Joe’s) tag.

FYI, this makes more sauce than you need for the casserole. You can either pass the unused sauce with the cooked casserole or save the extra sauce for a stir-fry or something.

Salmon, Mango and Rice Casserole
2 salmon fillets (about 1 pound total)
2 mangoes, sliced
2 cups cooked brown or white rice
2 cups orange mango juice
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Asian chili-garlic hot sauce
2 1/2 tbsp corn starch
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
Non-stick canola oil cooking spray

Make the sauce first by putting the orange mango juice through the cornstarch in a sauce pan over medium heat. Whisk until thickened, about 5 minutes. Keep warm.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spread rice on the bottom of a baking dish (9 X 13 or 9 X 9) coated with canola oil spray. Arrange salmon over the rice and cover with the mango slices. Pour about half the sauce over the mango slices. Top with the panko breadcrumbs. Spray the top with a little canola oil spray.

Bake, uncovered, until the top is golden and the fish is done, 15 - 20 minutes. Let sit about 5 minutes, then cut and serve. Or pack up to bring for lunch the next day.

Oh and on the wedding front…there’s puppets!

Well, finger puppets anyway…

Quick. There’s 7.5 hours left to catch up…

* Spinach linguine bought from the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market last weekend tossed with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and two kinds of cheeses (Romano & Parmesan)

* Antipasto platter with giant Greek beans, marinated artichokes, green and black olives

* Grand Central sourdough bread

* Red wine

The other day I was tempted at the checkout by the latest issue of “Everyday Food.” I used to have a subscription but then I forgot to renew and now I only get the magazine, well, when I’m tempted at the checkout.

This month, there’s a big tostada on the cover. Okay, you are coming home with me! But inside, there was an article on baking mix (recipe below) and all the wonderful things you can bake with it. One of these things is Oatmeal Blondies, which I made. They turned out really good. The whole pan was gone in a day and a half.

The only challenging part was that I got halfway through making the recipe and realized that I didn’t have enough oatmeal. I had about a 1/2 cup and I needed 3/4 cup (well, the recipe says 1 cup, with a 1/4 of that for the top. I was going to use walnuts, so really, I was only short about 1/4 cup).

After sighing, and looking around and not wanting to go out I…..I…..used a packet of Trader Joe’s Blueberry Instant Oatmeal for the missing 1/4 cup.

::ducks::

Yeah, that’s what I said! And it turned out fine. Now, I’m not recommending you do the same, but in an emergency, we do what we have to do. I’ll make these again the right way but I think I’ll add some dried blueberries because, uh, the blueberry flavor was really tasty!

Baking Mix
I halved this from the original
3 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tbsp salt

Mix it all together. Done. Store what you don’t use in an airtight container.

Oatmeal Blondies
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups baking mix
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped roughly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a little non-stick spray in an 8-inch square baking pan (you can also butter the dish as in the original recipe (OR). Line bottom and sides with a strip of parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang. Now, you can butter the paper as the OR says or you can use non-stick spray or you can forget to do either like I did. For me, it was fine with just the paper, as I was all about not following the OR too much.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat until combined. With mixer on low, gradually add Baking Mix; mix just until combined. Mix in 3/4 cup oats. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Press batter down into pan. The OR said to spread. My mix was all crumbly — perhaps it was the blueberry flavoring? It didn’t spread — it pressed. Sprinkle with walnuts, pressing gently to adhere. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pan 30 minutes.

Using overhang, transfer blondies (still on paper) to a wire rack to cool completely. Place on a cutting board (peel off paper); using a serrated knife, cut into 9 (OR says 16 — ha!) squares. Store blondies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 2 months. You will eat them all within 2 days, don’t worry.