Stuffed Peppers with Honey and Walnuts

Snack, starter, small plate, hors d'oeuvre, nibble, tapas...whatever you want to call it, here's a small bite I made a while back from the pages of BBC Good Food -- goat cheese stuffed roasted peppers with honey and walnuts.

Pretty dang simple if you buy already roasted peppers in a jar, but, of course, roast away if you must. Don't even think about trying this without the honey. The honey really was my favorite element, and, without the sweetness of the honey, a cracker or piece of bread topped with roasted pepper and cheese just isn't as satisfying.
Stuffed Peppers with Honey and Walnuts
adapted from BBC Good Food
serves 2

2 ounces fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
5 ounces goat cheese
salt and pepper
4 medium whole roasted peppers
4 tablespoons honey (or more!)
1/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

• Mix spinach and goat cheese together, and season with salt and pepper.
• Fill each pepper with the cheese mixture, then place on a lightly greased baking pan, and bake for 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.
• Place peppers on a serving plate, drizzle with honey, and add chopped walnuts. Serve with bread or crackers.
  

Grape and Honey Goat Cheese Tart

It's been a grape-tastic weekend! A weekend I've been looking forward to since last year's harvest of grapes, and the most delicious, cherry-pie-like grape pie. Grape Pie! Do it. You'll thank me later.
This year's harvest of grapes from three vines growing on a pergola was much more bountiful than last year's. After splitting the booty with a friend, and plucking the good from the bad, I ended up with two huge bowls of grapes.

I, of course, made a grape pie. But what else could I do with grapes?I loved the onion and goat cheese puff pastries I made a while back so much, that I decided to rip off myself. I ended up making little puff pastries filled with grapes and honeyed goat cheese. They turned out well, but...

I had a little pie pastry left over from the grape pie, so made a small tart filled with honeyed goat cheese and grapes, as well. This was the much better combination! A larger ratio of cheese and grapes to dough, and the tart's crispy crust contrasted better with the filling.The grapes I used were picked just shy of perfectly ripe, so they're tart, but still enjoyable out of hand. Grapes in the grocery store are much sweeter than what I was working with. If you don't have access to homegrown grapes, I suggest picking up the tartest grapes you can find. Also, I think red grapes would be more aesthetically pleasing after being baked. Just a hunch.

I've still got an entire bowl of grapes left. Hmm....more tarts!
Grape and Honey Goat Cheese Tart
Makes (1) 9-inch tart, or multiple smaller tarts

1/2 pie dough recipe (I like this one)
12 ounces goat cheese
4 tablespoons honey
3 eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
3-4 cups tart grapes

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Roll dough out and fit it in tart pan. Butter one side of aluminum foil, and line the tart with the foil, buttered side down. Fill the foil with beans, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove beans and foil from tart shell, and prick bottom all over with fork, and bake for another 10 minutes.
  
• Beat goat cheese, honey, eggs, heavy cream, and salt together, then pour into baked tart shell. Top with grapes.
• Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until tart is firm and top is lightly browned.

Onion and Goat Cheese Puff Pastries

I’m in a puff pastry phase. Not a major one. I’m not obsessed. But the three packages of puff pastry I’ve gone through in the past couple of months probably number more than I’ve used in my entire life (used, not eaten).

So, I like the stuff. Turnovers with soft, fluffy puff pastry dough any day, over baklava with thin, crispy phyllo dough!

I also like how puff pastry dough turns me quickly into the hostess with the mostess. You can top or fill puff pastry dough with just about anything and have an instant dessert or appetizer – great for unexpected guests! (I don’t have any of those, though, unless you count the stray cats that invite themselves in my back door, and they’re helping themselves to Science Diet for fat cats.)

So, I don’t make the dough myself! It's frozen. Big deal. Homemade is time consuming, and I couldn’t do any better than the frozen stuff, any way.

Oh, and these caramelized onion and goat cheese puffs are really good; I just got hungry uploading these pictures!

Onion and Goat Cheese Puff Pastries
Makes about 24

2 sheets frozen puff pastry
2 medium onions, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons butter, or margarine
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
goat cheese

• Preheat oven to 400°
• In a skillet over medium heat, sauté onions in butter until caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper, and teaspoon of sugar to onions while cooking.
  
• Let frozen puff pastry thaw 10 minute. Cut sheets into, roughly, 2 ½ x 2 ½ squares (in order not to waste pastry, mine were more rectangular). Prick pastry with a fork multiple times.
• Place individual puff pastry squares in the bottom of an ungreased, nonstick muffin tin, pushing down the pastry so it conforms to the shape of the tin. Place ½-1 tablespoon of goat cheese in the middle of each puff pastry square. Then top with about 1-2 tablespoons of the caramelized onions
• Bake at 400° for 15 minutes, or until puff pastry is golden brown.

Raw Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Apple

I won Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, Cook with Jamie, from Serious Eats, and it arrived a few weeks ago! (Yes! Won! I can't believe it! This calls for one more exclamation point!)

This cook book, a couple of concert tickets, and a bouquet of Tootsie Pops are the extent of what I’ve won in my life from entering contests and playing bingo. I’m not the luckiest person, so I won’t be buying a lottery ticket anytime soon, and this recent winning guarantees that I won't be winning anything for the next three years – at least!

I think Serious Eats is, hands down, one of the best food sites out there, but I’m a little concerned about the state of their office space (my cookbook was covered in thick dust when I pulled it out of the padded shipping envelope), and wonder if a janitor made it into this year’s budget . No matter the filth, can’t beat free!

I’ve never watched Jamie’s cooking show, but I’ve caught him a few times on The Today Show before heading off to work, and he seems to be a very likable, chill dude that doesn't have a whisk up his ass. Cook with Jamie is a cookbook that covers the basics of cooking, and sticks to simple, fresh dishes. As Jamie states in the introduction, he thinks this cookbook should have been his first.Sliced beets before getting matchsticked.

My first dish from Cook with Jamie is the raw beet salad. Can you believe that I had never eaten a non-pickled beet until six years ago? It turns out I adore cooked beets, and eat them every chance I get. Now, can you believe I’ve never eaten raw beets until I tried this recipe? Turns out, I love raw beets, too.

This raw beet salad is very similar to coleslaw, which is up there at the top of the list of my favorite comfort foods. If you like the tang and crunch of coleslaw, but want to wow the crowd with color, I’d pull this recipe out.

Just like Jamie recommends in his book – substitutions, and a bit of this and a bit of that to suit your taste – I altered the recipe according to what I had on hand and my taste. It still turned out fabulous!

I used goat cheese instead of feta, green apple instead of pear, omitted the sprinkling of pine nuts, and changed the dressing to suit my love of tang and dislike of oil. (If you must know, the original dressing called for 3 ½ tablespoons lemon juice, 10 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste)

Raw Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Apple
Adapted from Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver
Serves 4

4 beets, different colors if possible, washed, peeled, and cut into matchsticks
2 green apples, peeled, cored, and cut into matchsticks
7 ounces goat cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
5 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
small bunch of fresh mint

• In a small bowl, mix lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper to make the dressing
• In a large bowl, pour the dressing over the beet and apple matchsticks.
• Individually plate the salad, and crumble goat cheese on top, and sprinkle with mint leaves.