Brie with Mushrooms

Connie accuses me of never following a recipe.  I say never say never.  LOL In all honesty, I rarely follow a recipe as written.  Either I have an ingredient I want to use up so I substitute or I just use the recipe as a suggestion and fill in the blanks myself.  That’s what happened with a recipe in Chef Recipes Made Easy.  It was for camembert with a wild mushroom fricassee.  It sounded wonderful but I had a wheel of brie and not one of camembert.  And, I just had a box of cremini mushrooms, not all kinds of fun, wild mushrooms.  And, last but certainly not least, it was going to be dinner along with a lovely bowl of room temperature ratatouille.  That meant if I was to use the sage and walnuts, I’d be introducing a totally different herb.  Fine.  A recipe had totally become a suggestion.   

What did we think?  WOW!  This was an incredible dish.  In fact, it was so good that I made it again a few days later for a pitch in.   

Ingredients: 

Wheel of brie (I used a 21oz wheel from Costco) 

2 T butter 

12 oz very thinly sliced cremini mushrooms 

1 shallot, minced 

¼ c prosecco, dry sherry or dry white wine 

1 large sprig rosemary 

½ c chopped pecans 

Pecan oil 

baguette 

 

Directions: 

Preheat your oven to 350.  Put the brie in a tart pan.  This is what you’re going to serve it in also.  Melt the butter in a medium skillet.  When it’s foaming add the mushrooms and shallot and saute until they’re well softened and the pan is relatively dry.  Remove the pan from the heat and pour in the alcohol.  Put the pan back on the heat and add in the rosemary sprig.  I tucked it under the mushrooms.  Stir regularly.  Once the pan is again almost dry, add in the pecans and heat through.  Pour the mushroom mixture over the brie and put the tart pan in the oven.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  After I took this out of the oven I drizzled it with pecan oil.  Really any nut oil should work.  Serve with baguette or sourdough toasts or party rye or whatever you please.   

 

Adapted from Chef Recipes Made Easy 

 

Wing Nut Dip

We've not been home to cook.  True, last weekend I made a big pot of chili and another of ham and beans.  Those are frozen for lunches.  Friday night we went to Actor's Theatre to see 39 Steps.  If you're familiar with the Hitchcock movie, think the movie turned into a slapstick comedy.  Our friend, Don Farrell, who is the artistic director of ATI says he had about 20 costume AND character changes.  Yes, it was hysterical.  My face hurt from laughing.  Saturday was a MOPS party.  That's a family birthday party.  I took corn salad and creamed corn.  Both recipes have appeared on the blog.  In fact, the corn salad one was one of my first.  I realized when I went to get the link that there aren't even photos back then...  Then, Sunday was a Super Bowl party at Deb and Ken's.  AH HA!  I cooked.  I made a new dish!!  Whoo Hooo!  So, what was it?  Wing Nut Dip.  Yeah, I made up the name.  Made up the recipe too.  You see, there's a recipe for cream cheese, blue cheese and pecans that I love.  That got me to thinking about wings.  Super Bowl=Wings, right?  How could I do a blue cheese dressing/wing sauce cracker spread?  So, I started tossing things in the mixing bowl.  And it turned out pretty well.  Pretty well except for the fact that we were out of crackers and I had to bum some from Deb because the streets were too nasty for shopping and going to a party...  So about that photo I took???  You mean the one with the lens mostly closed?  Yeah, that one...  No, it's not here.  It's deleted...

Monday afternoon we got a dreaded call.  Our friend Ellen had died.  She and Charlie live in Memphis.  She'd been doing battle with breast cancer for 15 years.  Last May we drove through Memphis when we drove back from a conference in New Orleans.  Dinner with Charlie and Ellen was the goal.  They met us at Corky's.  We had such a wonderful time.  Connie looked at me and said he'd really like to go to her funeral.  Knowing I'd like to go I'd already checked and replied that it was a 7 hour, 21 minute drive.  The decision was made.  We were going.  Tuesday morning we were up at 5am and on the road about half an hour later.  We got to Memphis in time to have a late lunch before the funeral.  I'd printed a list of potential restaurants.  Alcenia's for soul food won.  Did it ever!!!  Perfect fried chicken, mac and cheese and green beans.  YUM!!! 

The leftovers went into the cooler in the trunk.  Now, you know if we were going to Memphis we were going to have barbecue to bring home.  And, a cooler is the way to do it!

The service was amazing.  We were SO glad we'd driven down.  Two of my colleagues were also there.  You see, Charlie and Ellen were colleagues of ours for many years.  When I went back to my original broker/dealer in August of 2013, they stayed with the new one.  But, we kept in touch.  Grant is at the original b/d with us and Joe is with Charlie at the new one.  It doesn't matter.  We're all still family!  After a gathering at Charlie and Ellen's house, Connie, Joe, Grant and I headed to The Commissary.  The line was out the door.  What should we do?  In typical Grant fashion, he said, 21 minute wait and we go elsewhere.  19 and we stay.  Joe ran in and asked.  20 minutes.  What should he do?  We waited.  And, am I ever glad we did.  Connie and I split the ribs for two.  They came with cole slaw, beans and deviled eggs.  The ribs were perfect.  The rub was amazing.  If I wasn't trying to clear out the pantry, I'd have bought some.  After the kitchen is done, I'll once again stock up on fun stuff like The Commissary rub!!

 

 

 

Wing Nut Dip

 

Ingredients:

 

8 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat everything...)

1/4 c mayonnaise

1/2 c sour cream

1/2 c crumbled blue cheese

1/2 c pecans

1 T Emerils seasoning or Cajun spice

1-2 t Chipotle Tabasco sauce (depends on how hot you like it!)

 

Directions:

 

Start the pecans toasting in a small skillet.  While the pecans are toasting, whip the cream cheese.  Whip in the mayo, sour cream, blue cheese, Chipotle Tabasco and Emeril's.  You could easily substitute wing sauce, Tabasco and/or chipotle powder.  Remove the pecans from the heat and chop them.  Stir them into the cream cheese mixture. 

 



On the road again

Grammy and Grampy were on the road again.  Back to Columbus, OH to see our grandkids.  And, Connie's three sons and our daughter-in-law and Greg's girlfriend and the kid's cousin.  After a dreadful day at work on Friday I was looking forward to curling up in my chair and enjoying a fire in the fireplace. We were to get up at o'dark thirty on Saturday and start driving.  Then, I looked at the weather forecast.  Snow was closing in on Indianapolis.  Three to six inches of snow.  UGH!  It was time to check with our pet sitter and make sure she could take care of the furry kids early.  And, throw clothes in the suitcase and start driving.  I let Annie out and she came back in covered with the most gorgeous huge snowflakes.  Gorgeous that is unless you've got to drive in them.  Fortunately, we got on the road quickly and out ran the storm. 

Saturday morning while Grampy and the grandkids made a tunnel between the couch and the table, I sat down and worked up a menu.  Then, Connie and eldest son David (the one who lives in Columbus) and I went grocery shopping while Bradley and Rosie and their mom and her mom (aka YaYa) went sledding.  The kids were due in about 2:00 and they'd be hungry.  They'd driven all the way from Cape Cod - a lot of it in the same storm we'd managed to avoid.

 

This is totally off the subject but it's such an incredible idea I have to share it.  My daughter-in-law Kara is talented.  She's just plain amazing.  During her college years she was a Division I athelete as well as a top-notch student.  Now, she's a fantastic mom.  And, she's very creative.  See the photos above the kids' heads?  There are three out in the hall.  And there are dots on the wall below them.  Those dots are clocks set to the time of day that David and Kara were married, Bradley was born and Rosie was born.  Then, the photos are of their wedding and each of the kids.  Above it it says, "The best of times."  How cool is that???

Our menu was:

Appetizers:
Marcie's dip
La Brea Tar Pit chicken wings
N'awlins Barbecue Shrimp

Dinner:
Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
Corn and red bell pepper risotto
Caesar salad
Mounds bars
Chocolate chip bread pudding with cinnamon rum sauce


We got home from the store, unloaded the car and started cooking.  Connie's job was to cut up the chicken wings.  Bradley was a big help.  He was SO good about understanding he needed to wash his hands after handling raw chicken.  I put together the Marci's Dip.  This is a recipe from about 1977.  Marcie, who was the bank president's secretary, brought this to the holiday pitch-in that year.  I asked for the recipe and have made it about every Christmas since.  Now, I'm afraid it'll never be the same because it appears that Henri's Tastee Dressing is no longer made.  The best way I can describe Henri's was as a poppy seed/slaw dressing.  I've got the ingredient list off the old bottle so I may be able to play around and come up with something similar.  Or I may just keep doing what I did on Saturday and add slaw dressing.

Marcie's Dip

Ingredients:
8 oz package cream cheese
4 oz package Buddig beef or pastrami or corned beef, diced
1 T sweet pickle relish
1 T Henri's Tastee Dressing
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1/2 t onion powder

Directions:

Whip the cream cheese.  Add the other ingredients and serve on crackers.

Once the Marcie's Dip was ready and the La Brea Tar Pit Chicken Wings were in the oven, I got my mis en place done for the rest of the meal:

BBQ Shrimp

 Mounds Bars

 Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

 Caesar Salad

 Corn and Bell Pepper Risotto

 Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Cinnamon Raisin Sauce

The La Brea Tar Pit Chicken Wings are one of middle son Greg's favorite things.  We made six pounds of wings and they were inhaled. Here's the last one disappearing thanks to Greg:

Last but not least, we made N'awlins Barbecue Shrimp.  The first place I had these was about 30 years ago at Pasquale Manale's in New Orleans.  It was love at first bite.  But, I've not made them at home.  Something about a pound of butter to three pounds of shrimp...  But, in hunting through daughter-in-law Kara's cookbooks for recipes to try I saw the Channel 13 On the Road cookbook had BBQ shrimp from Zydeco's.  Now, if you want to know about Zydeco's, go back and read my post about it.  Fabulous food!  I had to try my hand at the shrimp.  Kara absolutely loved the shrimp.  She said they'd be breakfast and lunch on Sunday.  That's the kind of thing a cook loves to hear.  These were just a bit too spicy for me but the flavor sure brought back New Orleans!

David found a recipe for risotto that he wanted in the Gourmet In Short Order cookbook.  It was good but not up to my normal risotto for two reasons.  One, I use homemade chicken stock when I'm home and two, I have the cookware I need.  David and Kara are pretty basic cooks so have pretty basic cookware.  I frequently take a couple of boxes of cookware over there.  Things like a food processor...  In this case, I was using a skillet that was too small then a stockpot that was too tall.  Oh, well.  While I was prepping the ingredients for the risotto I had two of the best helpers around!

Then, almost everyone disappeared to the playroom while the chicken baked...

The chicken turned out moist and flavorful.  But, nobody else munched on the garlic cloves.  They're now in a storage container to be made into Spanish garlic soup.  The chicken is pretty basic to make.  You slice the ends off a lemon then cut four rounds.  Put those in the baking dish (I use a 9x13 glass pan) as a base for the chicken.  Pour in garlic cloves.  In this case, I cheated and bought the bag of pre-peeled cloves.  Somehow I didn't want to peel 80 cloves of garlic...  Put the chicken on top of the lemon slices and slather it with olive oil.  Bake for about an hour at 350.  About halfway through, pour in about half a cup of white wine.  The chicken should reach about 170 before you pull it out of the oven.

Caesar salad is one of our go-to recipes.  I used three big heads of romaine for 8 adults and 2 kiddo's and the bowl was empty. 

Then, we were on to dessert.  Connie and I aren't big dessert eaters.  These are two of our favorites.  The Mounds Bar recipe is from my friend Liz.  These are amazing and incredible cookies.  I did not bring any leftover Mounds Bars home.  Sad, eh?

Our second dessert was a Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Cinnamon Rum sauce.  This is comfort food all grown up.  My friend Doris made this for a dinner party a few years ago.  Then, I made it for our New Orleans party a year and a half ago.  It makes a 9x13 pan so it's one of those desserts you need a crowd for.  Well, WE need a crowd for because we just don't tend to finish up leftover desserts...  I know.  We're weird.  But, you already knew that!

 

 

Spuma di Tonno

I'm hosting a bunch of sorority sisters at one of our networking events.  Wine and appetizers are the order of the day.  Here's the draft menu in no particular order:

Bloody Mary grape tomatoes
Caesar salad leaves
Lucca style roasted olives
Salsa de Parmigiano
Spuma di tonno
Stuffed apricots
Crispy salami rolls
Buffalo chicken egg rolls
Muffuletta dip
Loaded baked potato dip
Shrimp and artichoke heart dip
Baked tex-mex pimento cheese dip
Sausage, bean and spinach dip
Wrapped waterchestnuts
Rumaki

I'll have to eliminate a few because of the time it'd take to prepare everything.  Since only six of the appetizers are recipes I've made before tonight, it'll probably be some of the newbies who get kicked to the curb.

One newbie won't get kicked to the curb.  It's the spuma di tonno.  Remember when Connie and I went to the Midland Arts and Antique Mall and I found The Best American Recipes, 2002-2003?  Well, I also found Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking.  The Best American Recipes was SO good that Casual Cooking got put aside.  I finally had an opportunity to visit it and found loads of great recipes.  Included were three that I've got on the menu.  The parmesan salsa, the roasted olives and the tuna pate - aka spuma di tonno.

I'd not intended to do a trial run of the tuna pate tonight.  But, life happens.  I was in the midst of a meeting with a wholesaler this morning when I saw my necklace on the floor.  Now, I don't like jewelry.  (I know, I'm weird!)  But, I do wear a thin gold chain with a crystal my brother and sister-in-law brought me from their honeymoon cruise and my mom's original wedding ring.  The necklace was on the floor but the crystal and wedding ring were nowhere to be found.  They're not worth much money but they're two of my most precious possessions.  My wonderful assistant, Stephanie, must've crawled the entire office.  At about 3000 square feet, that's a LOT of crawling.  I shook rugs, dug into my briefcase and purse, even went in the kitchen and closed the door and took off my clothes and shook them out.  Nothing.  So, Connie and I walked the path from his car to our office.  He checked his car.  Now, why I trusted the man who lost his cell phone in his car for a week to check for my jewelry, I have no clue.  But, I did.  Nothing.  I was beyond upset but at that point there was nothing I could do but get back to work.  I was on a really long conference call so Connie was a sweetheart and brought some lunch in for me.  No interest.  No appetite. 

I did want to cook down some turkey broth tonight so we left the office early and I brought a packed briefcase home.  Immediately on arriving home, we started hunting.  Yes, I found them, upstairs on a rug.  Now, they're safely hidden away until such time as I can get to a jewelry store where a client works and buy a new gold chain with a safety closure.  WHEW!

As you might have guessed, my appetite returned as soon as I found my treasures.  I decided it would be a great idea to test drive the tuna pate.  Oh, my.  I had to leave the bowl in the kitchen and get up and walk from the computer to the kitchen when I wanted another cracker.  Or, I'd have inhaled the whole bowl-full.  My goodness that was good! 

Spuma di Tonno

Ingredients:
1 can tuna packed in oil, drained
2 t lemon juice
2 t soy sauce
2 t balsamic vinegar
1 T unsalted butter at room temp
salt
1 T heavy cream

Directions:
Put the drained tuna in the bowl of a food processor. 

Pulse until it's broken up.  Keep the processor running and add the lemon juice, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar

then the butter. 

Process until the mixture is smooth.  Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add the cream.  Process just until the cream is incorporated.  Serve at room temperature with crackers, crostini or vegetables for dipping.  

adapted from Casual Cooking

White Bean Truffle Dip

Beans.  They're so good for you.  And, I do love them.  But, on occasion, I get tired of eating them the same way.  In soups and salads.  Sometimes I'm ready for a new way.  I've tried bean dips but for the most they don't do much for me.  So, when I saw this recipe on TravelEatLove's blog, I thought this might be a bean dip I could love. 

Indeed it is.  We discovered white truffle oil a couple of years ago when I needed it for a recipe.  Connie called from the grocery store and said this stuff is $15 for 8 oz.  Do you really want it?  I looked at the recipe and we didn't need much.  Means a little goes a long way and we'd not be using up the bottle really quickly.  So, let's splurge and get some.  That bottle lasted us almost two years.  And, we didn't use the truffle oil judiciously.  It went in LOTS of dishes.  We added it when it wasn't called for.  We got far more than $15 of enjoyment out of it!!!  We bought another bottle last spring so I had the backup ready to go.  Here's the deal with the white truffle oil.  When a savory dish needs a little something but you just can't put your finger on it - oftentimes this will work.  Just add a little.  The flavor is incredible.  It does kind of what soy sauce does.  Adds a depth of flavor that you just can't pin down.

You've probably already guessed, but we loved this dip.  It's super easy to make and the flavor is incredible.  It's actually good for you in a lot of ways.  Beans, lemon juice, garlic.  Your breath?  Not so much :-)

White Bean Truffle Dip

Ingredients:

1 can white navy beans, drained and well rinsed
juice of one large lemon (about 2T of juice)
12 roasted garlic cloves
2 T white truffle oil

Directions:

Toss the garlic with a little olive oil and put it into an oven proof baking dish.  Roast the garlic at about 450 for 20 min.  It'll be very soft and just a little brown.  How's this for a really fuzzy photo???

Juice the lemon.  Remember to roll it on the counter before you cut it.  That'll help release the juice.

Combine all the ingredients in the food processor and process away. 

This is best made the day before it's going to be used.  It can be served with baguette, crackers, crudite, fingers (just kidding but we did lick the spatula thoroughly.)

Many thanks to TravelEatLove for a great recipe and really helpful notes on what she'd do the next time she makes this.  We increased the garlic a bunch but left the lemon the same since our lemon was mongo.