on March 12 2012

Buffalo Chicken Bites

 

Guess what?  Another snack.  It’s only right with the NCAA basketball  tournament set to go.  You’re going to need something really good for the remainder of the month – right up to the time that the Kansas Jayhawks win the whole shebang.  I know those words are likely to cause a debate.  Bring it on!

Seriously, these are seriously good.  Word to the wise, they are very rich, even if you substitute reduced fat cream cheese and cheddar (which I did).  It’s difficult for me to admit that something might be too rich.  Anyway, I made the mistake of making these a little larger than I should.  My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, although some might suggest that that statement is yet another debate.

For the next several weeks, I’ll make them smaller.  That way I can eat more of them?

Buffalo Chicken Bites

Yield:  24 bites

1 ½ cups chopped cooked chicken breast

¼ cup hot sauce (I use Frank’s and I use more)

2 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

¼ cup green onions, finely chopped

¼ cup celery, finely chopped

½ cup flour

freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

1 teaspoon paprika

2 eggs, beaten lightly

2 cups corn flakes cereal, crushed

Preheat oven to 350°.  Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.  In a medium bowl, combine chicken, cream cheese, hot sauce, cheddar cheese, green onions, and celery. 

Roll mixture into 1 – inch balls and place onto a plate. 

Put flour into a shallow dish.  Add the pepper and paprika and mix to combine. 

Put lightly beaten eggs into another shallow bowl.  In yet another shallow dish, add the crushed corn flakes cereal.  You’re going to start breading the bites.

Dip each chicken ball into the flour mixture.  Then dip the ball into the egg and finally roll each ball in the crushed corn flakes.  Place each ball on the prepared sheet pan, about an inch apart.  Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden.  Serve immediately with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.

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on March 2 2012

Easy Sticky Buns

  

I like to play with yeast.  It’s magical and it tests my patience.  Patience is something that doesn’t come all that easy to me at times.   So yeast has its specific place within my biorythmic cycles.  

But I digress into the depths of psychobabble and pseudoscience.  Stick with me here.

Somtimes you need quick and easy without much compromise or challenge to patience.  These sticky buns are just the thing.  Start with frozen puff pastry (a.k.a. good of the gods).  Remember to thaw the pastry or you’ll get all twisted.  You’re going to need some a lot of butter to go with the brown sugar, toasted pecans, and raisins.  How can all that stuff be bad?

Answer:  it can’t be and that these are so easy – well, it’s like extra credit.

Easy Sticky Buns

Recipe:  Ina Garten

Yield:  12 pastries

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

½ cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces

1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted

For the filling:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 400°.  Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar.  Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups.  Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture. 

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface.  Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right.  Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter.  Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons of the cinnamon, and ½ cup of the raisins.  Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down. 

Trim the ends of the roll about ½ inch and discard.  Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, about 1 ½ inches wide.  Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups.  Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns 

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper.  Ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon.  Cool completely.

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on February 3 2012

Brilliant Black Pepper Cheese Shortbread

 

 

My new favorite cookbook is from Virginia Willis.  Virginia is a gift.  She is a graduate of L’Academie de Cuisine and Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne, so she knows a thing or plenty about French cooking.  But she has never denied her Southern roots – and aren’t we happy about that.  And it comes as no surprise – to me at least – that she is a friend of Nathalie Dupree.  Nathalie is yet another favorite of mine.   Pick up a copy of Basic To Brilliant, Y’All, 150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company.  You won’t be disappointed.  While you’re at it, pick up her Bon Appétit, Y’All.  It’s just as superb.

This is the “brilliant” version of the basic Black Pepper Cheese Shortbread.  If you’re not feeling particularly brilliant, simply omit the pecans.  Not that I’d ever do that, just sayin’.  Take a break from cheese straws or anything you might buy at the grocery store.  These are worth the effort.  Crack open a bottle of wine, champagne, or your favorite sip and nibble on these for the perfect snack.

Brilliant Black Pepper Cheese Shortbread

Recipe:  Virginia Willis – Basic To Brilliant, Y’All

Makes about 4 dozen

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Pinch of cayenne, or more to taste (I added quite a bit)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 ounces sharp white cheddar cheese, at room temperature, grated

2 cups chopped pecans

48 perfect pecan halves

Position the oven racks in the top and bottom third of the oven.  Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Butter two baking sheets or line them with silicone baking liners or parchment paper.

Combine the flour, black pepper, salt, and cayenne in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse to combine.  Add the butter and cheese and process until smooth.  Cover the work bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to rest for about 15 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a clean surface.  To shape the dough, work it in your hands; it should be soft and pliable (like Play-Doh).  Shape the dough into two equal cylinders and wrap tightly in plastic wrap.  Transfer to the refrigerator and chill until firm, about 30 minutes.

Roll the edges of each cylinder in 1 cup chopped pecans to coat.  Then, working with one cylinder at a time, using a utility knife, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices and place 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining dough.

Top each slice with a perfect pecan half.  Bake the shortbreads, rotating the baking sheets once, until lightly browned on the edges, about 20 minutes.  Remove the baking sheets to a rack to cool slightly.  Using an offset or slotted spatula, remove the individual shortbreads to  a rack to cool completely.

Making Ahead Store the savory shortbread at room temperature in an airtight container between sheets of waxed paper.  They will keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

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on January 19 2012

Mini Ham and Cheese Party Sandwiches

Happy New Year!

Admission of guilt and a strategy to resolve:   I have been silent for far too long and offer my apologies.  I have a litany of reasons, none of which you really want to hear.  I don’t blame you.  Neither am I “into” excuses.  So my resolution for 2012 – well, one of them – is to be more prolific here at MFF.

You’re welcome.

I realize that most of us are just coming off a holiday food frenzy.  You’re eating more healthy things, I suspect.  And aren’t you to be comended.   How is that umpteenth salad working for you?  But work with me here.  We’re headed into the snack food extravaganza time.  Super Bowl.  And we don’t have much time to decide what we’re going to eat and how much time before the actual game we need to get into snack training.  I think it’s time to get serious.

This recipe comes from Margie Kelly.  It borders on poor white trash cooking and I say that in the most reverent way possible.  We made these for New Year’s Eve.  We made three pans.  That wasn’t enough.  Hot damn!  In my book, these are the Super Bowl snack culinary equivalent of a Victoria’s Secret black lace push ‘em up bra.

Stay tuned for more goodies.  Now go make these.

Mini Ham and Cheese Party Sandwiches

Yield:  12 sandwiches

1 pound Black Forest Ham

1 package of 12 small dinner rolls (I used Pepperidge Farm)

8 ounces Swiss cheese, sliced

1 stick butter

1 ½ teaspoons ground mustard

2 teaspoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons dried onion flakes

1 teaspoon Worcestershire

Cut ham and cheese to fit the rolls.  Make sandwiches with ham and cheese.  Place sandwiches in baking pan.  Melt butter and combine with all other ingredients.  Mix and pour over the sandwiches.

Cover pan with foil and let sit overnight in the refrigerator.  Preheat oven to 350°.  Bake sandwiches for 20 minutes, covered with foil.

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