Tarts, Spi-naturally.

 

We recently came across this recipe for spinach and feta tarts in Bon Appetit magazine.  It is essentially a fancy-yet-simple version of spanikopita.  The trick is that they used puff pastry instead of phyllo dough, so it only takes 15 minutes to put together and 30 minutes in the oven.  It sounded so easy that we had to give it a try!

There are 2 things that should be done the night before: put 1 box of frozen spinach and 1 package of puff pastry in the fridge so that they’ll be defrosted by the time you’re ready to go.

The filling is relatively simple:  1 box spinach (defrosted and squeezed of all its excess water), crumbled feta, diced red onion, minced garlic, and dill (it called for fresh dill, but we didn’t have any, so we went with dry).  Also mix in a tablespoon of olive oil, plus some salt and pepper.

Also stir in one egg and mix it all together.

The puff pastry was maybe the hardest part of this recipe (and it wasn’t that hard).  You actually only end up using 2/3 of one sheet of pastry.  You roll it out to an 8” X 12” rectangle and cut it into 6 squares (each is 4” x 4”).

Place each square into a 6-muffin tin leaving the corners out.  I didn’t do a very pretty job here, but that’s ok.

Add the filling

Now fold up the corners to the center and pinch them together so that they don’t come apart.  Don’t they look so cute, all snuggled up in their pastry blankets?

Then brush the tops with egg-wash so that they will get brown and crispy.

And here they are out of the oven.

The verdict?  It was a nice and easy way to have a spanikopita-like experience.  However, it was a little too much filling compared to the amount of pastry.  And it needed more feta.  I think next time I will for sure add more feta and then maybe stretch the recipe to 8 or 9 muffins instead of 6.  I could also do mini-muffins instead of big muffins, although that will be a bit more labor-intensive.  I would say that overall this could be a crowd-pleaser with just a few modifications!

We’re shellfish of these Mussels

 

One of the great things about writing a food blog (besides getting to eat everything pictured in it) is that it helps psych us into expanding our comfort zone.  This is absolutely one of those occasions, and guess what?  Not that hard at all!

Today we made a French Mussel Bisque recipe (Here’s the video, but its chock full of spoilers) from the great Ina Garten, who was one of the first TV chefs to inspire us to actually try to cook.

All good, non-scary stuff… parsley, leeks, onions, carrots, wine, garlic, butter, cream AND half and half (c’est francais? mais oui!) so far…. not too scary… oh yeah THEN THERE’S LIVE MUSSELS!

So, these guys are living, breathing mussels.  Kept on ice in the fridge, they can apparently stay that way for almost a week.  We’ve always enjoyed eating mussels… typically served in the shell in a big bowl of steaming, flavorful broth alongside crusty bread.  Kinda sloppy eating them that way, so we de-shell in this recipe.

So one of the semi-disturbing parts of mussels is that they have grit and sand inside their shells.  According to Ina, if you soak the mussels for about 30 minutes in water with flour in it, the little guys will cough up a lot of their grit.  Who’s a tough muscle now, eh?

Also, before you cook them, you need to look through them and see if any have “beards,” and if so, pull them out with pliers.  OUCH.

 

Giuseppe says, “This dish gets rated DLC – Deux Le Creuset!” (in that we used our stock pot and our big boy flame pot.

4lbs of mussels go straight into steaming water and white wine.  Mmmmmmm.

After a quick 5 minute steam, these guys are done.  Remember, if a mussel doesn’t open, throw it away!  Once these guys cool off a bit, then we removed the shells (a tedious process, but better to get it over with now instead of at the dinner table).

This is the cooking liquid from the mussels.  It gets double-strained through cheese cloth and a metal strainer to get rid of more of that grit.  Later we’ll pour this broth into the soup.

So the other part of this recipe is a little more familiar.  We basically chop a ton  of vegetables!

Onion, carrot, leek, tomato, and garlic…. all ready to go in one bowl.  Also on top, salt and pepper and a little surprise ingredient:  Saffron.

Saffron rivals gold in terms of price per weight.  Thank goodness its not that heavy!  We exhausted our miniscule supply in this recipe… it was worth it.

All the vegetables get sauteed in butter and simmered for about twenty minutes.  If you look closely, you can see the little red saffron threads.

Then about half of our mussel stock gets added along with whatever white wine was left in the bottle.

Then, at the very end, the dairy and the shucked mussels go in.  Look at all those mussels!

The natural garnishes: crusty bread and parsley.

Viola! French mussel bisque!  Rich, warm, and full of mussel flavor.  The yellow tinge to the broth is a result of the saffron influence. 

And now a word from our sponsor…Mussels Marinara (of Mutts fame):

Say Cheeeeeeeeeeeeese!

 

Tonight, we made ricotta.  You read that right.  This is our third time making cheese, so get used to it!

I recently took a class at Central Market on calzones, and they taught us how to make our own ricotta.  This is one of those recipes where we could conceivably stop buying commercially made ricotta.  It’s super simple, super quick, and super delicious.  They actually taught us 2 different recipes for making ricotta, but this one here is rich, velvety, and great for desserts. 

There are 5 ingredients:  1 quart whole milk, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, 1.5 tablespoons butter, a splash of lemon juice, and a couple pinches of salt.  It makes about 1 cup of ricotta.

Heat the milk until just below boiling.  Just be careful not to over-boil and scorch it. 

Add the tablespoon of white wine vinegar.  In just a few seconds it should start to curdle.

If for some reason it doesn’t curdle, keep it on the heat a little longer until it does.  And…..done.  We’ve made cheese in about 5 minutes.

Pour the mixture through some cheesecloth set over a strainer.  Make sure to keep Little Miss Muffet’s paws off your curds and whey!  (Actually, she can have the whey).  This only needs to sit for about 2 minutes.  Since we’re using this for a dessert, we don’t want it to dry out too much.

Now we stir the butter into the warm cheese.  Mmmmmelty.  Since we used whole milk instead of cream, the butter adds extra fat and makes it nice and creamy.

Add a couple pinches of salt to taste and a splash of lemon juice for flavor.  This can now go into the fridge to cool down a bit.  Or you could just eat it now (I won’t tell!).

Now comes the fun part.  I let the cheese sit at room temperature for a few minutes so that it wasn’t too stiff coming straight out of the fridge.  Then I added some fruit and honey.  It’s simple, yet elegant.  And all your friends will be super impressed!

Breaking Birthday

Hey, I'm like Walter White, except with lemon-mint pie
instead of breakfast. (Also, we don't cook meth at Chez Venza!)