Leek and Roquefort cheese tarts

Sometimes you look at a recipe and know that it really has no choice but to be tasty. With these ingredients, it's preordained.

 

Leek and Roquefort cheese tartlets

Adapted from “Wine Bites,” by Barbara Scott-Goodman. The premise of this book is pairing fairly simple fare with wine. So, in other words a book I was destined to own. She recommended a Cab or Zin, but I had a Loveblock Sauv Blanc open and that was just dandy.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter

3 large leeks, white and light green parts only, rinsed and finely chopped

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves plus sprigs for garnish

Salt and pepper

1¼ cup crumbled Roquefort

½ cup crème fraiche

2 sheets puff pastry, thawed

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment.

Melt butter over medium heat in a skillet. Add leeks and cook until softened but not brown. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.

Stir in thyme leaves, cheese and crème fraiche and combine well.

Roll out each pastry sheet to a 10-inch square. Divide into 4 squares for first-course size servings (if you want appetizer party-size servings, cut each square in half again, which is clearly how this recipe was staged in the cookbook). Using a sharp knife, score the pastry a half-inch in from the edge, being careful not to cut through. Divide leek mixture atop pastry squares, keeping border clear.

Bake for 12 minutes and then rotate pan and bake for another 10 until pastries are puffed and golden. Garnish with thyme sprigs.

Rating: Easy to make and even easier to eat. I'd recommend serving the squares (it makes 8 total if you do a full recipe with 2 sheets) as a sit-down with fork food. I plan to try them again in a smaller size to see, but I suspect that dividing them into smaller squares or rectangles would result in more finger-friendly versions. Tasty, at any rate, but what choice did it have with those ingredients?

White bean tuna salad

You can't always judge a recipe by how it looks, particularly if the food stylists have turned it into something else. I totally understand the need for staging, despite the fact that I obviously don't engage in much of it. Props and garnishes are part of making a cookbook or magazine recipe look more enticing. Rough hewn tables and artfully strewn crumbs are part of the deal.

But I really dislike it when they've significantly altered something about the recipe to the point where they don't represent the same proportions of ingredients. I thought this recipe was primarily beans, looking at the picture, but either they added twice the amount of beans or used half the amount of arugula in this one for styling purposes. That doesn't mean it's not a decent recipe, but it's kind of bait and switch.

White bean tuna salad

Adapted from a recipe.com recipe published in the September 2013 issue of Better Homes & Gardens

Ingredients

1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

2 5-ounce cans tuna packed in water, drained

2 cups arugula, torn into bite-size pieces if needed

½ small red onion, thinly sliced

¼ cup parsley, chopped

¼ cup red wine vinegar

Juice of ½ lemon

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Method

Combine beans, tuna, arugula, onion and parsley in a large serving bowl.

Combine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper and mix well. Toss with salad in bowl. I would say this makes 3 main dish servings, or 4 fairly skimpy ones, because it's as much greens as beans.

Rating: This recipe tastes very fresh, despite the fact that you open three cans to make it. Dave said it was a good antidote to a case of the Februaries. It's a fast fix, whatever it is, or whatever it looks like.

Butternut squash bacon pasta bake

You know those eureka, how have I been blind to this moments? No, this recipe isn’t one of those, although it’s perfectly serviceable and has potential to get even better. In this photo above, it’s the plate it’s served on that’s part of the game changer. 

For 12 years, we lived in our house with no dishwasher, wondering why on earth people who sprung for a decent Jenn-Air convection oven and had the kitchen built from scratch didn’t include a dishwasher, for cripes sake. When we finally figured out how to wiggle in an apartment-size model, there were only two options available in this country then that came in stainless steel to match our other appliances. When we tested our plates in the models at the showroom, standard-size plates didn’t fit in the Kitchen-Aid at all, so Miele it was. 

But when I’d tested that plate, I apparently hadn’t spun the rotor and realized that it would clip the top of the plates. They still would fit around it, but at a slant, taking up the space of two slots each. Since that’s an inefficient use of already limited space, most of the time I just washed the larger plates by hand, if I used them. And really, most of the time I just used the slightly smaller dinner plates, which is probably better psychologically for portion control anyway. 

No real hardship, obviously, but when I found out after another 12 years of hand-washing stacks of large plates after parties that my stupid dishwasher rack is ADJUSTABLE!!!!!, well, I feel more than a little stupid, but euphoric at the same time. It’s not like I didn’t read at least part of the manual to figure out how to turn it on (it’s got a hidden panel top and way more settings than I knew what to do with without some homework). But apparently I missed that bit about an adjustable rack. For 12 years.

We finally tumbled to this feature when Dave was browsing German websites, which he often does as a way to increase his reading comprehension and to – usually – annoy me by babbling about German words until my eyes glaze over. Apparently other people have had these same eureka moments about their dishwasher, and perhaps, like me, found out that they could start willy-nilly using seven more kinds of larger plates again. And by larger plates, I mean normal size plates, blast it.

So it was with glee that I pulled out these cheery plates that I have been dutifully handwashing on the rare times I used them. And I’ve never been so happy to load a dishwasher in my life, especially since I discovered that it doesn’t really alter what I can put on the upper racks. God, I’m an idiot. But a happier one. Except now Dave feels totally vindicated about babbling about German websites.

Now, about that recipe.

 

Cheesy butternut squash cavatappi bake

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, Sept. 2013

Ingredients

8 ounces cavatappi or elbow macaroni

3 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash

2 tablespoons water

2 slices bacon (or you could make it vegetarian and leave it out)

1 tablespoon butter

2 green onions, sliced

8 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1½ cups grated fontina cheese

Method

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, put squash in a microwave safe bowl. Add water. Cover with plastic wrap, making vent holes in the plastic. Microwave on high for 4 minutes. Stir, and recover and cook for another 4 minutes. Mash and set aside.

In a large saucepan, cook bacon until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. Cut into bite-size pieces when cool enough to handle.

Add butter to bacon drippings. Cook mushrooms and green onions until softened. Add flour and cook, stirring for a minute. Add milk, salt and pepper and cook, stirring often, until mixture is bubbly and thickened. Remove from heat and stir in squash and pasta, mixing well.

Grease a two-quart baking dish. Put half of pasta mixture into the pan. Top with half the bacon and half of the cheese. Repeat layering.

Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes until cheese is golden and bubbly. Makes 6 moderate servings.

Rating: Not bad. I want to try this again and roast the squash along with some garlic to deepen the flavor, and perhaps add some herbage. But not a bad start at all. Mashed squash makes a nice creamy sauce. 

Maybe next time I'll put it on the Fiestaware plates.

Pasta with ham and mascarpone cream sauce

Super cold weeknights necessitate super fast comfort food. This is a very versatile sauce that I've made with ham or proscuitto, but it could work just as well with bacon or cooked chicken. Add-ins like sun-dried tomatoes or sauteed mushrooms are another quick variation.

Linguine with ham and marscapone

Adapted from “The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Pasta” by Jeni Wright

Ingredients

1 pound linguine, cooked and drained

2 tablespoons butter

¾ cup mascarpone cheese

2 tablespoons milk

3½ ounces cooked ham chunks

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish

Salt and pepper

Method

Start sauce about the time you put pasta into the water to cook. Melt butter in a large skillet. Add mascarpone cheese and milk; whisk until smooth. Stir in 3 tablespoons Parmesan and stir until melted. Stir in ham and cook until warmed through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add pasta when al dente and toss to coat. Serve garnished with more Parmesan.

Serves 4.

Rating: The mascarpone, butter, milk and cheese make a creamy, dreamy sauce that's ripe for any additional flavor component.

Smoky lentil soup with bacon

This soup came together in short order while waiting for the Super Bowl to start. And even more importantly, waiting for the Super Bowl to end! We've finally got our town back. Don't get me wrong; we welcome guests, but inviting hordes of people here to party in early February is pretty inhospitable. Come back and visit when we're ourselves again, not trying to be something we're not. Think spring, summer or fall. Maybe December in a pinch if you like white Christmases.

Smoky lentil soup

Adapted from “Grilled Cheese Kitchen,” by Heidi Gibson with Nate Pollak.

Ingredients

2 strips thick-cut smoked bacon

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 small white onion, diced

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced

2 celery stalks, diced

3 large garlic cloves, diced

6-ounce can tomato paste

4 cups broth

¾ cup green lentils

1½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

¾ teaspoon smoked paprika

Method

Cut bacon into chunks. Fry until crispy in a large saucepan. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

Add olive oil to drippings. Saute onion, carrots and celery until softened. Add garlic and cook a minute more.

Stir in tomato paste, broth, lentils, salt, pepper and paprika. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. Add bacon and heat through. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.

Serves 4.

Rating: Wonderful. Right up there among my favorite soups involving lentils. The double dose of smoky flavors from the bacon and the smoked paprika really make this. It's nice and thick, almost chili like, and it develops a deep flavor in the comparatively short amount of time it takes to cook. It did indeed pair well with a grilled cheese sandwich.