Pepperoni Bites

I love appetizers. Most of our family gatherings, aside from the big holiday dinner occasions, are feasts of appetizers and finger foods, from cheese plates and a big platter of shrimp with cocktail sauce to an assortment of mini quiches and potstickers. I am always on the hunt for new appetizers to add to the mix to feed the ravenous hordes.

Well, this recipe delivers. It's savory and satisfying like pizza, and not as much work as gougeres. Plus, the bite-sized morsels can alleviate the guilt of wanting to devour an entire pizza by yourself, unless you plow through a dozen of these like I just did in the name of "taste testing."

Pepperoni-Cheese Bites



makes 1 dozen

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 t Italian seasoning
• 2 T unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup chopped pepperoni
• 1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 3/8 cup milk
• shredded parm
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425° F. Spray a mini muffin pan with cooking spray.
   


2. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder and Italian seasoning in a bowl.
   


3. Cut the 2 T of butter into small squares. Add them to the flour mixture and rub in with your fingers until the mixture is crumbly. If this does not appeal to you, you can pulse them together in a food processor until the butter is worked in.
   


4. Add the chopped pepperoni and the shredded cheese and mix together.
   


5. Pour in the milk and mix until everything is well-combined.
   


6. Drop by teaspoon into the mini muffin pan. This recipe is enough for 12.
   


7. Top with a bit of shredded parm and bake for 12-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
   


8. Serve immediately.
   

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Puff Pastry Swirls, Two Ways

Chocolate Hazelnut Swirls

Here is another one of my Sandra Lee-esque recipes using items which are ready-made. It's easy to assemble and the end result is tastier than an almost-ready-made tidbit ought to be. I got inspired to make this after recent Nutella adventures. My kids have discovered its wonderfully nutty, chocolatey goodness and have declared it to be the Best Thing EVER!

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• Nutella
• chopped hazelnuts
• melted butter
  

Directions:

1. Thaw 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry on the counter for an hour. Preheat the oven to 375.
   


2. Unfold it onto a sheet of parchment paper. If the pastry has cracked and separated where it had been folded, press the pieces together gently with your fingers. Flip the pastry over and press the seams on the other side.
   


3. Spread Nutella all over the pastry, leaving about 1/2 border around the edges.
   


4. Sprinkle the chopped hazelnuts on the Nutella. Press them in firmly.
   


5. Roll the pastry into a jelly roll, and slice into 10 pieces.
   


6. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops of the pastry with melted butter.
   


7. Bake for 17 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned.
   

To balance out the rich sweetness of the chocolate swirls - and they are rich, sweet and delightfully chocolatey - I decided to make something savory with the remaining sheet of puff pastry. I saw many recipes for puff pastry appetizers that used spinach, but I wanted something different. I thought maybe I could use a bruschetta spread from artichoke hearts and cheese as the filling to make a nice savory treat.

I was right. These were amazing.

Savory Artichoke Cheese Swirls

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• 1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts (6 oz), drained
  
• 1 T minced shallot
  
• 1/2 cup shredded pecorino romano
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 T sun-dried tomato, minced
• 1 T mayonnaise
• 2 T shredded mozzarella
  
• olive oil
  

Directions:

1. Thaw 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry on the counter for an hour. Preheat the oven to 375.
   


2. Unfold it onto a sheet of parchment paper. If the pastry has cracked and separated where it had been folded, press the pieces together gently with your fingers. Flip the pastry over and press the seams on the other side.
3. Chop the artichoke hearts and add the minced shallot, garlic and sun-dried tomato to the mixture.
   


4. Add the mayo and the cheese. Mix well.
   


5. Spread the mixture all over the puff pastry, leaving 1/2 inch border around the edges.
   


6. Roll the pastry into a jelly roll, and slice into 10 pieces.
   


7. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops of the pastry with olive oil.
   


8. Bake for 17 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned.
   

Notes:

• I could have baked these longer and let the pastry get more brown, but I had forgotten to set the timer (doofus) and honestly, they smelled too incredible and I pulled the out early. They were delicious even if they weren't very brown on top.
  

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Potato Pirozhki

Well, winter has really come to Central New York. Bands of lake effect snow have covered the area in unending drifts of snow. I woke this morning at 5, looked out the window and saw unplowed roads, and new mounds of snow piled on all the shrubs and thought to myself: "It's a good day to be inside drinking coffee."

It's also a good day for comfort food, specifically Eastern European dishes. Yesterday I got to thinking of haluski (or noodles with cabbage), which naturally led me to golubtsi or gołąbki (golumpki) those divine stuffed cabbage rolls; Russian Black Bread; and pirozhki: a bun or dumpling of yeast dough, stuffed with a variety of fillings, from meat, to mushroom, to my favorite, potato and cheese.

I have an insane weakness for street vendor food (I should blog about the bout of food poisoning that I got from street vendor food when I was in Korea...) and my favorite spots when I was studying in the USSR were the Armenian and Georgian vendors selling huge rounds of fresh lavash, and the ubiquitous pirozhki stands where you could get a paper cone of freshly deep-fried meat-filled pirozhki for mere kopeks.

Back to reality: I have everything I need to make the Black Bread and a batch of potato pirozhki today, but as for the golubtsi, I only have a head of red cabbage. Now I've wracked my brain and can not think of a valid reason not to use the leaves of red cabbage instead of the green. I searched out red cabbage recipes and for the most part only found the usual German side dishes of sweet and sour braised cabbage, stewed red cabbage with apples and chestnuts, cole slaw, and a few soups. If only I had beets I could use some of the cabbage to make a killer borschch!

I may end up making the stuffed cabbage rolls with the red cabbage over the next few days, if only to see if it makes a difference of you use green or red cabbage; in the meantime, we have potato pirozhki (the Russian Black bread is still on its second rise):

Potato Pirozhki

Ingredients

For the Dough:

• 2 ½ teaspoons yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2/3 cup lukewarm milk (105 - 115 F)
• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted and at room temperature
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 ¼- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  

For the Filling:

• 3 large potatoes
• 1 T olive oil
  
• 2 medium onions, chopped (about ¾ cup)
• ¾ cup of sour cream
• 2 T horseradish
• 1 T dill
• salt and pepper to taste

For the wash:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon milk
  

Directions:

1. Make the filling:
   
   
   1. Boil the potatoes, skins on, until a knife slides in easily and the potato falls off the knife back into the water. Let them cool a bit
      
   
   
   2. While the potatoes are cooling, saute the onions in olive oil until translucent, soft and shiny, not browned.
      
   
   
   3. Peel potatoes, and cut into chunks into a large bowl.
   
   
   4. Mash. Add the sauteed onions, mixing thoroughly.
   
   
   5. Add sour cream, mix well.
   
   
   6. Season to taste with salt, pepper, horseradish and dill. - I like enough horseradish to get my sinuses open, but not so much that my eyes water.
      
   
   



2. Make the dough:
   
   
   1. Combine the yeast, sugar and lukewarm milk in a large bowl and let sit until the yeast gets foamy, about 5 minutes. It should smell nice and yeasty and look brown and puffy.
      
   
   
   2. Add the melted butter, salt and beaten egg to the yeast mixture, stirring very well to incorporate all that butter.
   
   
   3. Add 3 ¼ cups of flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring very well after each addition. You should have a pretty rough dough by now.
   
   
   4. Turn out the doughy into a well-floured board and knead for 5 minutes or so, adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking.
   
   
   5. Cover with a tea towel and let rest for 10 minutes. Use it now or refrigerate it for up to 24 hours.
      
   
   
   
   


3. Preheat the oven to 350 F.


4. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat baking mat.
   


5. With a pastry scraper, divide the dough into thirds. With a rolling pin, roll out one third of the dough about 1/8 inch thick.


6. Using a round biscuit or cookie cutter (or the top of a drinking glass), cut out rounds of dough.


7. Place a fairly heaping spoonful of filling in the center of the circle, then fold the dough over, so it makes a plump semi-circle.
   


8. Press the edges together firmly and crimp closed with the tines of a fork.
   


9. Place on the baking sheet.


10. Mix together the egg yolk and milk, and brush the pirozhki with the egg wash.


11. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and delicious.
    

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