Hello faithful readers! This blog comes to you just from Michelle. Zack worked a rare first shift Sunday, so I had a full day of cooking to myself. My day started with these Puff Pastry Cheese Straws.
You see, Zack got me the Jacques Pepin book, "New Complete Techniques" as a Christmas gift and I have been pouring over the 725 pages of recipes and techniques for weeks. In true Amateur Foodie fashion, I don't follow recipes very well, but I basically followed this to the letter... aside from making my own puff pastry from scratch (but Pepin does have a recipe for that).
Here's what you need:
1 sheet of pre-packaged puff pastry
1 large egg, beaten
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp Paprika
A bit of flour to sprinkle over the working surface
Here's what you do:
Preheat you oven to 400 degrees.
Sprinkle your board with as little flour as possible. These are going to be twirled, so you don't want flour getting trapped inside the twirls.
Roll the puff pastry out so that it's about 1/8" thick.
Brush the beaten egg over one side of the puff pastry.
You can combine the Parmesan and paprika ahead of time if you with. Jacques Pepin told me to, but I just didn't want to, so I sprinkled the two separately.
Rub the Parmesan and paprika into the dough.
Flip over and repeat with egg, Parmesan and paprika.
Cut into strips with a knife or pizza cutter.
Starting at the top, roll the puff pastry toward you at an angle to twist it. This was my first attempt at this, so of course I didn't get the hang of it until the last couple, and by then, I had forgotten to snap a picture.
Place the twisted puff pastry in a cookie sheet over a bit of parchment paper. Press the ends of the pastry into the cookie sheet so that they stick. This will prevent the pastries from shrinking up while they bake.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until nicely browned. Cut into 5" pieces and serve. Or, make ahead of time and keep in a Ziploc bag until you're ready to serve them.
Enjoy!
We made some of our French Lentil soup a little while back, and instead of buying croutons at the store, we decided to try our hand at making our own. We figured we could control the salt content and add plenty of pepper like we like. You actually won't believe how simple they are to make.
Here's what you need:
1 loaf crusty bread (we used sourdough, but whatever you want is fine)
Olive oil to coat
Kosher salt and pepper
Any other spices you may want to add
Here's what you do:
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Slice your bread into cubes and lay out on a cookie sheet.
Coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss around to make sure they're well coated.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crunchy on the outside. The amazing part is they'll still be slightly chewy on the inside.
Enjoy!
This recipe is courtesy of The Pioneer Woman's mom. It's not your traditional banana bread. At least, not what I was brought up eating. It is however, super duper tasty. We made two loafs the other day. By we, we mean Michelle. You can pretty much assume whenever baking is involved, Michelle is doing the cooking. Zack doesn't like precise measurements.
Here's what you need:
2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups bananas (about 4)
4 cups flour, plus some for the pan
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups light sour cream
1/2 cup pecans (or your favorite nut)
Here's what you do:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour your loaf pan. We used 2 loaf pans, but if you have a bundt pan, you can probably just use that.
Combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Mash your bananas and set aside.
Cream your sugar and butter together. Sorry for the blurry pictures, the mixer was on for most of these.
Add your eggs in one at at time. After each egg, let it go for a few seconds to combine.
Next add your bananas to the mix.
Add about 1/3 of your dry ingredients to the mixer. Then add 1/3 of your sour cream. Alternate back and forth until all of the mixture is combined. Stop every now and then to knock the flour down from the edges of the bowl.
Add in your pecans and mix just enough to combine.
The resulting batter will be pretty thick and sticky. It's supposed to be like that.
Pour your batter into your loaf pans or bundt pan.
Now, just pop those in the oven for about 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
We like to run a butter knife around the edge, just to loosen anything that might have accidentally stuck to the side. Now transfer the loafs to a cooling rack.
Let them cool a bit, but you want to eat some while it's still warm with just a little butter.
Enjoy!
Hello faithful readers! This blog comes to you just from Michelle. Zack worked a rare first shift Sunday, so I had a full day of cooking to myself. My day started with these Puff Pastry Cheese Straws. 
