Summer brings with fresh and local veggies ready to be sliced and diced into an incredible tart, and what a great idea for a mid week treat that is easy and quick. Puff pastry is one of the few pre-made food items that is always in my freezer, ready for a main course, or a quick desert.

Role out a sheet of thawed puff pastry. With a small sharp knife cut out one circle of dough per person using a desert plate, or lager if you like, as a guide . Then lightly score the crust about 1/4 inch in all the way around.

Now comes the fun part, drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the area inside of the score line, then pile on the veggies or whatever, there really is nothing that won’t work here.

The one on the left has mushroom, zucchini, spinach, goat cheese, and parmesan cheese. The one on the right has zucchini, peperoncini, spring onions, feta cheese, olives, and a few anchovies, with couple spinach leaves left over from the other one.

After adding the toppings do another light drizzle of olive oil. Then brush the scored border with milk so it will brown when it bakes. Place it on a parchment covered cookie sheet (works best if you add the topping while the dough is already on the paper). Bake for about 12 minutes in a 400F oven, you know when it is done because the milk coated dough puffs up and brown making a beautiful tart, the cheese will melt, and dinner is served.

This is one of those techniques that I love so much as you can modify it forever. This is good enough for company, quick enough for a work night.

For Easter two new recipes and some advice. I love creating with what is on hand, over the years I have come up with some good meals, and some real disasters. Not a problem, for me it is part of the fun. Yet when success is important a plan is critical.

So for Easter I wrote two recipes that I had never tried. What that does is force you to plan, and when all is on the line planning helps. It keeps you from missing steps and ingredients. So if trying something new have a plan.

The first is Easter Potatoes.

Red potatoes remind of the blood of Christ, I slit them about 1/2 inch deep in the form of a cross. Then I sautéed scallion, garlic, and hyssop with olive oil in a heavy, oven-proof skillet. When the scallions are getting soft add the potatoes and cook for 3-4 minutes until well coated with the oil and herbs, season with salt and pepper. Turn all of the slits facing up and place them in a 400F oven and roast until soft. The slits will open up making the whole presentation a symbol of Easter. Jesus died on the cross, at passover the blood was applied with hyssop, and the opening of the slits are the empty  tomb.

The second was TLC’s Easter Lamb

I took lamb shanks, deboned and tied. Then slit them and inserted slivers of garlic, salted and peppered. Then I coated them with a thin layer of Lavender Mustard from San Juan Island, Washington. Grill the lamb using indirect heat until the internal temperature in 125-135F.

While the lamb grills make a sauce. Saute garlic, scallions, herbs (hyssop and sage) in butter and olive oil. Add white wine and reduce. When the liquid is concentrated add goat cheese and creme fraiche. Salt and pepper.

Spread a couple of tablespoons of the sauce on plate, break the lamb into rustic chunks and place on top. Garnish with sprigs of hyssop and sage.

It was a great day and a great food, the salad Tricia made was the topper to the whole meal.

Roasted root vegetables, grilled asparagus, and herb roasted red potatoes. Scallops seared in butter. Oysters in a sort of Rockefeller style. I do think I could give up red meat before I could give up seafood.

 

They say (whoever they are) that it is good to admit your weaknesses and addictions. I try to spare folks most of my politically incorrect addictions, yet one I gladly fess up to is my affection for warm pub pretzels with grainy mustard.

Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon does a wonderful job brewing. Their Pale Ale and Inversion IPA rank among my favorites. If you have never visited the brewpub in bend you may not know that they also do an excellent job on food as well. The dual attraction resulted in a major expansion over the last year, easily doubling their square footage. They have more room, yet is it still crowded on a Friday night, a testimony to the growing popularity.

This pretzel with an assortment of mustards was presented in a most unique fashion. Instead of boring piles of three different mustards, these were aesthetically swirled in concentric circles, a touch of class for a pub tradition. Even the pretzel breaks from the traditional shape, adding the twisted braid down the center; a work of art and taste to enjoy.

Another place I enjoy pretzels is at the Thirsty Lion Pub in Portland, Oregon. Here it is the venue that makes it. The Thirsty Lion is a British themed pub with a real emphasis on soccer and rugby. So a lunch of pretzel and soccer is about as good as it gets.

When it comes to pretzels they should be similar in texture to a bagel, but not quite as chewy, a bit more of a bread like texture. What does not work is if they are gummy.

Panini are one of those great foods that is all about techniques with unlimited variations. Here is a pastrami and havarti cheese, with mayo and horseradish, one of my favorites.

This one was done with pugliese, but most any kind of bread will work, try Eastern flatbread for something different, or slice a baguette lengthwise.

For fillings, whatever you have on hand. Tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, onions, garlic, peppers, olives, eggplant, zucchini; really most any will work. Sliced beef, chicken, thin pressed ground lamb, salmi; again let your imagination run.

Melted cheese is one of life’s pleasures so any cheese works just fine.

Fill the bread, coat outside with butter or olive oil, then grill until golden with pressure. A panini pan is well worth the price, I have a Calphalon.

Yet for years I used a regular fry pan with a cast iron skillet for the press.

Making panini is another of those techniques that are simple, yet produce excellent results and wonderful variety.

Want to be a better cook? Learn techniques. One of the easiest and best is how to do a chicken breast sautée. The variations are endless, the technique is simple.

 

This is sautéed chicken breast, with a mushroom and creme fraiche sauce, with crispy garlic, on a bed of spinach. Looks impressive, tasted great, AND was pretty easy to do.

Basic Chicken Sautée (will show this variation at end)

Either buy the free-range, organic chicken breasts sliced thin (the easiest way), or pound them between plastic until they are 1/4 inch thick. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a couple of teaspoons of good olive oil in a pan, medium heat, when it is hot add the chicken. because it is thin it should only take a about 2 minutes on each side, you want it golden but not overcooked or it gets dry.

Remove the chicken to a plate, cover with aluminum foil to keep warm while you make your sauce, it is the sauce that opens up endless variations.

A basic sauce would be to add some garlic and mushrooms to the pan, after the chicken is done, let cook for 30 seconds and add a couple of tablespoons of white wine. When the mushrooms are starting to get shinny, the wine will be reduced. Remove pan from the heat, whisk in a tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper if you like, and you are done.

When the sauce is done, place the chicken breast on the plate, pour the sauce over. Now how easy is that?

For the dish in the picture I varied it as follows:

I sliced garlic into slivers about 1/16th of an inch thick, heated the olive oil as I always do but before adding the chicken sautéed the garlic until it was just starting to show some golden color. Be careful not to over cook or it gets bitter. Then I removed the garlic to a paper towel to drain, save for the end.

Now the olive oil in the pan was infused with garlic so I added the chicken and sautéed as above. 

For the sauce I used the same process as the basic mushroom sauce already described except instead of adding butter at the end I used crème fraiche. 

To assemble I put a bed of fresh spinach on the plate, the chicken on next, then sauce over the chicken. To finish I sprinkled the crisp garlic over the sauce. Served with a couple of grilled baguette slices and it was ready to go.

Watch for more variations in future blogs, or email for ideas.