Hi Friends!

Sorry about my brief little blogging hiatus over the holiday weekend. I needed some time away from my computer 🙂 I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Let’s play catch-up shall we?

I spent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving going crazy in the kitchen! I started my morning at the grocery store. I got there around 9am and I was super impressed with how well-stocked everything was! They had everything on my list, lots of helpful employees working, everything was neat and organized AND there was no line to checkout!

When I got home, I put everything away and got to work.

First, I cooked up a bag of dried black beans because I noticed my freezer stash was running low.

While those were simmering, I got to work on some homemade vegetable broth.

I wanted to make my Grandma’s Turkey Dumpling Soup, but obviously needed to make some modifications this year. I decided to replace the turkey with chickpeas and potatoes, and make some veggie broth instead of turkey broth. It turned out great!

I also cooked some wild rice for the stuffing I was planning to make! (Recipe coming Thursday). Then I started running out of timers and burners!

While all of that was simmering, I made some strawberry jello and stuck it in the fridge to set so I could make Grandma’s Jello.

Next I got a small batch of Mimi’s Cornbread in the oven for the hubby and I to enjoy 🙂

I also made  a batch of my mom’s cranberry sauce….and after making it a bit too liquidy last year, I nailed it this year!!

Around this time I needed a break from all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, so I got to work on my bars for the The Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap! Stay tuned for the recipe.

And finally, after enjoying all of the above for Thanksgiving eve dinner, I made some of Jessica’s Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls.

Best idea ever! They were amazing. Just like store bought…except better!

I brought the jello and the rolls to Thanksgiving, along with a vegetarian entree for hubby and I to enjoy instead of turkey. Stay tuned for that recipe on Wednesday!

What were you in charge of making for Thanksgiving this year??

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

After much anticipation, here begins the long awaited Hubby guest post. Today, I’m the boss, and I’m taking over the Lean Green Bean. Lindsay has been asking me to contribute something for about a year now, and inspiration has struck!

I’m a bit of a renaissance man. I’ve always enjoyed figuring out how things work, and spent most of my childhood taking things apart and almost always successfully putting them back together. This interest persisted as I majored in Physics- the most GPA-damaging method of learning about how stuff works- and has carried on to this day, manifesting itself as a large collection of power tools, and a near constant stream of projects and hobbies going on around the house. One of these hobbies seemed to be a perfect fit for a guest post, creating the perfect marriage of cooking and ultimate renaissance-person pursuits: Home Brewing.

I’ve been brewing beer for about a year now, and Lindsay has had a front row seat, acting as taste tester and victim of the occasional hostile kitchen takeover. At this point, I’m hooked. Here’s what I enjoy about brewing, and what you might like too should my post inspire you to try it yourself:

1)      I really like beer- this is probably a prerequisite
2)      There’s a lot of Science and History behind the process- NERD ALERT
3)      You get to engineer and build a lot of your own equipment
4)      There are only 4 basic ingredients- but total creative freedom with infinite recipes to create
5)      When you’re done, you get to drink delicious beer of your own concoction while astonishing your friends

That should be reason enough to immediately run out to your local homebrew shop and get started, but in case you want to know a little more, I thought we would walk through the creation of a batch. I promise to keep it both fun and informative, while trying to suppress nerdy scientific tangents.  Added Bonus: Lindsay will play the role of Assistant TO THE Regional Brewer for the first time!

The Ingredients

Fundamentally, beer only has four ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, and Yeast (as defined by the Reinheitsgebot aka German Beer Purity Law of 1516). Many beers deviate from this, like Wheat Beer or Spiced Ales, but we will be purists and just focus on the core four. I’m assuming you already have some familiarity with Water, so let’s quickly look at Barley, Hops, and Yeast.

Barley: Barley is a grain/member of the grass family/topic of an annoying Sting song, and is similar to Wheat. Before if can be used for brewing beer, it must be malted. Malting is process of partially germinating the grain by soaking it while controlling temperature and humidity. This starts to break down the starch reserves to create sugar, then heat is used to stop germination and save that sugar for the brewer. Malt gives beer it’s color and sweetness. Darker beers are produced with Malts that were cooked for longer, carmelizing some of the sugar.

Hops: Hops are a vine plant in the mulberry family that produce a cone-like flower. The cones are very aromatic and boiling them adds the bitter finish to the taste of beer (by isomerizing the alpha acids found in the pollen-like Lupulin of the cone- NERD INSERT). There are many different varieties that have unique tastes that they bring to the beer.

Yeast: Yeast are really cool, so don’t be put off by the fact that they are technically a fungus. Lucky for us, they can live without oxygen by a process called fermentation. When they eat sugar – which we get from the Malted Barley- they produce both CO2 and ethyl alcohol. Obviously, the ethyl alcohol is more exciting outcome of this process. The more fermentable sugar in your batch, i.e. Malted Barley, higher the alcohol content.

The Process

Now that we’ve met the main players, let’s make a batch. Grab a buddy and let’s get to it! Brewing is mostly boiling things together in a pot, but there’s a little more to it than that. Here are the basic steps to outline the journey:

1) Mashing- Essentially getting the sugar out of the Malt, and dissolved into a pot of water.
2) Boiling
3) Adding hops during the boil to add the bitter element
4) Cooling the liquid down
5) Add Yeast to start making that sweet alcohol

Now then, Lindsay and I woke up this past Sunday to brew a Black IPA. This is robust, bitter, and dark beer.  Delicious, but not for the timid. We were up 8AM and moved the party out to the garage- the home base for my brewing operation.

Mashing:

For the beginner, this process is skipped altogether. I recommend that first time brewers use a Malt Extract, where the sugar has already been extracted from the Malts in a syrup or powder form. Just dissolve the syrup in your boiling pot of water and you’re off to the races. However, there’s a slight drawback that extracts are more limited in the range of flavors that can be achieved.

Once you graduate, you get to start with the malted grain like an actual brewery, dial in your own recipes, and build some of your own brewing equipment. AND- have way more fun making your neighbors think you’re distilling moonshine on your driveway…

Meet the Mash Tun– A converted 10 gallon igloo beverage cooler designed to extract sugar from the grain. You’ll notice two key features, a wire mesh filter (that allows sugary water through and keeps grain out) and an upgraded ball-valve spigot to control flow the flow of liquid. This is a favorite design in the home brewing community (trust me, I didn’t think of this thing on my own) and requires many entertaining trips to the hardware store. The “filter” is actually the outer stainless steel casing you find on a toilet water supply line. Don’t worry, I bought it new and cleaned it before making it part of this apparatus.

So what do you do with this Mash Tun?! Glad you asked. The goal is to extract the fermentable sugars from the malted barley, and this is done by soaking the grain in hot water for around an hour. Prior to mashing, the grain has been cracked open by running it through a roller mill. This maximizes the water contact with the grains to dissolve the sugars. I don’t have my own mill yet, but lucky for me, my local home brew store has a big self-serve powered mill that is very fun to use.

The two things that need controlled during the mashing process are the Water to Grain Ratio (which is typically in the range of 1-2 quarts of Water per pound of Grain) and the Temperature. Ideal extraction occurs around 155 degrees, but knowing that the grain will steal some of the water’s heat, the water is typically heated to about 165 degrees.

The recipe I created had about 12 pounds of grain, so we started with 4 gallons of 165 degree water in the Mash Tun. My lovely assistant Lindsay is shown below, mashing in our malted barley. We were using three kinds – about 10 pounds of lightly roasted Pale Ale Malt (where the majority of the sugar will come from), 1.5 pounds of “60L” Caramel Malt (caramel describes the caramelization of the roasted grain and the “L” is the Lavibond color scale- the higher the number, the darker the grain), and about 1 pound of Chocolate Malt (darker still, this one is around 300 Lavibond, and does not contribute much sugar, but provides a smoky flavor).

Once the grain has been adequately mixed around in the water it will look something like this!

The next step is to let this sit at a constant temperature for about an hour. That’s why an igloo beverage cooler is so ideal. Pop the lid on, and fast forward.

[Fast forward complete]. Spoiler Alert- It’s all going into the big stainless steel kettle. The next step in this process is Lautering (and Sparging).

Lautering (and Sparging):

Now that the mashing is complete, the next step is to separate the sugary liquid (called Wort) from the grain and get it into the brew kettle for boiling. This process is called Lautering. We begin by slowly draining the liquid out of the valve at the bottom of the Mash Tun, while pouring more hot water into the top to continually “rinse” the grain. The “rinsing” is called Sparging. The liquid is transported through food grade tubing to better control its destination, i.e, not splatter sugary liquid all over the place.

In the picture below, Lindsay is starting the flow of wort. The first runnings will be cloudy and have some bits of grain, so we catch it in a pitcher and pour it back into the Mash Tun. this recirculation process is called vorlauf (aren’t these words fun?).

Once the first few quarts have come out, the grain bed starts to act like a giant filter and the wort will have more clarity. At this point, we start draining the wort into the brew kettle while simultaneously sparging the grain. In brewing terms, the sparge water is delivered from a “hot liquor tank”, meaning a vessel that holds hot water. In my operation, this is simply a plastic bucket with a valve I added. Not exactly hi-tech, but it’s effective. Also, you’ll note that gravity is our friend with this stair step set-up.

The water in the mash tun starts to clear as the wort drains out. And yes, that’s a plastic lid in there- I think it was from a package of bleu cheese crumbles. It helps to disperse the water as not to disturb the grain bed…again, cutting edge technology.

 After about 20 minutes, we have a brew kettle full of wort.

Now we get a roaring boil going on the giant propane burner. This is called a “Bayou Burner” (presumably it’s normally used for crawfish). It was a great purchase, mostly because Lindsay was ecstatic that I was out of her kitchen and not making the house smell like a brewery.

Boiling the wort helps to kill any bacteria, coagulate proteins suspended in the liquid, and bring the heat up high enough to extract bitterness from the HOPS– our next step!

Adding Hops (getting bitter):

No beer would be complete without that crisp bitter finish. We achieve this by boiling hops in the wort. The duration of the hop boil and the type of hop are what determine the taste/effect they will have on the beer. A long boil will simply extract bitterness, a short boil will add more of the aromatic elements of the plant. For this reason, hops are generally added several times during the brewing process. Don’t be fooled my Miller Lite’s “triple hops brewed” nonsense. Pretty much every beer you’ve ever consumed had hops added multiple times.

So here go the hops…

In this batch I used Warrior, Amarillo, and Cascade varieties. I grew the Cascade myself (I told you I’m a Renaissance man), and bought the other varieties at my local brew shop. I boiled the Warrior for the whole hour for bitterness, and added the Amarillo and Cascade near the end to get the aroma elements. I also threw in some Irish Moss (which is actually dried seaweed) which helps to clarify the beer and prevent “chill haze” when we eventually cool it down and drink this stuff at some point. Weird yes, but apparently it works.

Now that we’ve got a bitter wort, we’re ready to cool this bad boy down (and explain those metal pipes sticking out of the kettle in the previous picture.)

Cool it Down!

As I nerdily mentioned earlier, the boiling coagulates proteins suspended in the liquid. These make the beer hazy when cold, but if we cool the wort fast enough, they drop out of the liquid and make the beer more clear (the irish moss helps with this as well). Also, the prime time for bacteria to grow is when the beer is “warm” in the time between it’s boiling and cool, so we want to minimize that window.

Enter the HEAT EXCHANGER (ER…ER…ER- that was an echo). This is another fun toy to build, made out of flexible copper tubing.

Inserting this into the pot and running cold water through it rapidly cools the beer. You can actually get burned by the water coming out the other side- it’s physics in action! The reason I put it in while I was still boiling the hops was to give it a chance to sterilize.

After 15-20 minutes we’re back down to room temperature and ready to put the wort in a fermenter and feed it to the yeast.

 Fermenting Time.

Now we transfer the wort to our fermentation vessel. This is a plastic bucket with a sealing lid- glamorous as most of the equipment in this process. A strainer is used to separate the hops out and splashing is encouraged in this stage. We want to get as much oxygen in the wort as possible to help activate the yeast cells as they start fermenting.

After properly sloshing the wort around, the foamy top shows that we have adequately aerated the wort and are ready for the yeast. We had already started activating the yeast in a malt solution the night before, so now we just dump them in.

Next, we seal up the vessel and let those yeast start doing what they do best- munching on sugar to make CO2 and ethyl alcohol. The little air lock inserted in the top acts as a one way valve to let the CO2 out while keeping the container air tight. The yeast will work on this feast for about 7 days, and then we’ll have beer!

Once this is done, we still have to bottle and carbonate the beer, but we’ll save that for another post (?- only if you’re intested). However, to prove that this actually works, here’s a picture of a previous finished batch I’m enjoying as I write.

Summing Up:

Thanks for taking this detour from your normal Lean Green Bean content. I encourage you to give brewing a whirl- nothing like treating a friend to a beer you brewed yourself.

If I’ve been successful in inspiring you to try “getting your ‘brew’ on”, I would find a home brewing store in your area and have them set you up with starter kit. You can also find kits online from sites like Northern Brewer.  There’s also a great (and free) on-line book by a home brewing guru, John Palmer, at the aptly named “howtobrew.com”.

It’s been real Lean Green Bean readers, but now I’m going to relenquish control back to Lindsay for regularly scheduled programming. We’ll let you know how the finished product tastes (and just maybe I’ll be invited back for another guest post in the future!).

Cheers!!

The Hubby

A few months ago, I made this couscous and never told you about it. THEN, this weekend I came across this recipe:

and THEN, I had the brilliant idea to do a combination of sorts. So, I headed to the kitchen and got to work. Ok, that’s not really what happened.

What actually happened was I spent an entire day debating whether or not to add cheese, or make it more like a pasta salad like the first recipe. It was a long, intense mental debate…and finally I settled on cheese. Then I went to the grocery store, changed my mind, and headed home with no cheese.

Confession, I added 1/4 c shredded Mexican cheese when I made this. And I didn’t like it nearly as much as I did when I tasted it prior to adding the cheese. So don’t add the cheese.

This was a fun twist on a side dish. Thanks to the Old Bay, it really reminded me of corn chowder. The Greek yogurt makes it nice and creamy and the extra veggies I added help boost the nutritional value even further.

We enjoyed ours with black bean burgers and green beans.

But let’s be clear. I’m working on a recipe for mac and cheese that involves Greek yogurt AND cheese 🙂

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Over the weekend I made a little challenge for myself. I have this binder:

I get a lot of cooking magazines and I’m constantly tearing out recipes and ideas that I want to try. Occasionally (read: about twice a year), I sit down and actually organize my huge pile of torn out pages into categories, cut the recipes down to smaller sizes and put them in my binder. This is all well and good…except that i RARELY ever actually make any of the recipes.

So, this week, after I had everything all organized, I spent some time looking through the binder and made a list of some things I wanted to try this week. This is the first week in a while where I finally have some time to cook so the timing worked out pretty well! I pulled out a few recipes that I’m planning to try this week and stuck them in the front cover of the binder for easy access.

Today for lunch I tried out the first recipe- Risotto Cakes. It’s a tiny little scrap, not even really a recipe, that explains how to turn your leftover risotto (or orzotto in my case) into risotto cakes!

This is a fun way to transform your leftovers into what feels like a completely new dish! I served mine on a bed of spinach…modeled after my all-time favorite crab cake salad that I can’t get any more because the restaurant that served it closed 🙁

These are quick and easy enough to make for lunch, and hearty enough for dinner.

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Risotto Cakes
Makes 6-8 cakes

2 cups cold leftover risotto/orzotto
1 egg
1 c breadcrumbs (panko or regular), divided

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, beat the egg.
2. Add the risotto and 1/2 c breadcrumbs and mix well.
3. Pour the remaining breadcrumbs onto a plate.
4. Form the risotto mixture into patties and coat with breadcrumbs.
5. Heat a large skillet (cast iron or nonstick) with vegetable oil. Pan sear until golden brown on both sides.
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Add a little of your favorite salad dressing and a few extra veggies if you want!

What’s your favorite way to transform leftovers?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

PS…Hubby told me these were the best risotto cakes he’d ever had. I told him he’d never had risotto cakes before…He told me not to split hairs 😉

Hi Friends!

It’s that time again! Time for another Secret Recipe Club post. This month I was assigned another new-to-me blog: The Keenan Cookbook. Chris and Rachel are totally cute blogging couple with an ADORABLE baby boy. I had so much fun going through their recipe index and looking at all of their tasty recipes. Several of them caught my eye, but the one I picked jumped out at me and sounded especially delightful for a cold fall night: Spinach and Tomato Orzotto. I’ve made risotto a few times before, and I’d heard you could make it with orzo, but I’d never tried it!

I followed their recipe pretty closely, but I did make a few changes:

-1/4 c onion instead of shallots
-added 1/2 c diced sweet potato and 1 c diced red pepper at the same time as I added the onion and garlic.
-used water instead of white wine
-added some extra spinach
-used two fresh tomatoes instead of canned
-only used about 3 1/4 c vegetable broth instead of 4 cups
-used 1 tsp paprika and some black pepper instead of herbs de provence

I was surprised by how similar this turned out to risotto using arborio rice. I guess I expected it to be more “pasta-like” but it was still nice and creamy and tasted great!

We enjoyed our orzotto with a side of sweet potato soup and it was a perfectly hearty meal.

So tell me, have you ever made orzotto? Did you like it better than risotto?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

I think the thing the hubby hates most about me having a food blog is that sometimes old favorites get lost in the shuffle as I try to come up with new recipes for the blog. So, I think it’s important that each season I take some time to revisit some of those tried and true favorite recipes that we enjoy eating year after year.

Here’s a couple of our Fall Favorites:
Click the links to see my original posts from last year. Try not to laugh at the miserable photography 🙂

Curried Sweet Potato Soup
I grew up eating this recipe. My mom made it all the time. I never really liked it when I was younger but now it’s a favorite of the hubby’s and mine!

Crockpot Applesauce
A great way to use up all those apples that are on sale this time of year! I made it this year without any added sugar and didn’t miss it a bit.

Pepitas!
My absolute favorite part of carving pumpkins 🙂

And of course I couldn’t leave you with a few Halloween pics 🙂

Yes that is a Pillsbury Doughboy snuggie 🙂 That’s how I roll.

What’s your favorite Fall recipe?
–Lindsay–

 

It’s that time again! Foodie Penpals reveal day 🙂 It’s like getting to relive the excitement of getting your own box all over again by seeing what everyone else got!

This month I was lucky enough to get my box from one of my best foodie friends, Sarah @ The Smart Kitchen! If you aren’t familiar with Sarah and her blog, I’m sure you’ll be racing to check it out by the end of this post. The girl is amazing. Her culinary imagination never fails to impress me and I seriously look forward to reading her blog every.single.day. Plus, she lives in Austin which, as far as I can tell, is pretty much the best foodie city ever and she gets to participate in all sorts of amazing events. AND she has an amazing job and gets to try all sorts of fun foodie products. All of these things combined make her both an amazing person, and an amazing foodie penpals partner 🙂

Let’s take a peek at what she sent me, shall we? Oh, and might I add that she somehow timed her box delivery so that it perfectly coincided with my longest day stretch of days so far this quarter where I did nothing but study for a huge midterm for approximately 4 days. After I took the test, I came home exhausted, starving and crabby…and look what was waiting for me!

I mean, how cute is that for the outside of a box?! After I spent a few minutes figuring out the best way to open the box AND preserve the frog sticker, I got to check out the goodies inside.

Helloooooooo deliciousness!

-Homemade granola- delicious on my oatmeal yogurt bowls. I’m not sure I’ve ever even had a fig prior to tasting this stuff!

-Pomegranate salsa- amazing with my favorite chips! Totally unique flavor.

-Homemade nut butter- tastes like Christmas in a jar. Seriously. Best ever.

-Dark chocolate & pomegranate…for the win! Love it. I’ve been nibbling away on this little guy every night 🙂

-Homemade (S)ara(h) bars. How cute are her labels?! These were awesome. Definitely a flavor combo I would never have tried on my own.

-If you read my blog you’ll know I already blogged about these. THEY ARE SO GOOD. I didn’t even know I liked chai until I tasted these. It’s like she knows me better than I know myself. I literally could not stop eating these!

So, if you can’t tell, I was just slightly thrilled with my box this month. Whoever gets me next month has some big shoes to fill 😉

And now it’s time for some details about Foodie Penpals.  In case you’re a new reader, here’s a reminder of what the program is all about:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. *US Residents only please at this time- hopefully we can expand soon!*

If you’re interested in participating for November, please send me an email at [email protected] and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)

I will need to hear from you by November 4th as pairings will be emailed on November 5th!

Last month we more than doubled the number of participants from the first month. Let’s keep growing!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Confession #1: I wasn’t going to blog about this recipe.
Confession #2: I only took 1 picture of it initially
Confession #3: I plated the leftovers and took another picture before I put them away because it was such a big hit with the hubby.
Confession #4: I did have the presence of mine to write down the ingredients so I’m going to share the recipe with you despite the lack of pretty pictures 🙂

**Edited to add: Confession #5- I had no idea that this was actually very similar to an indian dish called Aloo Gobi!

This dish was inspired by a head of cauliflower we got at the grocery store this week. Hubby said something about a cauliflower side dish he had last time he went out for Indian and really liked it. I told him to get some cauliflower (which we never eat) and I would figure something out.

I started with google and found this recipe. Then I tweeted and my girl Parita came through for me, emailing me this recipe that she’d used before. I didn’t have Pav Bhaji Masala so I decided to just wing it.

I started with garlic, onion and ginger…added potatoes and cauliflower…added some spices and curry paste…threw in some green beans, chickpeas and tomatoes…added a bit of coconut milk and called it a day!

Sidenote: this is pretty spicy so feel free to scale it back a bit if you’re not a fan of spicy dishes 🙂

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

So, something rather annoying happened over the weekend. My oven stopped working. I used it to make some naan to go with dinner, and then when I turned it back on two hours later to make some brownies, it wouldn’t heat up. The stove part still works fine, but the oven is definitely not ok.

I consider myself to be pretty creative in the kitchen, so it hasn’t become a major inconvenience yet, BUT I have another test coming up and we all know that when I get stressed, I bake. So….this problem is gonna need to resolve itself pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, I’ve still been whipping up some pretty tasty meals in the kitchen. As you may recall, we’ve had a surplus of guac this week so I LOVE guac on my burgers….so I decided to whip up some black bean burgers. I’m still working on finding a go-to bean burger recipe that sticks together really well. This one did a pretty good job, but still crumbled a little bit. I’ve gotten better about not trying to flip them too often and that helps a lot. I also like to bake them, but clearly that wasn’t an option this week.

I used these as an inspiration.

 

These burgers had great flavor and I loved the crumbled goat cheese.

While the burgers were in the freezer, I got to work on some baby potatoes. I roasted them in my cast iron skillet since I couldn’t use the oven.

And voila! Dinner is served.

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Want to make the best sandwich ever? I thought you might.

Here’s what you need to make one for yourself and a friend:

 

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The Best Sandwich Ever

4 slices of this homemade bread
2 scoops of my favorite homemade hummus (Roasted Garlic & Red Pepper w/ Sweet Potato)
3 eggs, fried
2 slices of cheese
1/2 a red pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 a small avocado, sliced

Directions:
1. Butter the bread. Top two of the non-buttered sides with hummus.
2. Cook the fried eggs in a small pan and add one and a half eggs to each sandwich.
3. Top with a slice of your favorite kind of cheese.
4. Add the avocado and red pepper and top with the remaining pieces of bread, buttered sides out.
5. Place on a panini press or George Foreman for a few minutes until the outsides are golden brown.
6. Slice in half and serve with roasted potatoes.

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Enjoy for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Seriously….life-changing. In fact, why don’t you just go ahead and make both of those to eat for yourself.

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

I was cleaning out the freezer last week when I came across a partial box of puff pastry. I love using as the top for my pot pies, which we enjoyed last night…but I thought it was about time that I get a little more creative with it.

This dinner came together in a snap thanks to a little advance prep work! The night before I was planning to make this, I was whipping up a batch of soft pretzel bites for a get together we were having. While the dough was rising, I diced up a bunch of vegetables and stuck them in the oven to roast. I used potatoes and sweet potatoes so I stuck those in first and after about 20 minutes, I added some carrots, green beans, onion, red pepper and broccoli and let them roast for another 20 minutes.

After removing them from the oven, I put them in a container with a few cloves of minced garlic. I love roasted garlic, but not when it’s diced, because it always burns….so I just mixed it in later. I also pulled the puff pastry out of the freezer and stuck it in the fridge.

The following night, I cut the puff pastry into 6 squares, put veggies on top of 3 of them, sprinkled each one with black and red pepper and paprika and then topped them with slices of goat cheese (Yep, more goat cheese…once I buy a log I have to find ways to use it up!) I added the other pastry squares to the top and brushed them lightly with an egg wash.

After about 20 minutes in the oven, dinner was served 🙂 They were eaten in a hurry so I apologize for the lack of pictures of the finished product!

I liked these just the way they were, but if you are looking for some sort of sauce to go with them, you could try just plain old marinara sauce to dip each bite in!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–