Baked Brie

In college, I studied abroad in Lyon, France for 5 months, and the one thing I loved more than anything else in France was their food: fresh bread all the time, delicious cheeses, great wine, and much more. One cheese I really developed a taste for was brie. So when I saw the package of Brie at the store, I couldn't resist. But I figured, what better way to eat brie than by trying out a new recipe. I recently tried a caterer's baked brie for the first time and loved it, so I wanted to try it out myself.

Ingredients
1 wheel of brie (as in the picture above)
1 package crescent dinner rolls or 1 large sheet puff pastry dough
Strawberry, raspberry, or apricot jam
Brown sugar
Syrup 


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. Lightly spray a non-stick cookie sheet with cooking spray and spread out half the sheet of crescent rolls (do not separate individual rolls) or puff pasty dough. 
3. Spread a thin layer of jam on the dough. Then place the cheese in the center of the dough (the rind is perfectly fine, do not worry about leaving it on)
4. If using crescent dinner roll dough, spread the other half with jam and lay, jam-side down, on top of cheese. 
5. Fold dough together and over the cheese, cutting off any excess dough.
6. Drizzle maple syrup and sprinkle brown sugar on top of pastry to give it a nice glaze. 

 7. Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes until pastry is golden brown. Allow pastry to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. 

Serve with crackers and apple slices. 

Emily's Thoughts

I found a couple different recipes for this. Instead of using syrup and brown sugar on top, you can use 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp of water and brush the entire pastry with that before baking for a glaze. 

As you can see from my pictures, I had a little too much dough around the edges, so I highly recommend cutting off at least the corners of the crescent roll dough (this was what I used) to reduce the amount of breading. 

Also consider serving this with a red wine. The mix of the cheese and the wine would be a delicious combination. 

Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes and the President cheese wrapper.

Basil Pesto

Ingredients
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts (I used pine nuts)
2 medium sized garlic cloves, minced (if you really like garlic, use 3)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Special Equipment Needed: food processor

Directions

1. Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) 
2. Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
3. Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on (my food processor doesn't do this, so I just added a little at a time and it worked out just fine). 
4. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. 
5. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
6. Serve with pasta, or over baked potatoes, or spread over toasted baguette slices.

Makes: 1 cup pesto

Emily's Thoughts

When I made this, I used a whole box of spaghetti noodles to mix with the pesto. This was a tad too much spaghetti for the amount of pesto, so I would recommend cutting down on the pasta just a little. I also had some leftover chicken and tomato so I cut up both and added them to the pasta. Lastly, I sprinkled on some parmesan. This was an easy and delicious dinner! 

If you're just cooking for yourself, you can also freeze some of your pesto. From all of the recipes I looked at, you shouldn't add the cheese if you plan on freezing the pesto because the cheese will not freeze well. You should add the cheese when you use it.

Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

Sugar Cookies

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe in the shape of hearts. You can make whatever shape you want though, you just need the cookie cutter. I always get compliments on the recipe, so hopefully you like them :)

Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup margarine or butter, softened 
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar 


Directions
1. Mix powdered sugar, butter (I prefer unsalted butter, but you can use margarine too), vanilla, almond extract, and egg
2. Stir in remaining ingredients
3. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours (I often refrigerate overnight to spread out the time commitment to make these cookies)
4. After dough has refrigerated for enough time, heat oven to 375°.
5. Sprinkle counter-top or pasty cloth with flour. Create larger pile of flour to pat cookie cutters in. 
6. Grab a section of the dough and roll out to about 3/16" thick using a floured rolling pin (as in the picture below).

7. Cut out shapes using cookie cutter. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Or use a cookie sheet with a silpat.

8. Bake until edges are light brown, 7 to 8 minutes. I typically let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for a minute before placing them on the cooling rack

The secret to keeping your cookies moist is to stack them after they've had 5 minutes or so to cool on the cooling rack (as in the stack in the picture above).

Frosting


Ingredients
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup margerine or butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
About 2 Tbsp milk


Directions
1. Mix powdered sugar and margerine
2. Stir in vanilla and milk
3. Beat until smooth and of spreading consistency. Add a little more milk if not smooth enough.
4. Add any food coloring desired.

Let the frosting harden a little before stacking cookies on top of each other in a storage container. 

Note: Instead of frosting, you can decorate cookies with sprinkles before placing in oven. Tip for this: to get sprinkles to stick to cookies better, you can mix egg whites with a little water and paint on cookies, then add sprinkles and cook. 

Credit for recipe goes to Betty Crocker (taken from the Betty Crocker cook book)

Easy Margherita Pizza

 
Ingredients
1 tube Pillsbury pizza crust dough
2 Tbsp olive oil 
1 package fresh mozzarella cheese (or 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese)
1 Tomato
A few leaves fresh basil

Directions

1. Follow directions on pizza crust dough package for preheating oven.   
2. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray and spread out pizza crust dough on cookie sheet. Flatten dough so that it is evenly spread out. 
3. Spread olive oil on dough. You can use as much or as little as you want. You can also season it a little more by sprinkling dried basil and/or pepper in the olive oil. 
4. Slice mozzarella (if fresh) and spread slices out on top of dough. If you're using shredded mozzarella, sprinkle on dough. Layer with slices of tomato and finely chopped basil.

Pre-cooking:

As you can see in my pictures, I layered the tomatoes and basil first and then added the mozzarella. You can do this too, but I recommend doing the mozzarella first. This will give the dough the best consistency for eating. 

You can also experiment with the pizza by adding other cheeses like parmesan and feta with the mozzarella.

Now enjoy!