Recipes: Appetizers

The Queen of Tarts is always acting all high and mighty, baking bread and cookies and I think probably even people every night. She'll casually pull out some flour and other stuff, get a bowl or something, and in twenty minutes she'll be yanking a tray of golden brown tastiness out of the oven. Her demeanor seems to say, what, bread? Oh look, here it is. Easiest thing in the world.

So, for Russian night, I decided to make a mushroom pastry. I'd show her. I'd whip up a huge plate of tasty mushroom foods and then I'd be the one who shrugs modestly. Oh yeah, those pastries? Totally easy.

I started the night before with:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 sticks of butter

The recipe I was following told me to cut the whole thing together with a wide knife. Not knowing what the heck it was talking about, I got a butter knife and cut the mixture together while watching Bob the Builder. By the end of it, my shoulders were totally and completely sore.

The next day, I sauteed:

• 1 lb minced mushrooms
• 1 minced large onion

I added some pepper and tarragon during the cooking process, then set it aside to cool down while I pulled out the dough.

Of course, the dough didn't look right. It kept falling apart. It was impossible to roll. So I got out the pastry knife (yeah, I didn't know we had one the night before) and cut in an additional half stick of softened butter. The dough formed a nifty ball immediately. Victory for me.

I started rolling the dough out, but it was pretty sticky, and it kept tearing in places. In fact, it took me an hour to roll out, but I learned one vital fact you'll need if you ever work with dough: flour is your friend. If your dough even begins to give you lip, cover it (and your rolling surface) with flour. You cannot have enough flour on hand. It's mathematically impossible.

Once I had the dough rolled out to about a quarter inch, I cut it into squares. I mixed a cup of grated parmesan into the mushroom mixture, put teaspoonfuls of it into the squares, and folded them diagonally. After all the little triangley things were made, they were brushed with egg yolk, sprinkled with caraway seeds, and put into a 350-degree oven for twenty minutes.

Were they good? Yeah. They were good. They were pretty darn good. But I couldn't shrug and be all modest, because my shoulders might have fallen off.

This was surprisingly wonderful. It sounds very simple, but hey, everyone likes a ham and cheese that thinks it better than you.

Ham and Cheese Toast

Serves 4

• 1 small French stick, sliced into 12 rounds (we used a sourdough baguette)
• 50g/2 oz/ ½ cup grated cheese, such as Manchego or Cheddar. (We used Cheddar, damn albertsons and lack of Manchego. Parmesan cheese would be grrreat here too.)
• 1 large garlic glove, peeled
• 3 slices of salt-cured ham (prosciutto), quartered
• Coarse black pepper

Toast the bread under a hot grill until both sides are golden brown. Cut the garlic glove in half and rub the cut surfaces over one side of each piece of toast. Put the ham on top of the garlic-flavoured toast. Wrinkle the ham so that it fits loosely on the toast round. Top each toast with grated cheese, then sprinkle with the pepper. Get back to the grill and cook for about 1-2 minutes until the cheese is melted.

We used a Pizza oven that Tele had laying around his living room for this, but a toaster oven would work just as well.

Serve hot.

Several years ago I found this recipe for Pinecone Cheese Spread in Kraft's food & family Magazine. This is another make-ahead recipe and is my favorite appetizer to make. LittleRoq loves it, too.

I prefer to serve this with Triscuit Crackers as they are more sturdy than Ritz. The Garden Herb Flavor is excellent. Also, rather than buying the Mexican Style cheese they suggest I use 1 cup of shredded Monterey Jack plus 1 cup of shredded Sharp Cheddar.

If you don't feel like forming this into the shape of a pinecone then you could just make a ball and pat the almonds around the outside of it. The pine cone shape is festive, but the taste will be great either way.

This one starts off as a bit of a disaster.

I had four great tastes that I figured would taste great together- spinach, salt pork, artichoke hearts, and mushrooms. Unfortunately, my quantites were a bit off, and the cumin I added really didn't help the dish much; in addition, the artichokes were marinated in a bit saltier liquid than I'd hoped for.

Were I to do it again, my next recipe would look more like this:

• 1 lb bacon, cooked on low until all the fat is gone
• 2 cups chopped mushrooms, cooked in the bacon grease
• 1 lb sauteed spinach, seasoned with garlic and onion powder
• 1 can of artichoke hearts

After cooking all these and putting them in the food processor, I believe this simpler pate would fix the saltiness of the original recipe, where the entire dish was dominated by the 2 cans of artichoke hearts I added. I'll let you know how this revised recipe turns out.

(Editor's Note: For some reason, Food Mime was logged into my box. I have sentenced him to scrubbing random vegetables. For the good of mankind. )

Hobo fortnight continues, as Vitamin A scrounges around her computer for something of Lost-Ark significance- my Recently Paid Credit Card.

Finding money in my account, through the magic of FINANCIAL ALCHEMY, I quickly ran up my total at the nearest grocery store, buying the cheapest food I could get my grubby insane little hands on. (Editor's Note: Teleolurian has freakishly long fingers. This would be a lot of food.)

Part of my purchase was plantains. I've mentioned them before, in a bananas article. I wanted to make some tostones. So I followed what few instructions I could remember without actually having to follow a recipe. Because I hate recipes with all my cold, Korean heart.

First, I tried to peel them. Ladies and gentlemen, peeling a plantain like a banana is fool's work. Plantain skins are like alligator handbags. They don't just fall apart, you gotta have something sharp to get at the tasty/valuable insides. For this, I used my favorite EXTREMELY SHARP HOLY CRAP chef's knife, which of course went through it like (1) hot butter, (2) cold air, (3) so many tortured screams of joy at my shiny awesome knife.

Once I'd made the incision, the skin came off like a prom dress. Next, I cut the plantain (which NOW finally looks like a banana, and not the Cousin-Itt version of one) into half-inch diagonals. Ladies? Gentlemen? If you spend money on one thing in your house, make it a 10" knife.

Next, I dumped obscene amounts of shortening into the smallest skillet I owned. It looked like Antarctica.

Once that all melted over medium-high, I dumped in just as many plantain chips as would cover the bottom. Now, as we should know from reading this site, tostones are plantain chips that are (1) fried (2) flattened (3) fried again. For your assistance, here is a small MSPaint diagram:

So, I scorched them all brown. Cross reference: chicken.

Next, I 'flattened' them. How I was to do that I wasn't sure, but in the absence of a meat tenderizer I used a fork. Squiggly maggots of white plantain flesh came up between the tines. (Oh, did I ruin your appetite?)

Next, I refried them. Now, I had two options:

Brown Sugar And Orange Juice: After taste testing, I REALLY wanted to candy them. Unfortunately, brown sugar wasn't on my menu.

Lime Juice and Salt: BINGO. I had some wonderful tostone-chips. They tasted like fried superawesomeness. I can't begin to describe them. WHAT ARE YOU DOING SURFING THE WEB? GO BUY PLANTAINS!!!