Guacamole

There's one thing that the baby lady has consistently eaten.  Avocados.  In one form or another I seem to be able to get her to eat these.  It started as plain mashed up fruit, then it was mixed with yogurt (nasty, I know, but she loved it).  Now it's progressed into a love for guacamole.  Hooray!  The whole family loves guacamole so I made it one night....for dinner....with no hesitation.  Baby lady ate some other stuff, but B and I didn't want a full meal, so this worked out really well.  I went a little heavy handed on the lime juice for ours, but I dialed the amount down in the recipe below.

Baked Brie with Honey and Dried Cherries

I was at a first birthday party for one of baby lady's friends and I saw a beautiful wedge of brie on the table with some crackers.  Instant heaven.  I filled up my plate with some crackers and a piece of brie that was probably too large.  Not too large for me to eat...just that with so many people it probably wasn't fair to take a piece as big as I did.

Well after that I really had a taste for more brie.  And my favorite way to have it...baked of course.  A while back I posted a recipe for baked brie (here) but I didn't have any puff pastry.  I promised myself and anyone who happens to read here that the next time I made it, I would finally use puff pastry.  It was actually a goal that I had set for myself, seeing as I had never done it before.

So that night I finally did it.  I tweaked a recipe that called for some dried cherries and honey and went to town on it once it was finished.  Yes, B and I managed to consume an entire round of baked brie, no problem.  We've done it before and I can assure you that we will be doing it again.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Baby Bell Peppers

I found out that my second box from Washington's Green Grocer was going to contain mixed bell peppers.  I had planned on making stuffed peppers of some sort, hopefully a vegetarian one.  Then I got my box and found these tiny beauties inside.

They don't exactly scream out, begging to be made into a main dish, so an appetizer seemed to be the way to go.  I had seen a recipe for stuffed baby bells once, but the only ingredient I had was the baby bell peppers, so I just decided to wing it, and this is what I came up with.

The peppers are stuffed with a mixture of herbs, shallots and goat cheese.  They're then roasted until soft and slightly blackened on the bottom and then enjoyed while still a bit warm.  I took these to a playdate as treats for the mommies and they were a big hit. 

Baked Brie

Brie is my favorite food.  I'm a dedicated sweetaholic, always finding some kind of snack, but I've driven 9 hours for brie before.  I was first exposed to it in the ninth grade during French class.  My teacher was less than perfect when it came to teaching, but she wanted to give us a French food experience by making us brie one day, and for that day alone I'm grateful for all of the useless hours I sat there trying to learn French.  Four years later I was in Hilton Head with my family and we had decided to eat at Truffles.  I was all for it because, there on the appetizer list was brie.  But I didn't order it as an appetizer. Oh no.  It's my main dish. I sit there with this beautiful wedge of brie baked in pastry with pecans and fruit and gorge myself and I'm happy.  I've done it three or four times now at that specific restaurant, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

This Christmas my mother-in-law, who somehow remembered my love of brie, found and gave me a dish meant specifically for baking brie.  She also supplied me with three different brie recipes and the different additives to make it special, such as jam, dried fruit and nuts.

I, of course, didn't look at any of the recipes carefully enough and bought brie, but not the puff pastry it called for.  So the other night, both still hungry after dinner, B and I decided to make brie.  Then I saw that I needed puff pastry and didn't have it, but I had a can of crescent rolls.  I promise, the next time I make brie, it will be the correct way, with puff pastry.  It's one of my goals for the year.  Anyway, B won't eat nuts, so I left the nuts out of the recipe I used and just added some to my serving after it was cooked.  The end result was a flaky warm outside, gooey cheese inside with the wonderful hit of sweetness from the apricot preserves. 

Then, noticing that I had some leftover crescent roll dough and a package of chocolate chips nearby, I decided to make these:

Ingredients for baked brie with apricot preserves:

8 oz. brie wedge

1/4 c. apricot preserves

2 T. slivered almonds (if you're lucky enough to be sharing with someone who eats nuts)

1 can crescent rolls (I used the Pillsbury ones meant for recipes - no perforation in the dough)

1 egg beaten with 1 T. water

How:

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Slice brie horizontally in half.  Spread one surface with preserves and then sprinkle with almonds.  Replace the top half of the brie.  

Unroll the crescent rolls until flat and smooth.  Place brie on top of dough and wrap dough around brie, removing any excess, but make sure the brie is covered completely.  

Brush the crescent roll dough covered brie with egg wash.  

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  Let stand for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Gorge yourself and enjoy!

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