Monday, November 30, 2009

butternut leek puffs and prosciutto baskets

Most of the dishes we threw together for Thanksgiving this year were not my own recipes. In fact, some of them didn't have recipes at all. Who knew half a Thanksgiving meal would be on-the-fly? Anyway, I did make a couple of delicious appetizers that I can share with you.

Butternut-Leek Puffs

For these little wonders, I combined my love of the butternut squash with my love of puff pastry. Goodness, gracious is that a match made in heaven.

Ingredients

2 cups of the butternut squash ravioli filling - see recipe below (you can make it ahead of time and refrigerate before making this recipe)
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced
2 tbs butter
2 packages of puff pastry shells
a pinch of white pepper
a pinch of red pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
salt to taste

This couldn't be simpler. Preheat the oven to 375*. Thaw the pastry shells about halfway, then slice them in half (so you have two thin discs) very carefully. Place the shells on a prepared baking sheet.

Wash the leeks! Leeks grow in the ground and they have layers like an onion, which trap the dirt. I find the best way to wash them is to cut off and discard most of the dark green top, then slice up the remainder of the lighter green and white of the leek. Place the slices in a bowl full of cold water and agitate them a little. Then let them rest a bit while the dirt sinks to the bottom of the bowl. Fish out your slices, dump the water, rinse the bowl, and repeat the process as many times as necessary to make sure you get all the grit out.

Once the leeks are clean, dry them in a salad spinner. Then, over medium heat, melt the butter. Saute the leeks in the melted butter. As they soften, add the spices. Once the leeks are softened, assemble the puffs.

Place a heaping tablespoon of butternut squash filling in the center of each puff pastry disc. Place a tablespoon of leeks on top of the filling. That's it. Now bake them for about 20 minutes, until the bottoms start to brown and they puff up a bit. I sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top of them when I took them out of the oven. Yum.

Prosciutto Baskets

These little bites were so good, it was a struggle to keep any around for late-arriving relatives. A real struggle.

Ingredients
sliced prosciutto
chevre
green grapes, halved

Break out the mini muffin pan! I really do love my mini muffin pan. Spray a little cooking oil in each indentation. Preheat the oven to 400*.

Cut your proscuitto into pieces, about 3 inches by 3 inches (or do a 3 inch circle). Push each slice of prosciutto into its own muffin tin to create a basket (or cup, or whatever you'd like to call it). Once all the indentations are filled, put the pan into the oven. Set a timer for 5 minutes - they'll probably take closer to ten, but you definitely don't want them to burn, so keep checking.

Once the proscuitto has curled and crisped up, take the pan out of the oven and set aside to cool.

Once the baskets are cooled, fill each one with a teaspoon of chevre (if you're fancy - and we are - shape the chevre into a quenelle) and top with one or two grape halves. Place on a serving tray. Watch your guests devour them.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I can vouch for both of these. Delicious!!!

Unknown said...

I wanted to make these for my family over the holidays and my mother vetoed them because she doesn't like chevre. =( So we'll have to make them again sometime...