How can you not love a recipe that isn’t actually a recipe? These little pastries were simply a quickly thrown together snack to use up homemade puff pastry scraps; it is a crime to waste something that you put so much effort into preparing. That said, I am afraid I just did not care for them.
The recipe is from Baking with Julia and was contributed by Michel Richard and it truly does call for the use of scraps from previously prepared puff pastry recipes. The recipe, which really isn’t much more than a guidline, instructs you to place cherry tomatoes halves onto two inch rounds of dough and to top it with a little goat cheese before popping it into the oven to bake. Honestly, as soon as I saw cherry tomatoes and goat cheese, I knew I was in trouble!
Sad but true fact, this Italian girl only likes cooked tomatoes if they are in the form of tomato sauce, otherwise, I avoid it like the plague. Yes, I am that person who will pick the tomato chunks out of soup, don’t get me started on goat cheese, I have never been able to eat it! However, in the spirit of following the “recipe” as it is written, I topped my little squares with a rosette of goat milk cream cheese from Trader Joe’s. If you shop there, they sell it with the cream cheese and it tastes just like regular cream cheese, at least pretty close to it. With the cherry tomato halves in place, into the oven they went.
But that was just too simple. Out of curiosity, I cut up some curried roasted vegetables and made a few squares. Brussels sprout halves and thick slabs of kabocha squash were pressed into the cheese and baked along side of the tomato bites. All in all, about 15 minutes of work for a few quick bites to give my husband a treat-he works so many hours that I really have become a kitchen widow.
Well, all is not lost, I have a lot more puff pastry dough in the freezer which means I will have scraps to work with again at some point and next time, I’m going with chocolate, or caramel, or maybe chocolate and caramel…
What I had to do to get that shot. Yes, on the landing in the middle of the stairs but look at that window! It let’s in the most amazing morning light and none of it was direct. It is taking time to figure it all out but I have a feeling that I will be spending a lot of time on the stairs with my camera and a plate of food!
To see what the other bakers came up with, be sure to visit the Tuesdays with Dorie website and if you have a copy of the book, Baking with Julia, bake along with us as we bake our way through the book. If that isn’t enough for you, we will also be baking from Dorie Greenspans new book, Baking Chez Moi starting in November.
will garden for cake 