Inspired to Share: Queso and Swayze Sauce

I just happened across this video and I want everything in it right now. I want to make it and eat it and maybe also swim in it. But I am not going to the store again today.

Fresh Fig & Caramelized Onion Flatbread

April since we posted? Man, we suck. Well, shit happened, but I am back. Cooking for the first time in 2 months and I wanted some damn figs! It's fall, so I found them and I only had to go to 2 stores to get them.

About a summer ago I was at the Plaza, bopping around, wasting time and money with a friend. The sun was blazing and there is really no shade in the middle of all of those expensive-ass stores so we decided to duck into the closest restaurant, which happened to be Seasons 52. They serve stuff that is "inspired by the season" which is hippy nonsense, but the food was delicious. I had a flatbread pizza with fig and arugula and a few other things I can't remember that inspired this recipe.

Flatbread dough (I used this recipe)

Toppings:
Fresh fig, thinly sliced
Baby Kale
Caramelized onions
Brie

Make the flatbread dough first, this is the long part. But you can freeze some of it for later. While the dough is rising or thawing (depending on your pre-planning), caramelize your onions in some butter, and slice your figs. Don't over-cook your onions because they will continue to cook in the oven.

I didn't use exactly the ingredients called for, but whatev. It was still ok.

 I also didn't use a food processor or a mixer with a dough hook. I'm a rebel.

Preheat the oven to 450. If you have a pizza stone, good for you.

Roll out the dough on a piece of parchment (on a baking sheet if no stone) for easy transfer to the oven. I actually used my hands to pat it out, it didn't really require a roller.

Then I cut thin slices of room temp brie and placed them on the crust and covered them with about 1/2 the onions. Then I piled on the fig slices and kale, alternatingly... yes, this is a word... and then finished with the rest of the onions.

Pop the whole thing in the oven for 15-18 minutes, until the crust is a lovely brown.

Awesomeness! I was worried that the crust wouldn't crisp up under the weight of the toppings, but no problem at all.

You want to eat it right now don't you? I don't blame you. It is beautiful. It could have even used more of each of the toppings piled on. This crust was a little thick, maybe a roller would have helped...

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

I love quesadillas for using up leftovers but I was recently inspired by Dave's favorite pizza so I had to make quesadillas just to make them.  These quesadillas have chicken breast cooked in bbq sauce, bacon, caramelized onions, cheese and more bbq sauce and they are ridiculously good.

The key to a good quesadilla (grilled cheese too) is to liberally butter your pan before you put it in and again before you flip it.  This begs the question, how do you butter the pan before you flip your delicious item?  You pull out your quesadilla, slap it on a plate, then butter the pan and slide the untoasted side into the pan.

I served these with one of those steam in the bag veggie deals because I couldn't decide what to put with them and then I was too hungry to think anything up.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 bbq sauce
1 large onion, sliced
1 tbsp butter
shredded jack cheese
soft taco tortillas
extra bbq sauce for prep
butter for your pan

Put chicken breasts, chicken broth and bbq sauce in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a simmer, stir occasionally and wait for the chicken to get cooked through, about 10 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat.  Add your sliced onion to the melted butter and give it a quick stir to get nicely coated.  Stir every couple of minutes until your onions get soft and browned.

Pull your chicken off the heat and shred.  Add more bbq sauce if desired.  To assemble your quesadilla, put some shredded chicken, a light amount of cheese, a little bbq sauce, then onion and a little more cheese on a tortilla. Top with a second tortilla.  In the same pan you caramelized your onion, put a generous swipe of butter and lay the quesadilla in it.  Let it cook for about 2 minutes and flip, let that side cook about 1.5 minutes.  Pull it out of the frying pan, cut with a pizza cutter and enjoy.

Ratatouille Gratin

I have been thinking about ratatouille for a while. I looked up some recipes and was a little disappointed because I kind of expected it to be fancier... possibly because I saw Ratatouille and I believe everything I see in cartoons. So I decided to do a little twist on it and make it a stacked gratin. And I also left out the eggplant, because I wasn't at all interested in it.

Ingredients
zucchini
yellow pepper
roma tomato
onion
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt pepper
thyme
basil
rosemary
garlic
parmesan

Basically you can use any amount of these that you want. I went light on the balsamic because I didn't want it to overpower everything else. Cut the vegetables into uniform-ish pieces (1/2 inch thick, 2 inches square/round), mix everything else (minus 1/2 the parm) in a large bowl and then toss the veggies in the bowl.


I preheated the oven to 425 at this point (why do all recipes say to preheat at the beginning? I usually end up with a fully heated oven for 30 or more minutes before I need it!) Then I layered everything (vertical layers, not horizontal) in a glass pan and spread the rest of the parmesan on top.

I happened to have too much for my pan, so I crammed the rest into a little ramekin to make an individual portion. This one I topped with parmesan mixed with panko because it sounded delicious.

I pulled the ramekin out after 25 minutes and the big pan after 30. You could see the juices boiling in the bottom which always makes me happy. SCIENCE! I let them set for a bit (because they were scary hot) while I grilled up some chicken marinated in olive oil, lemon juice and some spices.

This is going to be made over and over again. I am absolutely in love with this. I feel like I was a little light on the flavors, turns out I could have gone heavier with the balsamic and spices, but even as is, I just loved this. The big dish was beautiful, and the strong parmesan flavor was perfect for the vegetables. But panko and parmesan in the small dish was a revelation. It browned up beautifully and tasted nice and crunchy with the softened veg.

I do think for this fresh herbs would have been stronger and more interesting. I have been thinking of getting a kitchen herb garden, but my kitchen window above the sink has a tiny sill and is painted shut. I will continue working on a solution for this.

Hot turkey and cheese

Originally I had planned to make this post several days ago, but I got home Wednesday night and my bread was moldy... and I was too lazy to go buy more. Today I wanted to fulfill my sandwich fantasies. I wanted to make a fancy sandwich and had lots of grand ideas so I decided that a panini was the way to go. Because panini is such a fun word.

I wanted to model something on the ham, brie and apple sandwich at Dean and Deluca. I love that sandwich.  So to make it my own I used turkey (not pictured), and some really sharp cheddar cheese, sliced a little apple and then I broke out the Foreman... (...dirty dishes artfully cropped from the shot...)

I grilled that sucker up and it looked quite tasty!

And it was pretty good, but it didn't live up to what I thought I was making. What I originally intended to be a fancy, fruity panini turned out to be a plain old hot turkey and cheese sandwich. Meh face.

I think where I went wrong was heating it up. The warm apple just didn't taste like much of anything. I actually think that the sandwich would have been better cold, then the apple would have still been crisp and the cheese would have still been sharp. And maybe ham would have been a better choice than turkey. Or something that wasn't cold cuts from a package!

So I give it about a C... not bad, but I wouldn't make it again without some further experimentation.