Grilled feta, olive and grapes

My wife found this recipe in the food section of the Washington Post. It's a rather simple dish but we really like it.  It makes a good appetizer and goes well with wine. We served it with mini-baguette.

The original recipe suggested cooking this in a cast iron skillet. We thought that might be too big for the quantity we wanted to make so we cooked this is a small anodized cast aluminum pan (this was a Japanese style pot (mini version) with a wooded lid for an individual "nabe" dish) which worked perfectly.

The cubes of feta cheese get brown and crispy on the outside but soft inside. My wife thought it is also good just to enjoy without bread. The combination of spices (fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and ground black pepper), salty olives and sweet grapes all worked well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
1/2 cup (2 3/4 ounces) seedless red grapes, (we cut the amount in half).
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) pitted and halved Kalamata olives. (We used a combination of the different olives we had on hand. We cut some of the large ones in half.)
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
8 to 10 ounces feta cheese (in a block)
Good, crusty bread slices, for serving

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees with the rack in the middle (we used our toaster oven on convection mode on the bottom rack). Oil a small, oven-proof casserole dish or cast-iron pan. Add the grapes, olives, 1 tablespoon olive oil, fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and a few grinds of black pepper, and stir to combine.
Break the block of feta up into irregular pieces, then nestle them among the grapes and olives. Drizzle with more olive oil, then bake, 20 to 25 minutes, until the grapes are softened and the feta is browned in spots.

This is a really good dish. We had only a small portion the night we made it and reheated it later in the microwave which worked well. My wife kept reminding me as I made the dish, "a little bit of fennel goes a long way". Don't over do it' the fennel actually made the dish. The combination of fennel, olives and grapes were made for each other and the total went remarkably well with red wine. Definitely this will join to our line up of "regular" dishes.

Parsnip carrot mash

This is my wife's innovation. She really likes parsnips and came up with this combination one evening. Since we were roasting pork loin as we do frequently, we also cooked the carrots and parsnips wrapped in aluminum foil in the Weber grill. The black item on the plate is blackened Brussel's sprouts which may not look appetizing but this is the best way to enjoy Brussels's sprouts--they taste sweet almost like candy. Greenbeans and mashed carrots and parsnips complete the sides.

This combination has very good flavor (mostly coming from the parsnips) and a beautiful color (coming from the carrots).

We peeled the parsnips and carrots, cut the small tips off the parsnips and cut the carrots in half because they were too long for the piece of foil. We coated everything with olive oil and wrapped in aluminum  foil (#1 and #2). We placed them in the Weber grill with the pork (#4). The pork was hot smoked but the vegetables wrapped in aluminum foil did not get any smoky flavor. My wife mashed the cooked veggies, added butter and soy sauce. I helped by further smoothing the mixture with my immersion blender (#3).

This mash is really great. It is certainly much more interesting than mashed potato. This will be our regular side for roasted meats.

Egg and smoked salmon puff pastry loaf 卵とスモークサーモンパフぺィストリー包み

This is a recipe my wife's sister sent us. It is one of those all-inclusive breakfast type dishes and we went for it. It is essentially a cream cheese omelet/scrambled egg with chives and dill and  smoked salmon encased in puff pastry and baked. How could this be bad (at least in terms of taste rather than health).

We had this as a light lunch but it also goes well as a hor d'oeuvres. The only problem was that the bottom crust did not quite puff up. Based on past experience with puff pastry we were afraid this would happen so we took some extra measures such as putting it on parchment paper and cooking it on a metal wire grate that elevated it above the baking sheet so the bottom could get more heat (see #5, composite picture below). The cut section shows nice layers of salmon and egg but, as can be seen, the bottom is not flaky. To remidy this my wife turned it upside down and toasted it in the toaster oven on high heat for several minutes. That did the trick the bottom puffed up nicely.

In making this we divided our labour. I made the eggs and my wife prepared the rest of the ingredients and assembled it.

Ingredients: (our modification).
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed
4 eggs*
1/4 cup cream (original recipe calls for milk)
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp butter
2 oz cream cheese (I used cream cheese with chives)
1/2 tsp chives, chopped (Original recipe calls for green onion)
2 tsp fresh dill, chopped
Smoked salmon, enough to cover center 1/3 of the puff pastry
1/2 cup Double Gloucester cheese (original recipe calls for Mozzarella, we did not have it).

*The original recipe called for 8 eggs. Although we used one sheet of puff pastry as indicated in the original recipe, we thought "8" eggs would be too much and reduced it to 4 eggs reducing the other ingredients accordingly. As you can see below 4 eggs are more than enough for one sheet of pastry (#3 and #4).

Directions:
The recipe said to preheat oven to 350F (we think 400F, is more appropriate. It is also the temperature called for in the instructions on the puff pastry box. At 350F the pastry was a bit too pale (#5 and 6) and the bottom did not cook completely).

Beat the eggs, add chives and dill, cream, and salt. Add small pieces of the cream cheese. In the non-stick frying pan, melt butter and add the egg mixture. Make loose scrambled egg/omelet.

Roll out the sheet of thawed puff pastry to 12 x15inches. On the center 1/3 place the smoked salmon leaving 1/2 inch on both ends, layer the eggs (#1) and the cheese (#2). Fold both sides (#3 and 4), brush with water  (or as the original recipe suggests egg water) to seal the ends. Bake 25 minutes (#5 and 6).

Although we did not taste much of dill or chives, this is a very nice breakfast or snack with wine. After my wife re-toasted the bottom in the toaster oven, the eggs were encased in nicely puffed pastry. Initially the smoked salmon was quite assertive but still quite good.  The whole dish got even better with time as the flavors melded together. It reheated nicely in the toaster oven. We will freeze some and see how we can reheat it. We'll have to work out a way to make sure the bottom also gets cooked because we will be making this again.