Two Tasty Turnover Recipes!

We’re eating two types of puff pastry turnovers. One is filled with roasted carrots, eggplant, sage, and chevre and the other is filled with tangy shredded barbecue chicken.
With the holidays directly around the bend AND the college football bowl games upon us, these savory turnovers make great finger food for any social event. Or, as in our case, anti-social event where you can hoard them all to yourself and make a meal out of them like T and I did. Not that I suggest eating 8 huge-ass turnovers all in one sitting! That would just be wrong.
I decided to be nice to our herbivore friends and make one of the fillings vegetarian while using up some leftover cooked chicken we had in the fridge for the other set. If you don’t have any leftover chicken in the fridge and you don’t feel like cooking the chicken yourself you can always go buy a rotisserie chicken and shred that puppy up. Rotisserie chickens are god’s gift to the lazy man. Also, a Facebook friend mentioned to me recently that he couldn’t stand puff pastry…the eating equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. If you fall into that category but still want to makes some turnovers, I would suggest using the cream cheese pastry crust I used for these sweet fig turnovers. We’d love to hear how they turn out for you down in the comments section if you end up making them!

Roasted Veggie & Chevre and Tangy BBQ Chicken Turnovers

For the Chicken Filling:
2 packed cups cooked chicken, shredded
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
3 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp hot sauce (or less if you don't like spicy)
kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
For the Veggie Filling:
25 baby carrots
1 egg plant, stem removed and cut in 1/2 lengthwise
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp fresh sage, minced
3 oz chevre, crumbled
kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
2 sheets puff pastry, thawed according to package
1 egg
1 tbsp water
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Drizzle the carrots and eggplant with olive oil, toss and place on a sheet pan. Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Toss to coat. Arrange the eggplant to be flesh-side down. Place sheet pan into a the preheated 375 degree oven. Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, tossing ever 15 minutes until caramelized on all sides. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
While the veggies are roasting, prepare the chicken filling. Place all of the ingredients except the salt and pepper for the chicken filling into a sauce pan. Place over medium low heat. Stir. Simmer over medium low until all of the liquid has cooked away, about 20-30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Remove from heat and let cool until ready to use.
Once the roasted veggies have cooled, using your hands, peel away the skin of the eggplant and discard. The insides of the eggplant should be mushy. Roughly chop and place into a mixing bowl. Roughly chop the roasted carrots and add to the bowl with the eggplant. Add the chevre and sage to the bowl then mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
In a small bowl whisk together the egg and water to create the egg wash. Set aside. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out one puff pastry sheet into an approximately 12" square. Cut into 4 even squares. Transfer the squares to the parchment lined sheet pan. Place a 1/4 of the chicken mixture into the middle of each of the squares.
Using a pastry brush, brush the outer 1/4" of each square with the egg wash. Carefully fold one square in half diagonally, matching up the two points evenly to create a perfect triangle. Using the prongs of a fork, gently mash the edges together to form a sealed triangle. Repeat this process with the remaining chicken turnovers.
Working with the second sheet of puff pastry, repeat the rolling out and cutting process mentioned above. Fill each square with 1/4 of the roasted veggie mixture then seal using the above method.
Once all turnovers have been assembled and are placed, evenly spaced out on a sheet pan ready to bake, brush the top of each turnover with the egg wash to help promote a golden sheen. Place sheet pan into preheated 375 degree oven. Bake for approximately 35 minutes or until golden brown. If your sheet pan is not large enough to hold all 8 turnovers then place 1/2 of them in the fridge and bake in batches. Remove from oven and let rest for at least 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
*To create smaller appetizer sized turnovers try cutting out 16 small squares from each sheet and putting 1 tbsp of the filling in each. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe: Buzz Button Browines

Szechuan buttons (Tamar1973 photo)

I enjoy a challenge. It's fundamental for a food blogger, especially one who spends a lot of time coming up with original, tasty Korean fusion recipes.

As I was looking around on The Foodie Blogroll, of which I am a member, I noticed that MarxFoods was offering free samples of their dried mushrooms to Foodie Blogroll members. On the MarxFoods website I found the company is offering samples of an even more exotic food item called Szechuan buttons.

They threw down the gauntlet with this challenge:

Now is your chance to experiment with the buzz buttons.  We will be sending out some free samples to bloggers who want to either develop a recipe for their blog or guest post with one on ours. 

I totally forgot about the mushrooms and sent in my request for the Szechuan button samples. They sent me by overnight courier a package of 10 Szechuan buttons, which would cost over $13 on the market.

Now that I had these cute little yellow flower buds staring at me and 14 days to use them before they spoiled, I came up with a recipe to showcase their unusual sensory qualities. According to MarxFoods,

Eating a few tiny petals from a Szechuan button — pinched off between thumb and forefinger or cut using a knife or shears — will lead to a tingling sensation … almost like mild voltage or bubbles from an effervescent beverage popping on the tongue.

You can watch some Washington Post writers get the shock of their lives on this post from 2007.

As I looked at the recipe others had submitted I noticed an important pattern. Szechuan buttons are not an ingredient added at the beginning. These are best used as a flavor enhancer or a  garnish, a flourish before serving. Putting them into a warm or hot sauce will not diminish their tongue-numbing qualities.

I had to come up with a recipe in which these little "toothache flowers" would be the star. Therefore, no garlic, ginger, gochujang (Korean spicy red pepper paste) or hot paprika could be a part of the recipe either. I had two weeks to develop and test my recipes before publishing.

I live in Sonoma County, which is world renowned for its wine, olive oil and cheese.  Sonoma's northern neighbor Mendocino County is world famous for an agricultural product that is much more counter-cultural:  marijuana.

Mendocino County is also part of Northern California's legendary Emerald Triangle, which grows tons of high-grade pot for personal use (with a doctor's permission) and for sale (supposedly for those too sick and feeble to grow their own). People having been growing it up there for over 30 years (well before it became "legal" in California) and marijuana makes up 2/3 of Mendocino County's economy, according to CNBC. 

Since the Szechuan buttons are nicknamed "buzz buttons", I thought I'd bake a legal, fun alternative to marijuana brownies, first made famous in the 1968 film I Love You, Alice B. Toklas.

Brownies with Buzz Button Garnish

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan (or line with wax paper). 

In a medium bowl, mix together the wet ingredients: butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

Then gradually stir the dry mixture into into the wet mixture until well blended.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the brownie begins to pull away from edges of pan. Allow them to cool before cutting into squares.

Sprinkle with copious amounts of Szechuan button flowers and give your friends a legal buzz!

The Search for the Best ANZAC Biscuit Recipe

Yesterday was ANZAC day, which is the Australia and New Zealand equivalent of our Memorial Day. (ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.) ANZAC biscuits are a classic cookie that myth associates with World War I (they're still getting over Gallipoli, and rightly so). My husband is Australian, so of course I wanted to make a good batch of ANZAC biscuits for him yesterday.
The trouble was, which recipe? He couldn't remember the exact recipe, but knew it had molasses (although many recipes use Golden Syrup, which is not easily found in the U.S., or you can also substitute honey or agave or corn syrup). I looked at a bunch of recipes online, including this delicious-sounding one for ANZAC biscuits with macadamia nuts, this ANZAC biscuit recipe from Anzac.net, and this Famous Australian ANZAC Biscuit recipe. They all had roughly the same proportions, but I decided to go for the one with the most rolled oats and the most butter.
Fifteen minutes later I was staring at some tasty-looking granola. There was no way there was enough liquid to hold that batter together! I ended up doubling the butter and molasses (yum) and adding another half cup flour. I popped them in the oven and was dismayed at the flat brown discs that emerged 12 minutes later. I called Saul over to taste test. He looked them over and said, "Well, usually they look a little more ... polished. But these do look like the ones my Mum made and the kids would bring to school." He popped one in his mouth. "Wow. That's a trip down memory lane. These are perfect!"
So, success. They may not look like much, but they'll cheer the heart of any expatriate Australian and bring a bit of Down Under into your kitchen. Here's my recipe:
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (or a little less)
4 T molasses
2 T boiling water
1 t baking soda
Preheat the oven to 350. Mix the dry ingredients together while you bring the water to a boil and melt the butter into the molasses. Add the boiling water to the baking soda, and then add the resulting mixture to the melted butter and molasses. It will become a nice, foamy liquid that you add to the dry ingredients. Stir together, then dollop onto a greased cookie sheet. They spread quite a bit, so make sure there's plenty of room between the dollops. Cook for about 10 minutes for a cookie that stays soft (my preference) or 12 minutes for a crispy one (Saul's).
Aussie and Kiwi readers, please share your favorite variations!