Best Puff Pastry Recipe Yet! Barefoot Contessa Easy Sticky Buns

After a delayed start and a snow day with no snow, we finally have a snow day with lots of snow.  The perfect day for a leisurely breakfast.

So, I used my last sheet of puff pastry to make Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics' Easy Sticky Buns.  The recipe is very simple.  No need to rolling, crimping or fussing with the puff pastry.  You unfold it, brush it with butter, sprinkle on brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon.  30 minutes later you have ooey, gooey sticky buns that melt in your mouth.

The family voted this recipe the best of the puff pastry experiments.  Little S asked if we could have it for dinner too.  I'm hoping for something at least slightly more nutritious.

Seriously, do they know it's Christmas time?: time and dates in Ethiopia

One of the more interesting tidbits I learned from my Ethiopia guidebook related to telling time.

  

According to the Bradt guide, Ethiopians measure time in 12-hour cycles starting at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.  So what I would consider 7 Seattle time, Ethiopians would consider 1.  Also, Ethiopians only worry about gradations of five minutes - so four minutes past five become five minutes past five.  

The calendar in Ethiopia is different too.  Again the Bradt guide explains, in 1582 the Christian world dropped the Julian calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar.  Ethiopia never made the switch.  As a result, Ethiopia is seven years and eight months "behind" the rest of the world.  (Right now it's 2001 in Ethiopia.)

Ethiopians celebrate Christmas on January 7 and New Years on September 11.  Looks like I'll be arriving in Ethiopia right in time for the after-Christmas sales!

Cookies and Connections

At Chez Sherrilynn, I've been busy making cookies and connection.  

A friend told me that the Gourmet Magazine website is featuring the best cookie recipe for each year from the 1940's to the present.  My favorite is the mocha cookie from 1990.  The cookie is shaped like a thin cookie, but tastes like a brownie.  In fact, the recipe is strikingly similar to Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Chocolate Brownies.  I also made the chocolate chip cookies from the cookbook of Macrina Bakery.  The recipe is very similar to the chocolate chip cookie recipe discussed in the New York Times this summer, but much less fussy.

Over the last couple weeks, I've spent a lot of time networking and learning more about legal academia.   I've meet some great people and received some very helpful advice.  It all boils down to this: if you want to be a law professor, you need to write a lot and it needs to be good.  If you want to write good articles, you need to spend a lot of time researching and writing.  "Don't wait for a lightening bolt," advised one mentor.  "Get into the library and read everything you can."  And so, that's what I've been doing.

Puff Pastry, Barefoot Style

In her new book, Back to Basics, Ina Garten frequently calls for puff pastry.  

I'll admit it.  I've always been afraid of puff pastry.  Maybe it's the admonitions to keep it cold, not to overwork it.  Maybe it reminds me too much of some of the sketchy pie doughs I've made. 

When I found puff pastry available through Amazon Fresh, I decided that this week I would conquer my fear.  Over the last two days, we've had three Barefoot Contessa puff pastry recipes.

Day 1:  Lamb Sausage in Puff Pastry & Apple Dried Cherry Turnovers

The pastry was delivered in the morning and I put it in the refrigerator.  By dinner time, the pastry was still semi-frozen.  This meant that instead of unfolding into one large piece, the pastry broke into three rectangular pieces.    The turnover recipe (from Back to Basics) suggested  cutting the large sheet into four square pieces and making each square into a turnover.  I tried to stick the three rectangular pieces together with minimal success.  Instead, I ended up cutting the rectangles in half, making some small turnovers and using some of the smaller squares to make sandwiches instead of turnovers.

The turnover filing is very reminiscent of the Apple Crisp filling from Barefoot Contessa Parties, but with cherries instead of lemons.  Here, as there, the filling is delicious.  The apples break down into gooey goodness and the cherries add a nice tang.  Overall, the recipe was a big hit with the family.

The sausage in puff pastry recipe (from Barefoot Contessa) was good, but not as well received.  The recipe called for a 1/2 inch thick sausage and the only one I could find was a chicken breakfast sausage.  This sausage was a little too bland and didn't add enough zing to the puff pastry.

On the positive side, this recipe was incredibly easy to make.  Even with the pastry rectangles, I just cooked the sausage, spread some mustard and rolled the pastry around the sausage.  There is a lot of room for improvisation here.  Different sausages, mustards, even cheese could add a lot.

Day 2:  Spinach in Puff Pastry

Having properly thawed my puff pastry, I felt ready to conquer the spinach in puff pastry recipe from Barefoot in Paris.  Truth be told, I'm not a French food fan and never really loved Barefoot in Paris.  That said, this recipe was delicious.  It involves a little more prep work: toasting pine nuts, sweating onions, grating cheese.  But, the effort pays off.  The flavorful spinach filling adds a nice contrast to the puff pastry.  When the pastry is thawed, it is much easier to unfold and roll.

Day 3:  Something Else

Today at dinner, Mr. S. looked at me with sad eyes and said, "Are we having puff pastry for dinner again tomorrow?"  There are more Barefoot Contessa puff pastry recipes I would like to try, but maybe we should take a break.

Some recipes I look forward to making:

Easy Sticky Buns (Back to Basics)

Tomato & Goat Cheese Tarts (Back to Basics)

Savory Palmiers (Back to Basics)

Cheese Straws (Barefoot in Paris)

Elephant Ears (Barefoot in Paris)

What's in Little S's CD Player, Dec. 08 edition

We went to the neighborhood library to raid the kids' music section.  We found some great CDs (and a couple clunkers).  Here's what's playing in Little S's CD player this month:

1.  Princess Katie & Racer Steve, Songs for the Coolest Kids.  One of the few kids' CDs that our entire family enjoys.  Princess Katie has a mellow voice and sounds a lot like Natalie Merchant, without the angst.  I checked the CD label twice to make sure she wasn't Natalie Merchant.  The songs work in positive messages, but not at the expense of the music.  Little S and I agree that the three skits on the CD are a little random. 

2.  Baby Loves Jazz, Go Baby Go.  Little S's first introduction to jazz.  The songs are geared for younger kids: jazzy interpretations of Happy and You Know It, ABC, and Old MacDonald.  Yet, Little S enjoyed the music, especially the songs that emphasize particular instruments (trumpet, piano, saxophone).  

3.  School House Rock! Rocks.  On this CD from the mid-90's, popular bands like Blind Mellon and Better Than Ezra reinterpret School House Rock!  classics.  Little S had no idea why I kept singing "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here" until she heard this CD.  Little S likes to play this before she goes to bed, but it is not a lullaby album.  

4.  Recess Monkey, Aminal House.  Recess Monkey classics like Aquarium, Zoo zoo zoo, and Pet Shark along with some entertaining chit chat by Mayor Monkey and Mischievous Monkey.

5.  BNL, Snacktime.  As a long time fan of BNL, I'm happy to see that Little S is a fan too.  Vegetable Town is a particular favorite.

6.  Reserved.  This spot is being held for (in the near future) the Johnny Bregar album, Dragonfly, that's in the Hanukah present pile and (in the more distant future) the Recess Monkey CD that is being recorded now.

Lucy

One of the highlights of the Water 1st trip to Ethiopia is visiting the National Museum of Ethiopia.  At this museum, visitors can see a replica of Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil found in Ethiopia that proves our ancestors were walking 2.5 million years earlier than previously thought.

Few visitors to Ethiopia are allowed to see the actual fossil.  Happily, Lucy is touring American museums and is featured in a fantastic exhibit at Seattle's Pacific Science Center through March 2009.  We went to see the exhibit last night.

The exhibit begins with an explanation of Ethiopian history and culture.  Many people of my generation (myself included) associate Ethiopia with famine and "Do They Know It's Christmas."  The exhibit reminded me that Ethiopia is famous for so much more.

According to legend, Ethiopia was the home of the Queen of Sheeba ,who visited King Solomon for diplomacy and, some say, romance; possibly one of the lost tribes of Israel ; and the Ark of the Covenant.  The final Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, aka Ras Tefari, inspired the Rastafari movement.

The second part explains Lucy's role in evolution: she provided conclusive evidence that bipedalism came before big brains.  And how scientists can deduce bipedalism and other characteristics from a very partial skeleton.

Lucy, by the way, got her informal name from the fact that the scientists who discovered her listened to the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond" over and over again on the night of the discovery.

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics - The Missing Review

When I heard that Ina Garten was coming out with a new cookbook this fall, I rushed to preorder the book, I scoured the Internet for advance recipes and I tried to figure out a way to attend a book tour event.  In a previous post, I discussed the butternut squash salad recipe that was released before the book.  The recipe dazzled my dinner guests and I couldn't wait to see what other wonders Ina had created.

Then Back to Basics arrived.  I flipped through the pages.  The photos are gorgeous, but I found very few recipes that I would make.  Many recipes call for bacon, prosciutto or red meat, ingredients I don't eat.  Others, like Garlic Ciabatta Bread and Mache with Warm Brie & Apples, seem too basic to be called recipes.  Most disappointing, many of the recipes seem derivative of previously published recipes.  For example, Indonesian Grilled Swordfish is like Indonesian Ginger Chicken (BC).  Maple-roasted Butternut Squash is like Caramelized Butternut Squash (BC).  And, Confetti Corn is very reminiscent of Sauteed Fresh Corn (BC Parties).

To be honest, I haven't made enough of the recipes to pan the entire book.  I look forward to trying Roasted Pears with Blue Cheese, Chicken Bouillabaisse, and the Celery Root & Apple Puree.  Still, if you don't have Barefoot Contessa Parties, buy that book instead.  Or, if you're looking for an easier approach, try Barefoot Contessa At Home.

I love you, Ina.  This book is not your best work.