a friend phoned while she was out running errands. her final stop was to be my house for an afternoon of cooking:
"anything else you need?" she asked.
"hmmm....a box of puff pastry."
(puff pastry, the material out of which croissants are spun, quiches are caressed, and turnovers are goldenly enveloped. it is an absolute pain in the ass to make, but one seductive sheet from the supermarket freezer can make you appear as hybrid of martha stewart and bettie page)
twenty minutes later my friend arrived at my doorstep, arms sinking beneath the weight of an unwieldy, 15.4 pound box of commercial puff pastry. twenty extra-large, bone-white sheets batted their bone-white eyelashes inside innocently. 15.4 pounds of puff pastry have been known to cause hallucinations. i cleared most of a freezer and found it a home then resigned myself to eating puff pastry for the next fiscal quarter. i would emerge from my lair rotund and rubicund, covered in a dandruff of buttery flakes.
as my mind slipped to visualizing all of my skinny jeans tucked away in a cardboard box, the maker of my demise rescued me.
"why don't we have a puff pastry party?"
10 things to do with puff pastry
1. cut a sheet into 3 inch squares. spoon your favorite jam and a crumble of hazelnuts in the center. fold the corners over to create a triangle, sealing the edges with the tines of a fork before baking and cutting a small slit at the top as an air vent. voila - jam turnovers.
2. roll the edges of a sheet over by about 1/2 an inch to create a crust. you now have a tart shell with which to wildly experiment. i like the following combinations:
3. ricotta, oven-roasted tomatoes, provolone & basil
4. caramelized leeks, bacon, goat cheese & arugula (recipe to follow tomorrow)
5. heirloom tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, thyme
6. roasted butternut squash, gruyere, crushed coriander seeds
7. shaved summer squash, tahini, pine nuts
8. bake a sheet with the edges folded over as described above until golden brown. cool to room temperature then fill with whipped cream flavored with key lime zest and juice. top with slivers of fresh mango.
9. homemade cheese sticks: cut a sheet into 1 inch wide strips. sprinkle with parmesan cheese, salt & pepper. hold each end and twist into a curlicue and bake.
10. warm yesterday's soup and place it in a ramekin. cover the top with a square of puff pastry. bake until bubbly.
notes
* most agree dufour makes the ultimate puff pastry (hint: all butter). if you can find it, use it. if not, pepperidge farm is a decent substitute so long as you don't look at the ingredient list.
did you think i could resist posting a picture of bettie page on my blog? what kind of lauren mitchell wilkinson would i be?