Friday, July 17, 2009

Veggie patties/puffs

Long time ago, I’d posted a recipe for veggie patties/puffs and I was very proud of it because it was mine. I used to get readymade phyllo pastry to make them but recently I read on King Arthur’s blog how to make the pastry for turnovers; and I was jumping with joy!! It looked simple to make and the results seemed astounding. I was dying to give it a try and I did, I mean gave it a try :). They turned out simple scrumptious!! My MIL and FIL found them delicious!

DSC02612 Can you believe that I made the pastry at home?!?!? Look at the flaky layers…yummy! Here’s the recipe for the pastry. Its copied from the recipe on King Arthur’s blog. If you’re looking for step-by-step illustrated instructions then jump over to that link.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup cold butter
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  1. First step: LOTS of butter. We’re going to “cut” the butter into the flour, just as if we were making pie crust. It’s easy to do this in a food processor; but use your own favorite method, if preferred. There’s also salt and baking powder in the work bowl. Why baking powder? PUFF pastry; a little chemical leavening doesn’t hurt! Be sure to leave some good-sized chunks of butter in the mixture. This is very important.
  2. Add sour cream, and pulse briefly. The dough will look very crumbly, but will hold together just fine when you grab it.
  3. Deposit it onto a floured work surface. Shape the dough into a rough square. Roll it into an 8” x 10” rectangle; for reference, this is slightly shorter than an 8 1/2” x 11” piece of paper. Don’t make yourself crazy here; approximations are fine.
  4. Grab one of the 8” sides, and fold it into the center, like a letter.
  5. Now fold the other short (8”) side on top of the first.
  6. Roll 8” x 10” again and fold again.
  7. Wrap in plastic, and chill for some time.
  8. Take out the chilled dough. Place it on a well-floured surface, and start to roll. You want to make a square at least 16” on a side. Work quickly; the colder the dough, the easier it is to roll and cut and fill.
  9. Trim the edges to make a square. You can sprinkle these trimmed-off pieces with coarse sugar and bake up some REALLY tasty nibbles.
  10. Cut into 4” squares. You can use a pizza cutter to do that.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

From the little ones to the big ones

Its been so long since I posted that what I initially wanted to post was my little baby tomatoes and peppers and by the time I’m posting, we’ve already eaten the fruits (or peppers!) of our labor!

We planted tomatoes, banana peppers and green peppers in our pots when the summer started. Since then we rarely miss a day when we don’t check how they’re progressing. When my mom was here, she used to take good care of them. In fact, they (the plants) missed her when she was gone. I would say it was under her care that they started bearing fruits.

Here are some pictures that I took of our little ones…

DSC02559 Banana peppers

DSC02562Tomatoes

DSC02614  

Green pepper/Capsicum

Aren’t they the cutest?!?!? Oh and we’ve had a couple of grown-up banana peppers too…

DSC02606 Waiting for the tomatoes and the green peppers to grow up!