Super Bowl Food: Cheeseburger Filo Squares

Cathy from Noble Pig was craving a Big Mac. Sauce included. But she wanted a lighter version of the real thing and she also wanted it to be more of an appetizer. This recipe is the result. It was fun to make and fun to eat. But is it lighter than a Big Mac? Hmmmm. Not at all sure about that. There's a whole lot of cheese and butter in there! 
The filo crust instead of a bun is genius, no question. And her sauce is fabulous. Maybe better than the real thing. Perfect for Super Bowl snacking, isn't it? The thing is, you do have to serve it right away; it can't sit around waiting. 

Cheeseburger Filo Squares with Copycat Big Mac Sauce
From Cathy at Noble Pig

Ingredients:
7 sheets filo dough, thawed
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup extra sharp cheddar cheese, finely shredded 
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1-3/4 pound ground beef, (85/15 lean)
1 bag (16 oz) shredded iceberg lettuce
1-1/4 cups diced dill pickle
1 cup diced onion
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
salt and black pepper to taste
12 slices American cheese

Copycat Big Mac Sauce:
1 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup hamburger relish (it's sweet-found next to the pickle relish)
1/4 cup Thousand Island dressing
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon dried minced onion
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking tray (rimmed 11 x 17 works best) with parchment paper and spray paper with cooking-oil spray. 
Lay 1 sheet filo on paper and brush lightly with a little melted butter. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Repeat layering 5 more times (with filo, butter and cheddar), pressing each sheet firmly so it sticks to sheet below. Lay the last filo sheet on top, brush with remaining melted butter, and sprinkle on remaining cheddar cheese. Set aside. 
Heat olive oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat, cook meat until just cooked. Remove from heat and stir in pickle, onion, lettuce and sesame seeds. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Stir mixture until lettuce wilts and then drain through a sieve. 
Place American cheese slices on top of dough. Leave a little edge. Place meat mixture on top of cheese and bake for 20 minutes until edges are golden brown.
While squares are baking combine all ingredients for the copycat Big Mac Sauce and place in a squeeze bottle.
Once filo is done baking, drizzle with sauce and cut into squares with a pizza cutter. Serve immediately.

Stuck on Lunch

I have become officially boring.  For someone who loves food, experiments and tries new recipes all the time, when I'm home  I eat the same lunch every day.  What's up with that?? Please tell me it's not age!  

Consider that I only have to feed myself at lunch...so I could choose anything. Or try something new. But I rarely take advantage of it...unless the kids are home of course, or I have company. I always seem to get stuck on lunch kicks, but this particular one has lasted nearly 6 months. I should make and post a list of all my odd ball lunch obsessions over the years. I've had some dandies. One thing they all have in common, they are fairly quick and easy to make.

Are you ready for this (dare I even call it) recipe? Keep in mind salads are not my favorite thing, unless someone else has made it for me. All that cutting and slicing for one person. Uh uh. But I will confess, I was on a salad kick (I was crazy for Ken's lo-cal Raspberry and Walnut vinaigrette at the time) once for an entire year. I moved on after discovering this latest lunch gem. When I find something I like, I'll stick to it like glue. Truly pathetic.

Barbara's Stuffed Taco

First you take an 8 grain, lo-cal soft taco.

Then you throw it into a frying pan (no oil) just  to soften. Both sides. It goes fast, so watch it. If you let it go too long, it crisps and you can't roll it up. Just heat it through.

Then I spread some Laughing Cow cheese (only one, mind you) on it.....garlic and herb version, of course.

Then I break up some toasted pecans...and sprinkle a mixture of dried cranberries and dried cherries on top.

And top it off with 4 really thin slices of deli turkey.

Roll it up and voila! My lunch.  Every. Single. Day.

Nope, no salad, although  sometimes I add arugula, if there's any in the bin.

Are you still reading? I was right, wasn't I?  Same lunch every day = boring.

What about you? Do you take the same lunch to work every day? Pack the same lunch in your kid's lunchboxes? Or make the same lunch every time you're alone (cause nobody else will ever find out how mundane you are)?
Tell me I'm not the only one. What's your go-to lunch?

Olympics Sunday Supper

Watching the Olympics has become a sport in itself.  We all have our favorites, but I personally love short track skating, the halfpipe and ski cross- a new event... like motor cross on skis. And after watching skiers whipping over moguls in several events, I figure the orthopedists of the world will be very busy people.
No matter which sport you like to watch, you can't help but be impressed by all the world's atheletes. (Well, maybe not the South Korean short track skaters. And maybe not the Russian skater who thought he deserved gold.) I do, however, get annoyed with NBC and the events they choose to air. Why oh why was the U.S. vs Canada hockey game on MSNBC?? Was this not considered an important matching? Forget than I am an old Red Wings fan. Was I the only one who wanted to see this on NBC in prime time? At the very least, half of it. Every Olympics I gripe about this stuff. Probably we all do.

Anyway, I didn't want to be in the kitchen cooking last night so I dug around in my file to find something that sounded good, not too heavy, something I had never tried and of course something I could tell you about if it turned out to be wonderful. And I chose a dish with mushrooms. I love 'em.  My mushroom repertoire is extensive: mushroom bread pudding; mushroom pie; mushroom quiche; mushroom soup; mushroom studel. And is there anything better over a grilled steak? I even love a fresh mushroom salad.

I've had this recipe in my file for quite a while. I've seen other versions of it but still never got around to trying mine. It's a fabulous combo of polenta and mushrooms. With the Comte cheese I had left over from Thomas Keller's grilled cheese sandwich, I had everything I needed. So we had it for dinner last night while watching the Olympics. With a tossed salad, it's just right for a light supper. I made both the polenta (which has to be refrigerated anyway) and the mushrooms late morning and then all I had to do was reheat the mushrooms and briefly fry the polenta. The left-over mushrooms are going in my omelet for the next few mornings.

What Olympic events are you watching?

Mushroom Ragout on Crispy Polenta With Comté Cheese
Adapted from Bon Appetite, December 2007

Ingredients:

For the Polenta:
2 cups whole milk
2 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup polenta or coarse cornmeal
Note: I used cornmeal. The original recipe called for 1 cup but it didn't get nearly thick enough so I made a second batch with 1-1/2 cups of coarse cornmeal and it was fine.
1/2 cup (packed) coarsely grated Comté cheese (or any gruyere)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

For the Mushroom Ragout:
3 tablespoons butter, divided
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1-1/2 pounds assorted wild mushrooms (such as oyster, crimini, and stemmed shiitake), thickly sliced
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup low-salt chicken broth
1/3 cup crème fraîche or whipping cream
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley, divided
1/3 cup (packed) coarsely grated Comté cheese  ( or any gruyere)

Method:

Generously butter a 13x9x1 inch baking sheet. Bring milk, broth, and bay leaf to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove saucepan from heat; cover and let steep 20 minutes to allow flavors to develop. Discard bay leaf. Bring liquid to boil. Gradually add polenta, whisking constantly until smooth. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until polenta is very thick, stirring frequently, about 10 minutes. Stir in Comté cheese and butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer polenta to prepared 13x9x1-inch baking sheet. Using wet hands, press polenta evenly over sheet to edges. Chill until firm, at least 3 hours. Cut polenta into 20 squares. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter with 2 tablespoons oil in large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add all mushrooms and sauté until tender and browned, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Add shallots and balsamic vinegar; sauté until tender, about 2 minutes. Season lightly to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

Rewarm mushrooms in large skillet over medium-high heat until heated through. Add broth and simmer 1 minute. Stir in crème fraîche and half of parsley. Season mushroom ragout to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat; cover to keep warm.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300°. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter with remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add polenta squares to skillet and cook until browned, about 2 1/2 minutes per side. Transfer to rimmed baking sheet and keep warm in oven while cooking remaining polenta squares.

Arrange 2 polenta squares on each plate. Top each with warm mushroom ragout; sprinkle with grated Comté cheese and remaining parsley and serve.

Thomas Keller's Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You've all heard of Chef Thomas Keller. He's received just about every award possible, now owns 8 restaurants and is the only American-born chef to hold multiple three star ratings in the Michelin Guide. His French Laundry Cookbook continues to inspire many a chef but personally, I always felt it was a cookbook for professionals and not home cooks. Don't get me wrong, I love it, it's gorgeous, but I've never made a single thing in it.

Ad Hoc at Home is Keller's latest cookbook offering. It was on my Christmas wish list and Santa was good to me this year.

The book's inspiration was one of Keller's newer restaurants, Ad Hoc, a restaurant serving family style meals. And that is what Keller wanted to present in this cookbook. Family style, rustic meals. Here he is speaking about the cookbook:



Paula Forbes (click HERE to see her full review) said: "These are recipes Keller actually makes for his friends, family, and the patrons of his restaurant, and thus they aren't always as simple, or accessible, as one might hope."
Nonetheless, she continues on to give the book a rave review. Deservedly. After reading it myself, I had a severe case of cookbook love. These recipes are not as intimidating as The French Laundry cookbook recipes; it's not geared as much for professional chefs as for talented home chefs. I mean, any of us can make these recipes, they just aren't a walk in the park.

After the holidays I decided to try a recipe out of each of my Christmas cookbooks and post them. This is my second. I admit I was hard-pressed to find one in Ad Hoc at Home that would translate nicely to a blog posting during Super Bowl weekend. After all, how complicated do we want a recipe to be this week? And yes, I can't wait to make the chicken soup with dumplings ( a time-consuming labor of love where, among other things, the veggies had to each be blanched separately and the dumplings shaped with two spoons into quenelles) but I gleaned onto a familiar and rather surprising recipe near the end of the book: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich. How simple is that? Foolproof. And Super Bowl material.

We've all been eating this sandwich for years. Keller presents us with the perfect grilled cheese: Gruyère  on broiche. He serves his grilled cheese with sweet potato chips (homemade of course) and instead of the old standby Campbell's tomato soup, he suggests his Tomato Gazpacho, another recipe I intend to try. You can see what I mean about this cookbook; something as simple as a grilled cheese has the Keller touch with homemade Brioche, homemade sweet potato chips and homemade gazpacho. Not an impossible feat, but how many of us will take the time? No matter. I'll eventually get around to both the gazpacho and the chips (and perhaps the Brioche). Just not today.

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich
From Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller

Ingredients:

Twelve 1/2-inch thick slices Brioche
8 to 10 ounces thinly sliced Gruyère  (Keller suggests Roth Käse reserve Gruyère )
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Sweet potato chips

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350°.
Lay 6 slices of bread on your work surface and divide the cheese among them. Top with the remaining pieces of bread.
Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter and cook to brown the butter. Add half the sandwiches and cook until browned on the first side, about 1-1/2 minutes.

Flip the sandwiches and cook on the other side for another 30 to 45 seconds. Place on a sheet pan and spread 1 teaspoon of butter over the top of each sandwich. Repeat with the other sandwiches. Put the baking sheet in the oven for 2-5 minutes. Serves 6.

Note: Keller suggest cutting the crusts off  just before serving. I thought that would make a cheesy mess, so I cut the crusts off  before I put them in the frying pan.

Super Bowl Gougères

There are some exciting cookbooks around right now. My daughter, who knows her mother's tastes extremely well, gave me a bunch for Christmas. I love reading them- you learn so much when you read everything the author has to say. Little hints and ideas scattered about in the books. My first post-holiday read has been the award winning Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

Those of you on the west coast no doubt know all about it. But for everyone else, here's a little history I culled from the book:

Billy West opened Zuni Café  in 1979, with a huge heart and exactly ten thousand dollars. He chose the name Zuni, after the native American tribe, and decided to offer mostly simple and authentic Mexican food. Two years later, Billy hired Vince Calcagno to help run his struggling café. They made a success of this rather improbable restaurant and in 1987 Billy and Vince asked Judy Rodgers to be chef. She was confident that the owners' affection for France and Italy, and for traditional food, would sanction lots of experimentation and change. She asked Billy and Vince for a brick oven which ushered in a litany of dishes and introduced patrons to Zuni's very special whole roasted chickens. The Zuni caesar and their bread salad are two more of their iconic dishes -- and their ricotta gnocchi.

And about the author:

Award-winning chef Judy Rodgers, a fixture in the San Francisco food world, has been at Zuni Café since 1987 as chef and co-owner. She was a very lucky exchange student at Les Frères Troisgros in Roanne, France in the early seventies. It was then that she fell in love with cooking and the world of restaurants.
''BREAD is my favorite starch,'' Judy Rodgers said. ''I even thought about writing 'The Stale Bread Cookbook'." Ms. Rodgers uses leftover bread to make puddings, toasted garlicky slabs called ''chapons'' and the warm salad that accompanies her restaurant's roast chicken. ''The bread salad is a little like stuffing on the side,'' she said. Judy was fortunate enough to work at Poilane Bakery in Paris for a while. No wonder bread is a favorite with her! Judy won Chef of the Year from the James Beard Foundation in 2004.

It was nearly impossible to narrow it down to just one recipe... I have little yellow notes stuck all over in the book. Sadly, there are very few photos, but I loved the photo of (what Judy calls) New Year's Eve Gougères with Arugula, Bacon, & Carol's Pickled Onions. These little sandwiches looked so good I couldn't resist and thought they might make a  delicious appetizer for Super Bowl parties.  I mean, who doesn't love bacon, onions and cheese? You can make the gougères ahead of time and warm them up before serving. And make the pickled onions a week ahead. You are going to love the pickled onions because they can be used on  burgers, with fried fish, with a steak sandwich or even on a BLT.

My photo is not as gorgeous as the one in the book, but I can tell you that it tastes every bit as good as the Zuni Cafe's does. I loved the bits of crunch from the baked Gruyère.

Super Bowl Gougères
Adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 cup water
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 large eggs, cold
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 ounces Gruyère, diced into 1/4 inch cubes (about 1/2 cup)
12 slices bacon
1-1/2 ounce arugula, washed and drained
1 cup Carol's Pickled Onions (recipe below), drained

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°.
In a 2-4 quart saucepan, bring the water, butter and salt to a simmer over medium heat. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture masses and detaches itself from the sides. Reduce the heat to low and cook, beating constantly (you need a really strong arm for this) until the batter is stiff and shiny looking. Remove from heat and beat in the cold eggs, one at a time. The mixture will resist addition; you'll find yourself cutting through and slapping together slabs of slippery warm paste until it finally absorbs the egg and becomes sticky again. Repeat with each egg.

The final mixture should be no hotter than tepid. Add the black pepper and Gruyère.
Use a heaping tablespoon of batter per gougère and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You will need a second spoon to scrape it into a peaky mound. If you're good with a pastry bag you can make perfect little gougère rounds. I prefer the irregular shapes. Bake until firm and brown, about 25 minutes. Some bit of cheese will ooze and form a delicious crispy edge on the gougères. Open one to make certain it is done inside; it should be tender and moist but not mushy. You can always put it back in oven...simply turn off the oven and let it finish cooking in the ambient heat.

Meanwhile, cut the bacon into 3 inch segments and panfry or roast. Drain on towels.

Serve the gougères warm from the oven (or reheated) split through the middle and overstuffed with bacon, pickled onion and peppery arugula.

Carol's Pickled Onions

Ingredients:

12 firm yellow onions, no more than 2-1/2 inches in diameter
1-1/2 cups white wine vinegar
1-1/2 cups water
2 generous tablespoon sugar
2 bay leaves
1 small dried chili

A few whole black peppercorns
salt

Method:

Peel and slice the onions into rings about 1/8 inch thick. Separate into rings.
Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, bay leaves, chili pod, peppercorns and salt in a small saucepan. If you like things hot, but the chili pod in half before adding. Bring this mixture to a simmer, turn heat up to medium and add the onions. Gently stir the crowded onions while they return to a simmer. Simmer for 1 minute.
Pour the onions and brine into a wide bowl or glass container. Cool They will turn glassy as they cool. Cover and store in the refrigerater.

I know we are all thinking of Haiti this week and keeping them in our prayers. Please do all you can by donating at:  http://www.redcross.org/