Chiffon Sweet Potato Tartlets

What could be more enticing than a tart or a pie with smooth sweet potatoes filling. The color and texture is so appealing and so light, it is pure indulgence. Sweet potatoes/yams are in abundance this time of the year and to keep up with the Holiday Spirit, add Holiday Spices to the tarts/pies and kick up a notch.

The recipe is HERE

Mushroom Galette

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...It's been a busy day. I've started working on the dishes that I'll be featuring while we are traveling and the first day of cooking is always daunting. I managed to get a lot done, but as the sun set I had a "Eureka" moment. Surrounded by plates of food, I had forgotten about dinner and nothing on my counters was suitable for an evening meal. I grabbed a pie crust from the freezer and mushrooms and cheese from the refrigerator and threw together this homely galette. It normally is a much grander affair. On a good day, wild mushrooms, sauteed with fresh herbs and shallots, are tossed with a premium blue cheese and wrapped in a cloak of puff pastry that's baked until the color defines rich golden brown. That didn't happen tonight. I took every shortcut imaginable, but there is an upside to this sad tale. It worked. If I hadn't had the good stuff, I never would have known that this wasn't the real thing. The recipe I pillaged belongs Joanne Weir who is one of my favorite foodies. She stays under the radar but her recipes are spot on and I love her style. I'm going to share her recipe for Warm Stilton and Mushroom Galette with you and let you guess where I took my shortcuts. Here's her recipe.

Mushroom Galette...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, courtesy of Joanne Weir

Ingredients:
Crust:
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, frozen in the freezer 1 hour
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons ice cold butter, cut into 12 pieces
4 tablespoons sour cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup ice water
Filling:
1/4 ounce dry porcini mushrooms
1 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 green onions, white and green, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon freshly chopped rosemary
1/2 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme
1 pound cultivated or button mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 ounces Stilton or other blue-veined cheese

Directions:
1) To make crust: Place flour and salt in a food processor and pulse two times to combine. Add butter and pulse several times until most of the mixture is size of bread crumbs with a few pieces remaining pea sized. Dump mixture out onto a work surface in a pile. Spread it out a little. Make a well in center of mixture. Whisk together sour cream, lemon juice and water; add half of liquid to well. With your fingertips, mix liquid with dry mixture until large lumps hold together. Remove large lumps and repeat with remaining liquid, using as much liquid as needed to hold dough together. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
2) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place dry porcini mushrooms in a small bowl, cover with boiling water and let sit 30 minutes. Drain mushrooms and reserve liquid for another use. Finely mince mushrooms and reserve.
3) In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt butter. Add green onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 5 minutes. Add rosemary and thyme and continue to cook 1 minute. Increase heat to high, add fresh and minced dried mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are soft and liquid from mushrooms has completely evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool.
4) Roll dough on a floured surface to make a 12-inch circle. Place on a baking sheet. In a bowl, combine Stilton and mushrooms. Spread mixture over dough, leaving a 1-1/2-inch border around edges. Fold uncovered edge of pastry over mushrooms and cheese, pleating it to make it fit. There will be an opening in center of tart. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes. Slide galette onto a serving plate. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.
Yield: 6 first course servings.

You might also enjoy these recipes:
Roasted Vegetable Galettes - The Baking Barrister
Ham and Cheese Galettes - Chow and Chatter
Savory Galettes - A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen
Savory Goat Cheese Parmesan Galette - Use Real Butter
Cabbage and Mushroom Galette - Lisa is Cooking
Zucchini Galette - A Good Appetite

Plum Tart with Streusel Topping

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...We do our green market loop every weekend when farm stands are open. The trail begins in the produce section of our Saturday Market and then heads past the city limits to farms, where we can actually measure the growth of food from one week to the next. The weekly run for provisions usually works well, but I occasionally find fruits and vegetables ganging up on me. This week I had to deal with surplus corn and plums before new stores could be brought in. I decided to use the plums to make a tart, and because I was using red and blue varieties of varying sweetness, I thought it best to use a streusel topping to assure they would not be too tart when baked. Even with that, you'll find this to be a just sweet tart and scheduling trumpet practice following dessert would be unwise. In order to proceed you will need pastry for a one crust pie. Homemade is, of course, best, but use whatever is easiest and most convenient for you. This dessert is about the plums, not the pastry. This is really easy to do and if you are fond of European desserts you'll love this tart tart. It is very juicy and I think it's best served warm. Here's the recipe.

Plum Tart wit Streusel Topping...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, inspired by The Cookworks

Ingredients:
Pastry for 1 9-inch tart or pie pan
8 large purple plums, pitted and thinly sliced
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Streusel Topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a pie or tart pan with pastry. Set aside.
2) Toss plums with brown sugar and cinnamon. Pile plum mixture into pastry shell.
3) Combine flour, sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles cornmeal. Sprinkle streusel evenly over plums.
4) Bake for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for 20 minutes longer. Serve warm. Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

You might also enjoy these recipes:
Plum Jam with Ginger and Vanilla - Cotto e Crudo
Plum Honey - How I Cook
Plum Buckle - One Perfect Bite
Plum Custard Pie with Almond Crust
Cinnamon Streusel Plum Cake - My Kitchen in the Rockies
Double Crusted Plum Crisp - Two Peas and Their Pod
Plum and Raspberry Clafouti - Cafe Leilee