Saturday, October 3, 2009

Slow Travel Sunday Small Bites: SSB Week # 5 - Goat Cheese

This week's SSB ingredient is Goat Cheese and it was selected by fellow Slow Traveler and Blogger, Nancyhol, A Wine Lover's Wonderings. First, a big Welcome home to Nancy who just recently returned from her wonderful trip in Italy. Thank you so much for blogging throughout your trip and for sharing your wonderful experiences with us.

This was the first time that I have tried Goat Cheese and I have to say that I really liked it a lot! Thank you Nancyhol for selecting this week's ingredient.

I decided to go with a recipe I found on the website, Allrecipes.com. The recipe is for Mini Mushroom and Goat Cheese Tarts.



INGREDIENTS

1/2 sheet puff pastry
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 pound mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
4 teaspoons finely chopped fresh parsley (I used cilantro since I already had some)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking tray. Lay puff pastry out on a lightly floured surface and cut into 8 squares. Prick the squares in several places with a fork. Place the puff pastry squares on prepared baking sheet.

Bake the puff pastry squares for 7 minutes. Remove tray from the oven, flatten the squares using the backside of a spatula. Return puff pastry to the oven to bake until golden brown, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from oven.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a skillet over high heat. Cook and stir the mushrooms and garlic in the butter until mushrooms are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat.

Top the baked puff pastry squares evenly with the mushroom mixture. Crumble goat cheese over mushrooms and sprinkle with parsley.

14 comments:

  1. These look amazing! I can't wait to give this recipe a try . . . . once I return home that is. LOL

    Have a super weekend!

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  2. Yum-puff pastry, goat cheese and mushrooms. Looks great!

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  3. Am loving all these goat cheese recipes...this looks so good. Will try for sure.

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  4. Your mini mushroom and goat cheese tarts are making me hungry! What a great choice for your first goat cheese recipe!

    Thank you for the welcome home. I am glad you enjoyed my blog entries.

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  5. Puff pastry?!? You go girl! I'm impressed and this looks really great. I might have to give this a try - I've always been afraid of puff pastry and have never tried to make anything with it. Glad you liked the goat cheese - it's one of my favorite cheeses.

    Hope you had a nice weekend!

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  6. Hi Everyone, cool... thanks so much for your comments.

    Jerry, thank you. I think you might like it! Safe travels to you and Paul! And have a wonderful time over there in Greece. I'm looking forward to seeing your photos and hearing about your experiences. I would love to visit Greece too some day. I love Greek History and that's also the birth place of the Olympics!

    Cindy, thanks for your comments. I would never have thought to try goat cheese and I definitely never would have thought to put these ingredients together and was surprised that I liked it. Guess one never really knows until they try it.

    Barb, thanks for your comments. I'm really impressed with all the fantastic recipes for goat cheese and for all the ingredients. Really incredible talent from everyone. I love it!

    Nancy, thanks for our comments and for picking this week's ingredient. I love trying new things. Welcome home again and thanks so much for sharing your trip with us.

    Annie, :) well, I have to confess that this girl pre bought her puff pastry! Funny thing is I still messed up. the first time I baked it without unfolding it and after awhile when it wasn't baking and puffing, I figured out what I did wrong. I was supposed to have unfolded them. I had to toss them out. Luckily I bought a second box (just in case). I unfolded them and voila they puffed right up. They were good, but I bet it would be better if I made the puff pastry myself. Next time. :) Still with the mushrooms and cheese on top it was pretty good.

    Thanks again everyone and have a wonderful week.

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  7. Ha ha, love that story! That sounds like something I'd do (and aren't you glad you bought two boxes!).

    I didn't think that you'd made your puff pastry from scratch - I can't imagine how hard that must be. I was impressed that you'd tried something with the pre-made stuff! I'll have to give it a try and I'll try to remember to unfold it. :)

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  8. Hi Annie, :) Maybe I can do a final post after the cooking group is done with a collection of what I did right and what I did wrong." Okay, I have to share one more. Remember your couscous. Well the chickpeas was not the only mistake. I told this to my friend and we were laughing so hard. I prepared the chicken broth and the other ingredients. And in another pot a cooked the couscous. And so now I have the broth and the cooked couscous. I was wondering what I was supposed to do with the broth when it hit me that I was supposed to cook the couscous "in" the broth. Luckily I had more couscous left over in the box and cooked it in the broth then poured some of the already cooked couscous in the broth too. Well, it still turned out pretty good! :) Ever since then I buy an extra box or bag in case I make a mistake.

    You're right, I did think you thought I made the pastry puff from scratch, and didn't want to mislead you about my talents.:) Thank you for being impressed. It was my first time using pastry puff but aside from not unfolding it, it was pretty easy. :) The one really good thing about trying something new and making a mistake,is 99.99% of the time I won't make the same mistake. He, he. I'm really having a blast in this cooking group Annie (even with all my mistakes). Thanks for the encouragements.

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  9. Kathy, I love your yummy mini cheese tarts! I'm sure to give this one a try since I love mushrooms combined with goat cheese (like the fondue my daughter made).

    I don't bother too much with making my own pastry dough. I rather enjoy baking, using a few shortcuts than have my elbows deep in flour and lots of clean-up to do.

    I'm reading about your "confessions" and smiling. I have goofed up in the kitchen so many times and often when having company. It is part of the learning process. I recently finished reading Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France, and she had a few disasters in the kitchen while she was enrolled in the famous Cordon Bleu.


    You are wise to buy an extra bag or box of an ingredient. I don't want to think of the many times that I've had to make a last minute run to the grocery store to buy a second time a main ingredient.

    Love your story about the couscous. I bet you’ll remember this each time you eat couscous.

    Hope you had a great weekend and that your Monday is going great!

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  10. OMG, I'm about to laugh until I cry! I can just see the two pots sitting there! That is sooo funny.

    And yes, I think a Kathy's Cooking Bloopers post would be great. Everyone who cooks makes mistakes, it's inevitable (but not everyone will admit it!). I've had some fiascos myself, now that I think about it. The worst one was this pumpkin pie that boiled over all over the inside of my mom's oven, and made a horrible mess. I learned to put the pie plate on top of a cooking sheet, just in case.

    You are right about not making the same mistake twice!

    Thanks for the (second) laugh about my couscous recipe!

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  11. Hi Maria, thanks so much for your comments and I'm glad to hear that I'm in great company with the mistakes. Your fondue dish looks really delicious and with the mushrooms I thought hmmm, I think I will have to try this recipe too. All of your dishes looked really delicious. Julia Child's memoirs must be so interesting. I don't know too much about her life other than that her name is very well known to me. One day I will have to learn more about her experiences. I can only imagine what it was like for her to go to an elite school like that, make a few mistakes and still end up being a huge success. That's so great.

    Thanks so much for the pep talk. I'm really having a lot of fun and learning a lot. Have a wonderful evening Maria!

    Hi Annie,

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  12. Hi Annie, the publish button pushed itself before I was able to finish my comments. :)

    I'm glad you got a good laugh. It was so funny. And a strong Kudos to your fabulous recipe, my dish still turned out very delicious despite my mistakes. Your pumpkin pie story is very funny too! That's such a helpless feeling when things spill over. I don't blame you for putting a cookie sheet under the pie crust from that point on! Much easier to clean up a cookie sheet. I'm sure your mom had a good giggle about that episode. :)

    Yes, live and learn is another one of my mottos in life.

    Thanks so much to you and Maria for the pep talk and for sharing that you also make mistakes in the Kitchen. Have a great evening!

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  13. Kathy,

    I am going to try this recipe soon. It sounds amazing! Goat cheese is one of my favorite cheeses. I am glad you liked it.

    BTW, I am so behind on catching up with blogs, but I am hoping to have some more time here soon.

    I love your photo of the month, great shot of an amazing place. I have to say, the southwest is my favorite part of the country, we are so lucky that such wonders exist in our country.

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  14. Hi Candi, thanks so much for your comments. I hope you like it if you get a chance to try it.

    It's great to see you blogging again. We've missed you around here! I've been totally enjoying reading up on what you have been doing during your break. Hope you had a wonderful and relaxing time.

    I have to agree with you about the Southwest. We have some really amazing natural parks to enjoy and adventure into. When my focus is so much on traveling to Europe, I sometimes forget that we have a pretty amazing place here at home too.

    Thanks again and have a great weekend!

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It's me Trekcapri (aka Kathy). Thanks so much for visiting and leaving a comment.