Caesar Salad - with your fingers

So Pioneer Woman posted a new recipe for Caesar Salad that you eat with your fingers. I have to admit that I've never eaten Caesar Salad without a fork. And since I'm all about experimentation here at foodiestudent I thought I'd give it a try.

I used a french baguette to make the croutons. I got this loaf from Walmart and it was surprisingly good. It was more dense than the ones from Safeway but was less crusty which made it much less messy to slice. It was perfect for making croutons.

I tried something new with the parmesan. I opted to go with chunks instead of the usual medium grate. I like the texture but I am going through a $14 block of parmesan way too quickly.

Here's the final result. Now, I have to say that the dressing was very easy to make and the croutons were incredibly tasty.

However, I was not a fan of using the full lettuce leaf and eating with my fingers. The issue was with balancing the croutons on the romaine leaves as they were picked up. If the lettuce was cut or torn and eaten with a fork then a balance of lettuce, dressing, crouton, and cheese could be enjoyed with every bite. And I'm all about the balance :)

Candied Pecans

A few years ago I ordered a salad in a restaurant. I don't remember which restaurant. I don't remember what kind of salad. But on that salad was something that I have never been able to forget... candied pecans. They were not only the highlight of the salad but they were the highlight of every salad I've ever had! They were THAT amazing :)

I've tried to duplicate that experience by making my own candied pecans. I've tried a couple of recipes and as soon as I found this one I stopped looking. They are so good I have often eaten them by the handful. Just warning you... :)

Let's begin......

The ingredients are simple. Salt, pepper, cayenne, sugar, corn syrup, and pecans.

First we place some plain old regular white sugar in a bowl. I made triple the recipe so normally you wouldn't need a bowl quite this big. Sorry Weeza, I forgot my ruler.

Then I added some white corn syrup. Hey, I was kind enough to leave the bottle in this picture so that'll give you some idea of the size of the bowl.

Then the kick... salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. If you don't like a kick then omit the cayenne. But I like kick so..... cayenne-orama :)

Mix it all together until it looks really greyish and disgusting. Give it a tiny taste just to make sure you haven't gone too far into pepper-land. Adjust the sugar-salt-pepper ratio accordingly.

Then mix in the nuts. Gently stir them for a minute or so to ensure they are evenly coated with the mixture.

And spread the nut mixture out on a foil lined cookie sheet. I normally use just pecans but this time I decided to use half pecans and half almonds. Do I live on the edge or what?

This was triple the recipe. I have made quadruple the recipe before but with that many nuts you will need to use two cookie sheets. The nuts should be a single layer only.

After baking for about 15 minutes the nuts came out of the oven and I spread them out on aluminum foil. The candy glaze on the nuts will harden very quickly so make sure you spread the nuts out using two forks.

When they have cooled to room temperature these nuts will keep in an airtight container for a week or so.

For the original recipe check it out on Smitten Kitchen's site... Sweet & Spicy Candied Pecans. There are some cool salad tips there too.

Puff Pastry Appetizer

A few days ago I blogged about making a puff pastry appetizer for a party. It was a totally made up recipe and I was quite proud of it so I made it again just for you to see, and maybe drool over ;)

Hello little puff pastry square. Welcome back into my life. I have missed you so. But the honeymoon is over and now I have to destroy you... mwa ha ha ha!

You are now a flatter version of your former self.

The box says to roll the square out to 12" X 12" but I got a little carried away and this was more like 15" X 15".

Then I took some pecans and gave them a rough chop. No need to make them smaller than this... we're looking for some crunch here, not pecan dust.

I placed 1/2 a block of cream cheese in the middle of the rolled out puff pastry. Then I topped it with the chopped pecans. Some overflowed... it's all good :)

Then I topped the whole pile with some brown sugar.... about 4 or 5 tablespoons. This looks like a lot of brown sugar but it really wasn't. It added some sweetness to the appetizer but definitely wasn't too much.

Then I brought the corners together at the top and pressed them together. I sealed any other openings by pressing the pastry together. A little water helps if the pastry is reluctant to cooperate. This made a nice sealed package so nothing could ooze out prematurely.

I sprayed the baking sheet with Pam but I doubt it was really necessary. And I love that this is small enough to bake in the toaster oven.

And here it is all toasty brown on top. Yum yum yum.

I cut open the pastry appetizer so you could see the innards but it's a little hard to see. You can see the cream cheese in the middle and there's a glimpse of the caramel (cooked brown sugar) and pecans on the left.

Lessons learned (as I am foodiestudent I have much to learn and take lessons away with every experiment):

1. The puff pastry box says unless you have a recipe, to bake the pastry at 425. However, as this recipe has a filling I think it would have worked better at about 400 for a slightly longer cooking time. The cream cheese would have had a better chance to melt and there were pockets of brown sugar that hadn't melted enough to be a caramel sauce so a little longer time in the oven would have rectified that.
2. The puff pastry rolled out was easily large enough for a whole 250g box of cream cheese to be used in the recipe.
3. This is a rich recipe so don't try to eat it all by yourself. The first few bites were very good but after that I felt obligated to eat it because it was so good but I felt very blah after a while because it was so heavy.

Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it yourself....

Cream Cheese Pastry Appetizer

1 sheet/block of frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 250g block of cream cheese (regular or light)
1/3 cup pecans, rough chopped
1/4 - 1/3 cup brown sugar
3 - 4 apples, sliced
lemon juice

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the puff pastry to about 12" X 12". Place the cream cheese on the center of the pastry. Top with pecans and brown sugar.

Bring corners of pastry up to the top of the cheese mound. Seal together in a decorative fashion using a drop or two of water if needed.

Bake in preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until toasty brown on top. Serve with sliced apples drizzled with lemon juice (to keep them from discoloring).