puff pastry – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

8-42: Beef Tenderloin Deluxe

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses December 25, 2021December 23, 2021beef, beef bouillon, beef broth, beef tenderloin, black pepper, brown sugar, butter, canola oil, carrots, celery, celery root, Christmas, Christmas Eve, dinner, egg wash, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, julienned, mushrooms, parsnips, party food, peeled, peppercorns, puff pastry, salt, sautéed, sliced, stuffed, untested, vegetable oil, vegetables, yellow onions

Merry Christmas! In honor of the holiday, I’ve chosen to share a “fancy” one with you today: 8-42: Beef Tenderloin Deluxe. I’ve had requests for this recipe in the past (prior to posting it) from folks preparing for holiday meals, so now it’s time to share it with all of you. Consider these essentially individual Beef Wellingtons–perfect for a special occasion.

This is one of those recipes that you plan for in advance and cook to impress your family and friends–it’s not just for another Wednesday night dinner.

11-20: Pastry Fish with Shrimp

Jamie Martin Group 11: Fish & Seafood, Section 2: Main Courses August 10, 2021August 10, 2021all-purpose flour, bass, black pepper, butter, chopped, cod, cooked shrimp, curry powder, dill, dinner, fairly easy, fairly expensive, fish, garnish, half-and-half, herbs and spices, parsley, party food, pastry, puff pastry, roux, salt, sautéed, seafood, shellfish, shrimp, spinach, untested, whipping cream, whitefish, yellow onions

If you happen to have a “pastry fish” laying around, here’s a good use for it (I know you’ve been waiting for someone to tell you what to do with it). 11-20: Pastry Fish with Shrimp is so 1980s that I think we can bring it back around again for a 2020s-era reboot–this just screams “novelty food that looks better than it tastes”.

Maybe I’ve just been watching too much Great British Baking Show (or Great British Bake Off, as it is known in its native UK) on Netflix lately, but this sounds like a wacky cooking challenge just waiting to happen.

8-37: Roast Beef in Puff Pastry

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses June 3, 2020June 3, 2020beef, brushed, butter, Cheddar, cheese, chilled, cooked beef, cooked chicken, cooked shrimp, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, garlic, green onions, leeks, lunch, minced, Monterey Jack, mushrooms, puff pastry, roast beef, sautéed, sliced, slit, snacks, turnovers, untested

I’ve already covered various types of turnovers (beef/spinach/crab), and 8-37: Roast Beef in Puff Pastry can now be added to that list, even if it’s not officially referred to by Simply Delicious as a turnover.

I wasn’t able to pinpoint when ready-to-bake puff pastry was first available in stores–my guess would be somewhere around the 1960s-70s, but I could be totally wrong.

Think of this recipe as a fancy Hot Pocket, because that’s essentially what it is. Look at you, all sophisticated with your fancy Hot Pocket.

15-26: Strawberry Pastries

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods November 11, 2019July 30, 2020chilled, cold desserts, custard, dessert, dough, dusted, Easter, egg yolks, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, fruit, granulated sugar, half-and-half, pastry, powdered sugar, puff pastry, sifted, Silpat, sliced, spring, strawberries, summer, untested, vanilla bean, vegetarian, wax paper, whipped, whipping cream

Still working my way through the backlog–we’re up to Easter with 15-26: Strawberry Pastries. Strawberries start to creep up everywhere in the springtime, and this dessert dish is a pretty classic use of them. 🍓

This recipe suggests using vanilla custard, but I’ve seen other similar recipes use fillings like Bavarian cream or crème fraîche. This is essentially a fancier version of strawberry shortcake (which often uses whipped cream), so I suppose it’s all dependent on how heavy or light you’d like to go with it. 🍰

6-58: Chicken Pie with Puff Pastry

Jamie Martin Group 06: Poultry & Game, Section 2: Main Courses October 15, 2019October 15, 2020all-purpose flour, American, basil, bay leaves, black pepper, boiled, boneless, breasts, butter, carrots, celery, chicken, chopped, deboned, diced, dinner, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, fairly inexpensive, filling, frozen, herbs and spices, individual, lunch, melted, pearl onions, pie crust, pies, pot pie, puff pastry, roux, salt, sautéed, simmered, skinless, slit, strained, sweet peas, tender-crisp, thighs, untested, vegetables

Yo. As I’ve said previously, I take breaks from this project when life gets in the way. This summer was BANANAS, and fall seems to be quickly passing me by as well. I haven’t given up on cooking and photographing recipes, but I seem to have dropped the ball on actually writing them up and posting them.

I made the first attempt to rectify this earlier today when I uploaded about 600 pictures from two memory cards that I’ve filled up since May of this year. I made the second when I set up all the folders to start organizing the pictures (we’re talking over 50 recipes here).

Here’s the third: a recipe I cooked back sometime in early 2019, 6-58: Chicken Pie with Puff Pastry. This has been in various draft stages since April, and I’m finally finishing it NOW. This isn’t even part of the memory card dump from today–that’s how far behind I am.

This is essentially chicken pot pie. I mean, how is it not? The major difference between this and Marie Callender’s is that this one only has pastry on top.

13-8: Vegetarian Calzone

Adam Martin Group 13: Vegetarian Dishes, Section 2: Main Courses April 21, 2018October 28, 20201998 dinner, appetizers, calzone, carrots, celery, chopped, diced, dinner, eggs, fairly easy, frozen, garam masala, garlic, healthy, herbs and spices, Hutton house, Indian, inexpensive, Italian, leeks, lunch, minced, olive oil, party food, pizza, puff pastry, purée, revisited, salt, sliced, steamed, sweet peas, tomato paste, tomato sauce, tomatoes, tzatziki sauce, vegetables, vegetarian

Much like Ben Wyatt, a late-addition character from NBC’s Parks and Recreation, I have enjoyed my fair share of calzones. Hawaiian calzones are one of my favorite types, pineapple and Canadian bacon can’t be beat! However, when wanting to eat in a health conscious manner, 13-8: Vegetarian Calzone is a great meat-free alternative.

Preparing this dish was super easy. A lot of time can be saved by using ready-bought puff pastry.

Editor’s note: This was a dish I made as part of a big family dinner I cooked with a family friend when I was 13–my step-grandmother is vegetarian and we made this so she’d have something to eat. My mom made her a baked potato for Thanksgiving once, complete with a toothpick-and-construction paper turkey head, wings, and tail that I painstakingly spent the day crafting. She did not appreciate the turkey-potato (too closely resembled an animal for her…go figure), but she did like this calzone.

17-44: Homemade Danish Pastries

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods May 29, 2017September 21, 2020all-purpose flour, applesauce, baked goods, breakfast, brunch, butter, cake yeast, chilled, chocolate, creamy, custard, Danish, dark chocolate, dollop, dough, egg wash, eggs, fairly hard, fairly inexpensive, flaky, folded, glazed, granulated sugar, layers, MD2017, melted, milk, Mother's Day, party food, pastry, powdered sugar, proofed, pudding, puff pastry, salt, sliced, untested, vegetarian, yeast

Strap in ladies and gents, this one’s a long one. As part of my Mother’s Day brunch this year (MD2017), I thought I’d raise the bar and attempt some of the harder ones in the book–nothing impresses your mother like showing her you can cook (and bake). My mom LOVES pastries, so I made her 17-44: Homemade Danish Pastries to nosh on while I worked on trying to serve up 5-4: Eggs Benedict. Luckily, these turned out better than my hollandaise sauce attempt did.

Obviously, mine look a bit different than what’s pictured on their card–we’ll get into all the decisions and pitfalls that led to that being the case after the jump.

1-5: Pigs in a Blanket

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters December 6, 2016December 24, 2019all-purpose flour, American, appetizers, black olives, butter, cocktail, cocktail sauce, cottage cheese, dough, egg wash, eggs, fairly easy, franks, frozen, hors d'oeuvres, hot dogs, inexpensive, milk, party food, pastry wheel, puff pastry, sausage, Silpat, TGV 2016, Thanksgiving, toothpicks, vegetarian, wieners, yellow mustard

The second of two appetizer dishes I made for Thanksgiving this year (TGV 2016), 1-5: Pigs in a Blanket aren’t a surprise to many who grew up with these being served at various parties & gatherings. I’ve been looking for an event like this to make this recipe for, and I finally found it–it doesn’t get more traditional American than Thanksgiving.

This was the sixth of seven dishes I cooked for this year’s feast, and I made these the day of Thanksgiving (Thursday 11/24) while I waited for the whole wheat kernels I needed for 17-5: Hot Seedy Rolls to finish soaking. I waited until the day of to make these because they really taste best as fresh as you can make them.

Since this is technically being posted after Thanksgiving, these work well for Christmas, parties, or really even just a Saturday night Netflix marathon. The stains and wrinkling of the card (I scanned these over two years ago at this point) tell me someone else may have whipped up some of these sometime in the past, although no other clues exist pointing to whom or when. The tagline at the bottom is right though–most everyone can get on board with these “pigs”.

1-7: Trader Vic’s Crab Turnovers

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters July 25, 2016July 20, 2020appetizers, Asian, black pepper, canola oil, cheese, chili powder, chili sauce, cocktail sauce, crab, cream cheese, creamy, crispy, deep fryer, deep-fried, Dijon mustard, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, favorites, filling, fried, garlic, garlic powder, herbs and spices, hors d'oeuvres, lobster, lunch, party food, pastry wheel, Polynesian, puff pastry, salt, seafood, shellfish, shrimp, snacks, Tiki, Trader Vic's, turnovers, untested, Worcestershire sauce

I had mentioned in 9-26: Crispy Beef Turnovers and 13-13: Spinach Turnovers that there was a third turnover recipe that I had intended to make (for a trio of turnovers), but that the third recipe required a different cooking method (deep-frying versus baking), so I chose to shelve it until I could do it right.

Well, I happened to have a (borrowed, since returned) mini deep-fryer in my possession recently, so 1-7: Trader Vic’s Crab Turnovers (the fabled third turnover recipe) was finally about to become a reality.

9-26: Crispy Beef Turnovers

Jamie Martin Group 09: Ground Meat & Sausage, Section 2: Main Courses November 17, 2015July 6, 2020appetizers, Asian, baked goods, bean sprouts, beef, black pepper, brushed, canola oil, celery, Chinese/dark soy sauce, cornstarch, crispy, dough, egg wash, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, filling, ground beef, ground meat, hors d'oeuvres, julienned, leeks, mushrooms, party food, pastry, puff pastry, salt, sautéed, sherry, sliced, soy sauce, turnovers, untested

As I said in 13-13: Spinach Turnovers, the holiday season is upon us and therefore, you’ll need some recipes for dishes to take with you to a party, or at least to snack on while you binge-watch Netflix. 9-26: Crispy Beef Turnovers are the heartier, meatier companion to their spinach and crab brothers.

These are remarkably similar in execution to 13-13: Spinach Turnovers, so I suggest cooking the two at the same time if you want to add some variety to your dish. However, these are mighty tasty, and stand just fine on their own as well. If you have access to a deep-fryer, consider 1-7: Trader Vic’s Crab Turnovers for a crispy, Polynesian-inspired third option.

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