puff pastry

Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie with Asparagus and Mushrooms

This chicken Pot Pie—one of my favorite comfort food recipes—is a lightened-up version thanks to a puff pastry crust, loads of fresh veggies, and a creamy yet lower-fat and lower-calorie sauce that brings all the flavors together.

This recipe is brought to you by Almond Breeze

Chicken pot pie, with its homemade buttery crust and thick creamy sauce, rings in the comfort food season each and every Fall and then continues well into the cozy vibes of winter. Who’s with me in calling this pure comfort in a bowl?

But when winter gives way to spring and we start easing into our summery daze, those cravings for traditional chicken pot pie get a literal gut-check when faced with the fact it’s time to transition from hiding underneath winter’s cocooning cardigan sweaters to strutting our stuff in summer shorts and sassy swimsuits.

But that’s what I love about this lighter chicken pot pie recipe: It cures my still-holding-strong comfort food cravings (because do they ever really disappear?) with a healthier adaptation of ingredients, making it a favorite home-cooked dinner no matter what season it shows off in.

continue to the recipe… about Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie with Asparagus and Mushrooms

Puff Pastry Smoked Salmon and Goat Cheese Quiche

Thanks to a few staples you can keep in your fridge and freezer, this quick and simple quiche comes together fast thanks to a puff pastry crust filled with custard-ey eggs, smoked salmon, and crème fraîche or goat cheese.

This post has been updated with new photos and a few tweaks to the recipe. Enjoy!

Keeping long-lasting basic ingredients on hand in the fridge, freezer, and panty easily solves the “what’s for dinner” question. And with this super simple, quick quiche recipe, you won’t have to ponder that question for breakfast, brunch or lunch either.

We’ve definitely been on a breakfast kick and quiche has been top of mind. And I don’t mean breakfast for breakfast, but for dinner instead. One of my favorite things growing up is when my dad would break out the big electric frying pan in the evening and sauté mushrooms and bacon for Grandma’s Eggs. What kid doesn’t think breakfast for dinner is some sort of cosmically altered universe? And it’s an easy way for mom and dad to look like we’re ‘breaking the rules’ and going against society.

What rebels we are.
continue to the recipe… about Puff Pastry Smoked Salmon and Goat Cheese Quiche

Pigs In a Puff Pastry Blanket

Everyone loves the simple bite of pigs in a blanket enveloped in a bread dough. But when you wrap these little hot dogs in flaky puff pastry, this appetizer heads to whole new heights of deliciousness.

I for one am a bona fide hot dog aficionado. I’ve always loved ’em, and I always will. Slather those puppies with a truck load of pickle relish, a drizzle of ketchup and mustard, and then pop them into a soft, buttery bun and this girl is in heaven.

That’s the downtown way to eat a hot dog.

The uptown way to eat a hot dog is a bit more refined when they’re wrapped in buttery, flaky pastry dough to create a delicately puffed built-in bun. They’re just as appreciated at an elegant dinner party as a brawling Super Bowl party.

And one of the best parts about them is they’re an appetizer that’s easy to make on the run for a haute and hot diggity dog.continue to the recipe… about Pigs In a Puff Pastry Blanket

Mini Hot Dog Rolls and My Academy Award Recipe Round-Up

Paparazzi-chased limousines and never-ending flash of camera flashes. Form-fitted, haute couture-dressed beauties dripping in diamonds floating down the cascading red carpet. Acceptance speeches that have been rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed because, “It’s just an honor to be nominated.” Uh-huh. We’ve heard that one before.

The Academy Awards telecast is one of my favorite TV nights of the year, when the pomp and circumstance of Oscar’s big night and the celebrity falderal come front and center and we cheer—and jeer—the winners and the losers of Hollywood’s biggest popularity contest.

Which makes it the perfect night for us to pop some champers ourselves, invite some friends over and party like the Hollywood royalty we aren’t.

Who will be the big winner? It’s anyone’s guess with Vegas bookies as nervously sweaty about the odds as the ravenous, 10-day cleanse-ed actresses starvingly awaiting Wolfgang’s braised short ribs to be served.

For me, I have my odds-on favorite to win and a recipe to honor it in all the glory it’s leading man and his abs deserves.

Ever since the 1996 Golden Globes, when Brad—yeah, we’re on a first name basis, just don’t tell my husband—won the award for Best Supporting Actor and thanked his “love o’ my life, the angel Gwyneth Paltrow”—oh, if only that had worked out—I have been rooting for the poor little guy who just can’t catch a break to win at The Big Show. Maybe this will be his coup de grace, the one thing that will put him on a cover of a magazine.

So what’s my tribute to the big night?continue to the recipe… about Mini Hot Dog Rolls and My Academy Award Recipe Round-Up

Puff Pastry with Sabayon Custard and Strawberries

I just couldn’t let Valentine’s Day creep by without one more last-minute contender in my favorite heart recipe category.

I got all inspired to create this today when I had some left over puff pastry I was using for an upcoming post that is polar opposite of this one. But I didn’t want the leftover, thawed pastry to go to waste. BOOM! Inspiration. The cookie cutters were still out, littering the countertop after our Valentine’s Sugar Cookie baking extravaganza, so how about some heart-shaped puffs sprinkled with sugar sweetness. Okay, good to go.

Now what to add to my little heart cuties?

Earlier in the day Smudge was bugging me to make, oh what was that? Yes, her usual obsession: Pie. She was trolling through her kid’s pie cookbook and lit upon a strawberry tart-like sweetness. Okay, strawberries are valentine-ey and whip cream certainly has its history with romance. So that’ll work for the topping.

So I had the berry part and the whip cream part, but must have some goo to pull it all together. Pudding would be the ticket. Vanilla? Chocolate? Banana? Nah. Let’s go something a little more celebratory for V-day. A quick raid of the pantry and ohhhhh, YES. My go-to boozey add-in: Marsala wine.

continue to the recipe… about Puff Pastry with Sabayon Custard and Strawberries

Baked Apple Cups

Our neighbor has an apple tree. My daughter covets that tree. Patiently waiting. Waiting since spring, when I cut down our apricot tree that I don’t think she’s yet forgiven me for.

So now that the apples have finally ripened for harvest, we nonchalantly wandered over to check out the tree, and borrow a few apples. Yes mom, she said we could.

What to do with them apples? My Smudge’s request has been apple pie—again with the pie! When will this girl’s pie obsession be satiated? Um, maybe when I bake her a pie?

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

But with no time to make a full blown crust, I pulled a puff pastry from the freezer and baked up an alternative that put her pleadings on the back burner, for now…

4 from 25 votes

Baked Apple Cups

Fun and creative treat that can be whipped up in just 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 1/2 sheets frozen puff pastry
2 T melted butter
2 tsp sugar
3 apples cored and thinly sliced
2 T plus 1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp zested lemon rind

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thaw puff pastry dough and cut into six pieces, discarding remaining two pieces. Brush with melted butter and place into greased 6 X 1 cup muffin tins. Sprinkle pastry with refined sugar. Combine remaining ingredients reserving 1 tsp brown sugar. Divide between tins and sprinkle with remaining brown sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until pastry is golden. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Recipe Notes

adapted from Donna Hay's The Instant Cook

How about a few more apples that don’t fall far from the tree? Enjoy.

photo > Inspiring the Every Day

Michael shares his tidy parcels of goodness with his moist (thanks to the buttermilk) caramel-ey (thanks to the cream and sugar) and sinfully salty (thanks to the fleur de sal) Cinnamon Apple Cake, laced with salted caramel in Inspiring the Every Day‘s individual desserts. I’ll take two.

photo > Cookin’ Canuck

Dara, our favorite Cookin’ Canuck, has given her own spin to a recipe originating from Pam Anderson of Three Many Cooks, and created Apple Upside-Down Biscuits with Gala apples and complimentary nutmeg, cinnamon—plus the pièce_de_résistance, ice cream!

photo > From My Lemony Kitchen

Lisa’s secret to a crunchy, but light as air fritter is rice flour, which makes My Lemony Kitchen‘s Apple Fritters with Ice Cream a better than good, gluten-free dessert. And don’t forget the extra sweet topper of a piece of really good chocolate. Just for that extra gooey factor.

photo >Tiny Tea Room

Amy has a secret I too share, save yourself the headache and forget trying to make puff pastry from scratch. Tiny Tea Room‘s nuggets of Apple Almond Snail Pastries combine almond cream and an apple filling for the perfect pop-in-in-your-mouth dessert.

On another note, I am so excited to share with all of you the amazing talents that are contributing to the debut issue of FoodieCrush magazine. When will November 15 get here already? If you’re interested in advertising and partnership opportunities, contact me at heidi at foodiecrush dot com.

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please subscribe to foodiecrush and follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie with Asparagus and Mushrooms

Puff Pastry Smoked Salmon and Goat Cheese Quiche

Pigs In a Puff Pastry Blanket

Mini Hot Dog Rolls and My Academy Award Recipe Round-Up

Puff Pastry with Sabayon Custard and Strawberries

Baked Apple Cups