Healthy Twists

Well, another football season has come and gone (I know, most of you are devastated). On Sunday we had 18 people over to watch the big game, which was a tight squeeze given our small condo, but we made it work. I think a good time was had by all, and as usual we had lots of yummy food and drink to share.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I ended up making pulled-pork sliders using some precooked pulled pork from Costco that I heated up with Mitch’s homemade chipotle BBQ sauce and serves on sweet Hawaiian rolls. Good stuff.

I also made “my famous” sangria, and I don’t know why I am always surprised when the pitcher is drained 20 minutes after the party starts. I never make enough! I added an apple to this batch, because I thought it’d be pretty. I was right.

What a way to get those antioxidants

Anyway, moving on. I wanted to share the recipe for vegetarian-friendly snack I made, because, if I do say so myself, it was the hit of the party. Well that and Mitch’s fresh, Parmesan fried zucchini, but it’s hard to compete with that.

I was proud of myself because I didn’t follow a recipe (although I did look online for assembly and cooking-time advice). I’m going to experiment with puff pastry more in the future, because the effort-to-result ratio made this my kind of snack. One guest said it tasted like Spanikopita. My vegetarian friend said it tasted like it had pepperoni in it, but what does she know (just kidding, friend!). The flavors were really balanced, and they weren’t greasy, salty, or bland.

Puff pastry isn’t exactly healthy, but I liked that I could control the ingredients of the filling and I knew that my vegetarian guests would have something they could enjoy.

Sun-dried Tomato and Spinach Appetizers

Ingredients:

• 8 oz (or so) sundried tomatoes (see note)
• 1 (8 or 10 oz) package frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
• ½ or 1 large shallot, chopped
• 3-4 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• Pepper to taste
• 1 package (2 sheets) puff pastry, thawed if frozen (I used Pepperidge Farm)
• Flour for cookie sheet
• 1 egg, beaten with 1-2 Tbsp water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. If you have a food processor, pulse together the first 5 ingredients a few times until everything is combined and tomatoes/shallot are chopped.
3. If you don’t have a food processor you poor thing, chop the tomatoes and shallot finely and in a medium bowl, stir everything together until combined.
4. Lightly flour a cookie sheet and unwrap the puff pastry carefully. Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut each sheet into 8 equal (or close to it) pieces.
5. Put 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons spinach mixture on each rectangle and fold over. Seal each “pouch” with a fork, and prick the top of each pastry to allow steam to escape.
6. Brush the tops of each pastry with the egg wash and bake 15 to 20 minutes, until browned and puffed to your liking.
7. Let cool on the pan for a few minutes before removing to serving platter. Can be served warm or room temperature. Makes 16.

Notes:

• If you’ve never worked with puff pastry before, read a few instructions first.  I didn’t prick the pastry (TWSS??) but I might next time as they were probably more puffy than I would have wanted.
• I used a package of sun-dried tomatoes that were already plumed up, but that weren’t packed in oil. How do they do that? Anyway, if you get the kind packed in oil (or water), make sure you drain and dry it really well.
• You can prep everything (except the egg wash) a day (or more?) ahead of time.
• You could mix this up lots of ways: different herbs/spices, garlic, more or less cheese or a different type of cheese.

If you give these a try, let me know! I’m about to go relax and watch TV before bedtime, but my question for you today is:

Have you ever done a form of exercise where, in the middle of it, you thought “WTF AM I DOING”? I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to, on the exercise front in my next post. (If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already know!)

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