Winter Fruit Chutney Bites

For a recent slumber party with my foodie club, I was looking for a snack that was wintery, tasty (obviously), could be prepared ahead of time, and could play nicely with a cheese board. Enter fruit chutney. This appetizer met all those criteria. I made the chutney two days before the party, used storebought baguette crisps, did the onions the day of, then transported everything to my friend's house in jars, set the various elements on a tray, and invited my friends to assemble their own bites.

Most of the chutney recipes I looked at included onion in the chutney, but I decided to keep it separate, which frees me up to use the leftover chutney in a variety of ways. I imagine it'd be great served with ham or pork, dolloped atop french toast, stirred into pancake batter, mixed with butter and spread on toast, maybe even added to a citrusy smoothie or mixed into a drink.

Feel free to mix and match ingredients. Add some fresh orange juice or orange zest, use nutmeg or cloves instead of or in addition to the spices here, use thyme instead of rosemary, add a few cracks of black pepper to contrast the sweetness of the fruit, use different kinds of cheese ... basically, be creative and have fun with it!

Winter Fruit Chutney Bites
Yield: About 2 cups chutney and 3/4 to 1 cup caramelized onion
Adapted from Reluctant Entertainer; caramelized onion method from The Kitchn

Ingredients
1 Tbsp. butter
1 medium-large red onion, vertically sliced
Splash of wine, water, or balsamic vinegar (I used cheap chardonnay)

6 oz. fresh cranberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 to 1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
3 allspice berries, ground
1 cup peeled and chopped pear
1/2 cup peeled and chopped Granny Smith apple
1/8 cup crystallized ginger, diced
Juice from 1/2 of one lemon
1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Blue cheese crumbles
Bread slices, crackers, or toasted baguette slices
Fresh rosemary, minced

Directions
To caramelize the onions: In a medium to large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add the onions and stir well to get them nicely coated. Saute them for a couple of minutes, then reduce heat to low or medium-low, and let them hang out for a good 30 minutes or more, stirring every so often, until they're super soft and caramelized. Do keep an eye on them, because you don't want them to burn, but you do want them to caramelize. When they're looking good, increase the heat, add a splash of wine, water, or balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan, and let it cook until the liquid has mostly evaporated. Remove from heat.

To make the chutney: Pour cranberries into a colander, rinse and drain, and pick out any that look suspicious. If your cranberries are frozen, no need to thaw them. In a large saucepan (tall sides are your friend; this will splatter), combine brown sugar, water, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cranberries. Bring to a boil, ensuring the sugar dissolves. Then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Many of the berries will burst while simmering, so use a splatter screen if if you have one; otherwise, loosely cover the pot with a lid that's tilted to let steam out.

Add the pear, apple, and crystallized ginger, and continue simmering for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and cider vinegar. Taste, and if it's too puckery sweet, add just a bit more cider vinegar.

To serve: Spread some of the cranberry mixture on a your bread or carb of choice, top with some caramelized onion, sprinkle with blue cheese, and finish with a sprinkle of fresh rosemary.

Notes
You can assemble a whole bunch of these and arrange them on a tray, or you can set out the elements and let guests assemble their own. Personally, I like the latter approach because it leaves me available to interact with people instead of fussing over food, and leftovers are easier to pack up and reuse (i.e., no soggy pre-assembled bites that sit out for two hours and get gross).

Apricot Rose Tartines

One of the food delights I'm enjoying this year is a monthly gathering with a few foodie friends. Each month we pick a theme (like chocolate or pasta), and create a menu based on that theme. This month's theme was a spring-inspired high tea, with a menu infused with edible flowers and herbs. My contributions were these apricot rose tartines and some cucumber radish tartines.

I looked at a bunch of recipes, and drew inspiration especially from recipes in Wild Spice and Honey and Co., but ended up cobbling together something pretty distinct from anything I found online or in my slowly growing cookbook library. If I were a really legit food blogger, I'd make these tartines again to refine the ingredient quantities, instructions, and photography before blogging about them. But who has time for that? (And who can eat that much mascarpone without becoming ill or large?) So I've done my best to capture what I did, but these tartines were far from an exact science.

Apricot Rose Tartines
Yield: about 40 tartines
HercheyK original

Ingredients
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
6 whole black peppercorns
1/2 of a cinnamon stick
Approximately 40 dried apricots
1 tsp. orange blossom water
8 oz. mascarpone cheese, softened
1/2 cup fresh rose petals, very finely chopped
1 Tbsp. dried lavender buds
Fresh lemon zest, from about 1/2 of a lemon
Fresh orange zest, from about 1/3 of a medium-small orange
1 (8.3-oz.) baguette, sliced into rounds
A couple handfuls shelled pistachios
Fresh mint

Directions
To a medium saucepan add sugar, water, peppercorns (keep them whole), and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat so it's somewhere between a rapid simmer and a slow boil. Let the mixture cook for 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat.

While the sugar mixture is cooking, cut up your apricots into fat matchsticks--about 4 sticks per apricot. When your apricots are cut and your sugar mixture is finished cooking, fish out the cinnamon stick and peppercorns. Add the orange blossom water and the cut apricots to the pot. Stir it so the apricots get nicely coated with the syrup. Breathe in the glorious fragrance. Put a lid on the pot and pop it into the fridge (on a potholder) to chill and steep.

To make the spread, combine the mascarpone, rose petals, lavender, lemon zest, and orange zest in a bowl. Stir to combine well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to assemble the tartines.

Slice the baguette into rounds. I ended up with I think 43 slices not counting the ends, but it'll vary based on the exact length of your baguette and how thick your slices are.

Heat a dry skillet over medium-low heat and toast the pistachios for a few minutes, until they just start to toast. Be sure to shake or stir them frequently to keep them from burning. Remove them to a plate to cool. Chop them fairly finely.

Now's a great time to wash your fresh mint and set it out to air-dry. Right before assembling the tartines, chiffonade the fresh mint. Chiffonade is basically just a fancy way to say, slice it into really thin threads.

When the apricot mixture has chilled sufficiently, assemble your tartines. Spread each with a schmear of the mascarpone mixture. Arrange a few apricot pieces on top--about the equivalent of one apricot per tartine. Sprinkle pistachios over the top. Finally, top with a few ribbons of fresh mint.

Note: If you don't have orange blossom water, squeeze in some fresh orange juice or add some orange zest to the sugar-apricot mixture. It won't give you the same floral quality you'll get from orange blossom water, but it should still be quite yummy. However, I very much recommend getting some orange blossom water! It tastes truly magical, and you can get it on Amazon if you can't find it locally. For more orange blossom water uses, see my Orange Blossom Iced Tea post and the Tunisian Orange Almond Cake recipe linked in my Flavor Trip to Tunisia post.

Cranberry Crostini with Goat Cheese and Brie

As we approach Christmas day, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite recipes I've made in a while. Though I made these crostini for Thanksgiving, the sauce smelled just like Christmas! I thought it was the perfect way to celebrate Thanksgiving and look forward to putting up Christmas decorations the next day.

These crostini are wonderfully simple to make, but look and taste fancy. I think the blend of spices was pretty much perfect. No single flavor took over the dish, but instead created a symphony of sweet, spiced, tart, rich, creamy, and crunchy.

I made some of mine with goat cheese and some with Brie, and I can't decide which I liked better. If doing small, two-bite bread slices from a skinny baguette, you're probably good either way. If doing larger slices from a fatter loaf, Brie might be a bit rich.

This recipe is very portable and easy to make ahead. Toast the bread slices and, once they're cool, store in a large zip bag until ready to serve. The cranberry sauce can be made days in advance and stored in the fridge. Just warm it up a bit in the microwave right before serving. I traveled with all my components separate, and let people assemble their own crostini. That way each person could choose which cheese(s) they wanted, the bread didn't get soggy from sitting too long, and any leftovers were easy to take home.

Speaking of leftovers, they do well on crackers, leftover turkey, leftover dinner rolls, and pretty much anything else you can think of. One of my friends says the cranberry sauce is good on pancakes, and I may or may not have made french toast topped with leftover cheeses and cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Crostini with Goat Cheese and(or) Brie

Adapted slightly from Cookie and Kate
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients
1 baguette or small loaf of artisan whole grain bread, sliced into 1/2-inch thick slices
Olive oil
Salt
12-oz. bag fresh cranberries
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. allspice (or equal parts cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg)
Zest of 1/2 an orange
10 oz. (total) goat cheese, Brie, ricotta, or cream cheese, or some combination thereof - at room temperature

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly brush both sides of bread slices with olive oil, and arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet or two. Lightly sprinkle with salt. Toast the bread in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden on both sides, turning them halfway. Set aside to cool, and turn off the oven.

Rinse the cranberries and throw out any bad ones; set aside. In a saucepan, whisk together the honey, water, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Bring to a gentle boil over medium to medium-high heat, whisking often. Add the cranberries and cook, stirring frequently, until cranberries have popped and the sauce is the consistency you like. The longer you cook it, the more saucy and less chunky it will get. Beware that the cranberries may try to attack you while they're popping. Remove from heat and stir in the orange zest.

To assemble the crostini, spread each slice of bread with cheese, then top with cranberry sauce.