Blue Cheese, Bacon and Creme Fraiche Puff Pastry Pinwheels

For our New Years Eve party, I made pinwheels. I did 3 different kinds of cold pinwheels and then decided to try and make a warm version. Here's the result

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sour cream
6 oz creme fraiche
Bacon strips - not cooked
Blue cheese
1 Puff pastry packet

Open up the puff pastry packet and roll out.

Mix the sour cream and creme fraiche together and spread on the puff pastry, leaving about an inch on one end for it to stay together once rolled up.

Lay slices of blue cheese over the spread

Then lay 2 strips of bacon next to each other, the length of the pastry. Repeat, alternating the cheese and bacon.

Roll up tight and wrap with baking paper and refridgerate until ready to cook.

Heat oven to 350°

Slice the roll into 1 inch (or a little thicker) slices and then glaze with an egg wash.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Place on a plate lined with paper towels. After about 5 minutes - move to a cookie cooling rack in order to help them stay crispy. Once totally cooled on the rack, they'll stay crispy. You can also eat them a few minutes after taking them out of the oven, they are delicious warm or cold!

Enjoy!

Ham, Bacon and Chedder Pinwheels

These are something I came up with after making 2 other kinds of pinwheels for our New Years party.

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese
2 Tbsp sour cream
1 Tbsp Horseradish cream (or horseradish apple cream)
1/2 - 1 cup shredded chedder
Deli slice honey ham
Bacon - fried crispy
Tortillas

Mix the first 4 ingredients together and spread evenly over a tortilla

Then sprinkle with crushed crispy bacon pieces

Then lay ham on top of the spread

 Spread some more of the cheese mix on top of the ham so that it sticks together when you roll it up

 

Then roll up and refridgerate. Once chilled, cut into 1 - 1 1/2 inch slices

These made great appetizers at our New Years party.

You can get creative, add other ingredients, lettuce or baby spinach, spring onions or chives. Enjoy!

Crab Pinwheels

I found this recipe on food.com it turned out great. I made some changes, because I wanted just a tad more flavor.

 Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup crab meat
8 oz cream cheese
2 Tbsp sour cream
3 green onions, chopped small
1 green pepper, chopped small (I used 1/2)
1 red pepper, chopped small (I used 1/2)
1 1/2 cups grated chedder cheese
Tortillas

I added:
1 Tbsp soy sauce
Dash of Garlic powder
Dash of Onion powder

Put all the ingredients in a bowl (except tortillas)

Mix well and then put a large spoonful on a tortilla

Spread evenly over the entire tortilla

Roll up and then cover with tin foil and refridgerate.

Once chilled, take out and slice into inch thick pieces. 

I was a little hesitant to make these, I wasn't sure how the crab meat would taste with tortillas, but I have to say, they are delicious! They were gobbled up at the New Years party.

Hope you like them! 

Blue Cheese, Cranberry, and Walnut Pinwheels

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese
4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
1 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup green onions, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
Salt & pepper
4 large tortillas

Put all the ingredients in a bowl (except the tortillas, of course)

Mix together until everything is evenly distributed

Spread on a tortilla and then roll up and refridgerate

After about an hour, take the roll out of the fridge and slice.

If you don't like blue cheese you can use feta as well. These have such a unique taste, a grown up twist on pinwheels.

Enjoy! 

Swedish Tea Ring: A Cowles Christmas Tradition

Swedish tea ring, a Cowles family tradition.

For as long as I can remember my mom has been making this on Christmas eve or the day before so that it would be ready to eat Christmas morning. We ALWAYS had to have breakfast first, then dad would read from the Bible, then mom would make us kids get in front of the tree so she could take our picture (something we complained about like toddlers...into our 20's)...and then and ONLY then were we allowed to open our gifts...the exception of course being the one year mom and dad bought my brother a pug puppy...that couldn't be kept secret through breakfast. I got the recipe from www.tasteofhome.com credit should be given where it's due. Of course my mom had her own recipe, which I believe is out of an old Betty Crocker cookbook.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1-1/2 cups warm water (110° to 115°)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1-1/4 teaspoons salt
• 5-1/2 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries, patted dry
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 
  ICING:
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 to 2 tablespoons fat-free milk

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the sugar, oil, egg whites, salt and 1 cup flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a bowl coated with cooking spray, turning once to coat the top.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Combine the walnuts, cherries, brown sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Punch dough down; roll into an 18-in. x 12-in. rectangle.

Brush with butter;

sprinkle with nut mixture to within 1/2 in. of edges.

Roll up jelly-roll style, starting with a long side; pinch seam to seal.

Place seam side down on a 14-in. pizza pan coated with cooking spray; pinch ends together to form a ring.

With scissors, cut from outside edge two-thirds of the way toward center of ring at scant 1-in. intervals.

Separate strips slightly; twist to allow filling to show.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.

In a small bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and enough milk to achieve desired consistency; drizzle over warm tea ring. Yield: 1 ring (24 slices).

Bacon Wrapped Pork Medallions with a Pepper Cognac Cream Sauce.(Caution: Calorie BOMB!)

Markus, my incredible husband, really enjoys this dish. It's actually not very hard to make, but man, is it loaded with calories! You can adjust it by using milk instead of cream and tossing out the bacon and not using as much butter...but the taste won't be the same. Milk just doesn't compare to cream and creme fraiche.

Ingredients:

Pork tenderloin cut into 1 - 2 inch thick medallions
Bacon
1 Tbsp pepper corns - crushed roughly
1 8oz container cream
1 4 oz container plain creme fraiche
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 water, pork broth or white wine (for deglazing the pan)
Pepper
salt
1/2 onion chopped small
2 cloves garlic minced
** 1 shot congac (whiskey or rum)** totally optional, but gives it an extra kick in taste (the alcohol boils out)

First cut your tenderloin into medallions of equal thickness

Then if you want - marinate - I used a garlic italian mix, again, optional!

Let it marinate for about an hour...then wrap with bacon pieces and secure with toothpicks

Drizzle with the left over marinade and let sit at room temperature. Heat a pan with about 1 Tbsp oil and place 4 pieces of pork in at a time...

...Just sear the two sides without bacon

Then place back into baking dish. Preheat oven to 375°-400° When all the pieces are seared and the oven is heated, pop the pan into the oven.

Now fry your bacon, but in the same pan, you'll want all the flavor.

Once the bacon is nice and crispy remove from the pan and place on paper towels

Now deglaze your pan, use broth, water or white wine. Once the pan is mostly clean, pour the juice from the deglazing into a mug to use again in a few steps.

Put in about 2 Tbsp butter and melt, then add your crushed peppercorns

and then your onions and garlic

saute until soft and then add the juice that you got from deglazing the pan, along with the cream, creme fraiche, a little bit of salt and pepper and if you want a pork boullion cube.

turn down your heat, stir every few minutes and heat it through. Then add your shot (if using) and two pieces of bacon that have been crushed up, the other two are for garnish.

This should all take about 20 minutes or so...let the sauce warm back up after the shot and then pull your meat out of the oven...it will only take about 30 minutes to cook. Let it rest for a few minutes and take out the toothpicks. This dish goes great with rice. Today that's what we had, plus a typical styrian salad.

I also sprinkled some fresh chives cut from our garden

Hope you like it if you try it! :)