Easter Appetite

Happy Belated Easter!

So yesterday--

As all my roommates escaped New York City and journeyed home to enjoy home cooked meals laden with motherly love... I was alone. In the dorm. Contemplating whether I should attempt to make puff pastry from scratch for the first time. Or not..

Well, let me back up--

It's not as if I did not try to take the short cut. I scoured the freezer sections of both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's for frozen puff pastry. Nada.

I must admit, I did briefly think: Oh, the good old days when I was completely ignorant to everything organic and could fold out a sheet of perfect puff pastry from Pepperidge Farms.

But then I remembered that those sheets aren't even made with butter. Instead, they use Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Shortening (Soybean and Cottonseed Oils Colored with Beta Carotene).... uh, no thanks.

Ultimately, I took one glance at my kitchen and vetoed the whole puff pastry experiment.

Note the counter space:

But I still wanted Easter treats followed with an Easter food baby and coma.

So, here we are! Easter Crostini & Salad.

YUM.

Ingredients:

1 Baguette

6 (2 for Bread, 2 for Onions, 2 for Salad) Tablespoons of Olive Oil

Salt

Ground Pepper

Fig Jam

1/4 cup of grated Gruyere Cheese

2 Yellow Onions, chopped

1 tablespoon of thyme leaves

4 oz of Goat Cheese

Prosciutto

Arugula

I started by preheating the oven to 375. While the oven was warming, I sliced the Baguette diagonally into 3/4-1 inch thick slices. Then, I brushed olive oil on the tops of each one and sprinkled salt. I placed them in the oven for about 10 minutes or until crusty, but not burnt!

I heated 2 more tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and added my chopped yellow onion. I allowed the onions to caramelize (yumyumyum) for about 15 minutes. I then added salt, ground pepper, and thyme and cooked them (stirring occasionally) for about 5 more minutes.

--Side note: I could honestly eat caramelized onions by themselves all day. So delicious.

After the sliced baguette was out of the oven & cooled and the onions were caramelized, I was ready to start assembling (yeehaw)! I spread fig jam liberally on every slice, sprinkled gruyere on the jam, and onions atop of both the jam and cheese.

Finally, I crumbed goat cheese atop the hot onions, letting them settle in and make themselves at home. Then, added half of a slice of prosciutto to each slice.

I made a quick salad with arugula, olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon for a bit of freshness on the side.

The outcome? Delicious. The creaminess of the goat cheese, bit of the gruyere, saltiness of the prosciutto, the caramelized onions (which don't need a descriptive adjective because they are simply amazing), and the crunchiness and carbi-ness of the baguette...they were all gone in 10 minutes. :)