Snacks..."amouse-bouche"

Who doesn't like a good snack? I think that snacks just make people smile. You can have a snack at any time of the day and it is acceptable. Tonight I had decided to make a little snack before dinner time to tide us over until our food was ready. Technically what I was making was a amuse-bouche. An amuse-bouche is something that is served to excite the taste buds before one sits down to eat their meal. The key is that it has to be only one or two bites and be an explosion of flavor in your mouth. Now I have received a fair amount of flack for this blog and the intimidation it places on other people when I visit their tables. (JIMMY!!!) Food is supposed to be fun and something that comes from the heart. Ham, apple, and cheese are three things that go wonderfully together and were the inspiration for tonight's snack.



I started by slicing an apple perpendicular to the core. I thought that this would give me the most slices with the least amount of void for any of the other goodness to fall through. I cut out the core of the apple after slicing the apple. These slices were placed on a hot cast iron pan to warm up and caramelize slightly. Meanwhile, I added a slice of Virginia ham to the pan to start heating. A slice of raclette cheese was added to the ham before I folded it up into a nice little pocket. On top of the ham I shaved some aged Gouda for more depth of flavor. All of this heated up and melted the cheese into a cheese into the ham and made a creamy gouy treat. The ham and cheese were then placed atop the apple so that the apple could act as a edible base.



This amuse-bouche was inspired by a kicked up grilled cheese that I like to make in the winter months. My encouragement to you would be to think of some of your favorite dishes and deconstruct them to make smaller, yet equally as flavorful, dishes. Snacks do not have to come from a box or consist of basic meat and cheese. Meat and cheese can be an incredible burst of flavor in your mouth if you take a few easy steps. Remember, heat can really help fruit to come to life. Cook outside the box, you will not be disappointed. Plus you can impress your friends with fun words like, "amuse-bouche!!"

Compote is not complicated.

This morning I invited a great friend over for some breakfast. After a tough workout and a cold run back to the house I knew that we should have something warm and replenishing. I have really grown sick of maple syrup that is not actually maple syrup and is full of high fructose corn syrup. In an effort to not sweeten my cakes with these sugars solutions masquerading as syrup I opt for fruit or yogurt. I had decided to make a compote to go with the flap jacks this morning. Part of my motivation for making the compote was the cherries in my fridge that needed to be eaten and the pear on the top of my microwave that was not ripening. A little heat can do wonders to hard fruit!!



Of course the first thing in making any compote is to cut up the fruits that you are going to use. In this case I pitted the cherries and simply rough chopped the apples and pear. In a large saute pan I heated up one tablespoon of butter until it was golden brown. I added the fruit and cooked on medium high for about ten minutes stirring occasionally. Once the fruits had started to brown I sprinkled on a little bit of brown sugar and allowed the juice and sugar to caramelize a bit on the fruit. I then turned the heat down to low and added some salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. The salt and nutmeg were about an 1/8 of a tsp each.



This little fruit concoction was a great addition to the cakes and allowed for minimal use of that store bought syrup. I did not add yogurt this morning but you sure could have. Next time you have some fruit laying around that is about to go bad make yourself a little compote. It goes great on about anything, french toast, crepes, ice cream, toast, a spoon!!