Apple Brie Flatbread

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to attend a drug rep dinner being hosted at a local up-scale restaurant that I had never been to. The food was amazing! But the item that I came away thinking, "I have got to figure out how to make THAT" was the Apple Brie Flatbread. It was a crispy, almost cracker flatbread topped with apples, brie, nuts, carmelized onion/shallot, and balsamic vinegar reduction. YUMMY!!!

It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. The hardest part was figuring out a bread recipe. I have a fantastic bread machine book that I got from Borders (a very dangerous place for me!). If you love bread, get this book! The recipes will work great as hand-mades too. I often just make the dough with the machine and bake the bread in my oven. That is the case with the flatbread I made for these appetizers.

There are a lot of flat breads in the book, but I chose Carta di Musica as it seemed the closest to that nearly-cracker flatbread.

• 1-1/4 cups water
• 4 cups flour
• 1-1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar (I actually used 1 TBS C&H dark brown sugar, cuz that's what I like!)
• 1 tsp yeast

Put it in the bread machine in this order and run it through the dough cycle. Take the dough out and cover with a piece of plastic wrap while you work. Break off a small piece, about the size of a walnut. Roll out the piece to as thin as you can get it. It helps to keep the dough from sticking if you ocassionally oil the rolling pin. As you finish rolling each piece, place it in a stack under a piece of plastic wrap to keep them from drying out.

Once you have enough rolled to fill a cookie sheet, place them on the pre-heated sheet and bake them in the oven at 450F for 10-15 minutes. For this recipe, you will want to take them out while they are still light as they will go back into the oven for a second baking.

The topping is fairly self explanatory: apples, brie, nuts, carmelized onion/shallot, and balsamic vinegar reduction.

• The apples can be any kind. I like to use sweet, crisp apples like my current fav -- Honeygold.
• I love Joan of Arc brie, unfortunately my grocer has been having trouble getting it so I picked up some Delice de France. I liked this very much as well. It is different in that it is stronger, but it is delicious!
• The nuts could be walnuts, pecans, hazelnut, almost any nut -- I LOVE pecans, so that's what I used.
• My son does not like onions, so I skipped the carmelized onion/shallot part. It is very good though, so you might want to try it yourself. I recommend using either shallots or very sweet, mild onions like Vidalia. Slice them thinly and cook over medium low heat until carmelized.
• I used about 6oz of balsamic vinegar. It needs to be reduced to something resembling molasses by heating it over low heat for about half hour. DO NOT LET IT BURN!

Thinly slice or dice the apples and brie and place desired amounts of each on the flatbread pieces. Sprinkle with chopped nuts. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar reduction over the topped flatbreads (if you accidentally reduced it too much to drizzle, just add a little water or more balsamic vinegar). Place in the oven until the brie is melted.

OMG!! THESE ARE DELICIUOS!! They were so great, I didn't even get a chance to take a picture before half of them were devoured by onlookers at our New Year Eve party! These are best fresh from the oven, but can be re-heated in the microwave or eaten cold as well.

Bruschetta

There was a New Year Party at my house, and I was inspired to make some very yummy appetizers. I'm going to make each recipe a new post, so watch for the others over the next few days. I'm going to start out with double tomato bruschetta.

When my son asked me what bruschetta was, the best I could come up with was "Italian salsa". I think that is a fairly good explanation. I got this recipe from AllRecipes. I read through the comments before I chose it, and ultimately made it, for ideas. Many said MORE BASIL AND LOSE THE CHEESE. The following is what I ended up with after making some slight changes:

* 6 roma tomatoes, chopped
* 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes softened in 1/8 cup olive oil
* 3-6 cloves minced garlic
* 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (I used Alessi - my favorite so far)
* 1/3-1/2 cup fresh chopped basil
* 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 French baguette (I use the New French Bakery Take and Bake brand - THE BEST!!)
* 1/8 cup olive oil


The original recipe calls for sun-dried tomatoes in oil, but I only keep the dried variety -- so I just took some of the oil called for in the recipe to soak my dried tomatoes. Chop them up when soft enough. Mix with the chopped Romas, basil and minced garlic. Add the two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper.

This smells DELICIOUS freshly made, but the flavors are still pretty separate at this point. This can actually be good when you are going for dramatic, but if you want subtle, well melded flavors, let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

The original recipe calls for the mix to be put on the cut pieces of baguette then broiled until the cheese is melted, but, I agreed with the commenters that suggested serving the mix on the side and allowing people to add their own topping -- not everyone likes the same amount of topping, plus the toast will stay toasty. SO, right before serving, cut the baguette into 1/2-1" slices, brush with olive oil and broil to toast.
Serve the mix at room temperature with the toasted baguette. I also had a dish of Romano cheese that could be sprinkled over the top.

The bruschetta was very easy and very popular. I will definitely be making this again.

One thing I might try next time is reducing (boiling down) the balsamic vinegar a little to deepen the flavor, but this was also great as is.

Another note: I brought the left overs to work on Friday (about 36 hours later) and it was even BETTER!