Coconut Cream Sundae

I had some left over coconut milk from making Thai Chicken the other night and thought it might make a great whipped cream substitute for making a sundae -- I was SO RIGHT!

• vanilla ice cream
• coconut milk
• Hershey's chocolate syrup
• sweet pecan halves (or other nut)

Put a few scoops of ice cream in a serving dish. Mix the coconut milk well then spoon on top of the ice cream. Sprinkle whole or chopped nuts on top. Drizzle with chocolate syrup.

The coconut milk doesn't really taste coconutty. It isn't as light as whipped cream, but it is as creamy. Also, it does a neat trick -- it freezes quickly and hardens sort of like Magic Shell.
Delicious!

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.

Coronation Chicken Salad

Coronation Chicken was invented by Constance Spry who wanted to serve something new and special for the Queen's Coronation lunch in 1953.

I learned about it while in Scotland. I was getting lunch from at the Dalkieth Palace (where I was taking classes). Along with various cold cuts and cheese was a dish of something that I could not classify. I asked the chef and he told me all about Coronation Chicken.

Always up for something new, I took some. I was the only one who did. But that just left more for me. It was DELICIOUS!!

Today, I came home for lunch with not much time to eat. I decided to see if I could recreated Coronation Chicken. I think I did pretty well. Of course, my recipe is a highly simplified version of the real thing; but it tasted fab anyway. And who doesn't like easy?

• canned chicken (drained)
• mayonaise to desired consistancy
• curry powder to taste
• chopped nuts (I used pecans, because I LOVE pecans!)

Mix it all up and pile on bread for a sandwich, or you could just eat it plain.
Yummy!!