A new layout! And some tasty puffs.

You may notice quite a change here to FW&MP. This weekend, my computer-savvy brother was a huge help and a bundle of patience with me as he redid my blog. The old look was a bit dark and busy, and I wanted something brighter and cleaner to go with the mood of this blog. So over two days, we put our heads together and shared screens via Skype to arrive at what you see today!

So, in celebration of the new look, I have three new posts today; one on food, one on wine, and one on Mod Podge! This one will act as the food post, so once you read this, I encourage you to keep reading down to the two other posts.

Hope you like the new look!

Now on to the food!

Sloppy Joe Puffs

I really like to make things up when I cook. Rarely, in fact, never, do I follow a recipe to a T. If I even use a recipe at all, I play with different flavors, and change ingredients for texture, taste, or just plain because I don't have the right ingredient in my fridge.

That being said, sometimes recipes are born out of ingredients that need to be used.

Our freezer had been housing a single sheet of puff pastry since last November when we hosted Thanksgiving.



This lonely dough has been bugging me for a while, since I have never really used puff pastry before except to make a baked brie. And while baked bries are amazing and wonderful and make me weep with joy, my darling husband doesn't eat cheese and I probably shouldn't take down one of those alone.

So, I looked through my three standby recipe websites (Foodnetwork.com, Epicurious, and Allrecipes.com), and you know what you get when you just type in "Puff Pastry?" Beef wellington and chicken pot pie. I didn't have beef and I don't like chicken pot pie. We're off to a good start here.

Then I came across this recipe by Paula Deen. It is supposed to be a little burger of sorts, cooked then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. But the beef patty also has ketchup and mustard in it, and that sounded an awful like the beginnings of a sloppy joe to me. Lightbulb! Sloppy Joe Puffs!

Start by removing the puff pastry from the packaging and set it on the counter to thaw.

Sloppy Joe Meat Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
2 t salt
3/4 C ketchup
1 C water
Minced onion to taste
2-3 t chili powder
1-2 T spicy brown mustard
3-4 T brown sugar
1-2 t Chipotle Tabasco Sauce (told you I use it in everything!)
Pepper to taste



Start by browning the ground beef. Once it is all the way cooked, remove the excess fat.



Next, add all the ingredients together. Honestly, at this point I do it by look and taste, less by measuring. So if it looks too light, add more ketchup. If it's too tomatoey, add chili powder/mustard/brown sugar. You get the idea. It will be soupy because of the water, it'll look like this:



Bring it up to a boil, then turn down to medium to maintain a simmer.



It will take about 15-20 min to finally look like sloppy joe meat.



Remove it from the heat and place it to the side to cool down a bit.

Now, on to the puff pastry!

Start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Put a little flour on your surface.



Take out your puff pastry, and roll it out with a floured rolling pin.



Then take a butter knife and slice it into squares.



Grab your cooled sloppy joe meat...



...and start filling!



Make sure not to overfill, or it'll puncture through the dough.



Now pull all the edges up and pinch them together to make a little sealed pillow.





Now place them all on a lightly greased cookie sheet.



Then brush an egg wash on the seal of the puffs. The egg wash consists of 1 egg and 1 tsp water.





Now here's the part I really wasn't sure on. I wasn't sure if I should leave them seal up or seal down, so I just did half up half down!



For the ones that flipped over, I brushed the egg wash on the tops of those.

Then stick it in the oven.



Bake them until they are crispy and brown, about 15 minutes.



And the verdict on whether to do seal side up or down?

Seal up:



Seal down:



...not much of a difference. They both work!

I gotta say, they were pretty good!



Experimenting is always fun, do it sometime! You may end up surprising yourself!