Smitten kitchen recipes, cont'd...

Continuing with my goal to work through all the recipes from Smitten Kitchen, I spent most of the cold, dreary holiday long weekend days cooking.

Cheese and Onion Breakfast rolls jumped out at me when I saw the picture.  I'd never done anything cinnamon roll-y before, and I almost always prefer savory over sweet when it comes to all things bread and biscuit. This was a nice chance to try my hand at the techniques of sweet rolls without all the goopy stickiness and icing.  It was a basic bread dough, done with the stand mixer.  My only modification from the recipe is that I used reconstituted buttermilk powder rather than fresh milk.  (If you bake regularly, and don't keep much dairy in the fridge, it's really convenient).  Everything went according to plan, and I made a double batch.  They were taken to my grandma's house, and to my co-workers, and we're a hit.  Definitely a keeper recipe- its the combo of the dill and the onion that make it really stand out.

I also made Pear Turnovers, from her Peach Turnover Recipe.  Pears are in season, and particularly delicious right now, while peaches won't be back til mid summer.  This recipe reminded me how floral and juicy pears are to eat, and that I should enjoy them without abandon now- they're one of the very few things I'll miss about winter in a few months.

I used green Bartlett pears, skin on, halved, and scooped a generous bit of fruit out of the middle to allow space for the butter/sugar/spice mixture. The recipe also includes a Hard Sauce which is a term I'd never noticed before.  It was mostly butter, whipped light and fluffy with some bourbon and powdered sugar.  It was delicious right out of the bowl.  After carefully placing little dollups of the boozy whipped confection on the hot turnovers, it melted into a slightly more subtle glaze.

Pastry is my favorite baking endeavor right now.  Pies, pot pies, savory pastry, you know.  So far, this is the BEST pastry dessert thats come out of my kitchen.  I could barely wait to have one, which I did while it was still warm and oozy, with a couple glasses of white wine.  They're just as good with coffee, the next day. When I find something I like this much, my tendency is to keep trying it with different variations, so I'm already looking forward to making tiny plum turnovers with ginger whiskey hard sauce.