Baklava

If you've never had baklava... I feel sorry for you! It's a Greek dessert made from layers of flaky phyllo dough and a filling made from chopped nuts, sugar, and cinnamon. The final product is then soaked in a simple syrup overnight. Yum! I know you must be sick and tired of phyllo pastries by now, but this is the last one! I promise! It's just that so much dough comes in one box and once you thaw it out, you have to use it. Not that I'm complaining because I love Greek food!

Baklava

Makes: 24 servings

Filling:

16 oz walnuts

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

Dough:

30 sheets of phyllo dough, thawed

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted

Syrup:

1 1/4 cups water

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup honey

• First make the filling. Grind up the walnuts in a food processor until they are very fine, almost a powder.
• Transfer the ground walnuts to a large mixing bowl. Mix in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
• With a pastry brush, butter the bottom and edges of a 13" x 9" baking pan.
• Lay down a sheet of phyllo dough in the bottom of the pan. Gently brush the dough with some butter. Continue until you have six sheets of phyllo dough stacked on top of each other, with butter brushed on each one, including the top one. This will make a nice thick bottom layer.
• Now sprinkle in about 3/4 cup of the nut mixture over the buttered phyllo dough.
• Place another three sheets of phyllo dough over the nuts, again buttering each layer, ending with butter on top. Continue this step until you have used all of the nuts. You'll probably get around five or six layers of nuts.
• For the top layer, you will again use six sheets of phyllo dough, buttering each one, ending with butter on the top.
• With a very sharp knife, cut the baklava into squares, then cut each square on the diagonal like so:

• Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes.
• While the baklava is baking, make the syrup. Combine the water, sugar, and honey in a medium sauce pan. Cook over medium high heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture starts bubbling. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes until it gets a little bit thick and syrupy. Be cautious not to overcook this or you'll burn the sugar. If you notice the color of the syrup turning darker at all, remove it from the heat immediately to prevent burning. Also, make sure you're using a wooden spoon to stir this. Anything else will melt from the heat of the syrup.
• Once the syrup is cooked, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. Be very careful as this syrup is extremely hot and can cause very bad burns.
• Once the baklava is finished cooking, remove it from the oven. Immediately pour the cooled syrup over the entire pan of baklava. At first it will look like the pastry is floating in a pool of syrup. But don't worry, it will all be absorbed.
• Allow the baklava to cool. Cover it and allow it to sit at room temperature overnight. The next day, most of the syrup will be absorbed and the baklava will be delicate, flaky, and slightly sticky. At this point, you may find that you need to re-cut it. Just go over the same lines you made previously using a sharp knife.
• Enjoy!

Spinach Salad with Grapefruit Dressing

This is THE BEST salad you will ever have in your life! I cannot get enough of it. I know that the combination of spinach and grapefruit sounds a little weird. But trust me, it's amazing. I'm not a big fan of grapefruit, it's a little too tart for my tastes. But on this salad, it compliments all of the other ingredients so well. Try it!!!

Spinach Salad with Grapefruit Dressing
Makes: 1 serving

Salad:
2 big handfuls of baby spinach
2 tbsp walnuts
2 tbsp crumbled blue cheese
1 large pink grape fruit, cut into segments

Dressing:
1/4 cup cranberry juice
1/4 cup pink grapefruit juice
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 shallot, finely minced

• First make the dressing. Whisk together the cranberry juice, grapefruit juice, olive oil, sugar, salt, and shallot. If you've never used shallots before, they look a little bit like a really small onion and they have a very mild onion flavor. Sometimes they're sold in bulk or they might be sold in a little mesh bag of four or five. This is what they look like:

•  Once the dressing is made, set it aside.
• Now toast the walnuts. Place them in a dry pan over medium heat. Swirl them around in the pan until they start to brown and become fragrant. Remove from the heat.
• Assemble the salad. Start with a bed of the spinach; top it with the toasted walnuts, blue cheese, and grapefruit segments.
• Drizzle the salad dressing over the salad. The leftover dressing can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Ok, time for some science. When making a vinaigrette like the one above, you're creating an emulsion. An emulsion is a suspension of one liquid in another - in the case of salad dressing, that would be the suspension of the vinegar in the oil. When creating an emulsion, it helps to have emulsifiers - that is something that helps the suspension stay together. With bottled salad dressing, you will usually see xanthan gum in there as the emulsifier. However, you can also use any kind of chopped vegetables as an emulsifier (hence all the little bits of veggies that you see floating in Italian dressing). With our grapefruit vinaigrette, the minced shallot acts as the emulsifier, helping the dressing stay together. The more you know!

Walnut Parsley Pesto

I really love pestos. They're so easy, so delicious, and completely customizable. Traditionally when we think of pesto, we think of basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese. However, you can make pesto out of any combination of herbs, cheese, olive oil, and nuts. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Sun dried tomatoes, garlic, basil, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil.
• Roasted red peppers, garlic, oregano, asiago cheese, and olive oil.
• Artichokes, chives, garlic, walnuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil.
• Arugula, pine nuts, garlic, lemon zest, cracked black pepper, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil.

You get the point! Gather some ingredients that taste great together, puree them into a smooth paste, then toss with warm pasta. Today I made a walnut parsley pesto.

Walnut Parsley Pesto
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tbsp dried parsley)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lb linguine (or fettuccine, spaghetti, etc)

• Combine the walnuts, garlic, parsley, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil in a food processor.
• Puree until smooth.
• Cook the pasta until al dente making sure to add plenty of salt to the water.
• Once the pasta is cooked, strain it then immediately transfer to a bowl. While the pasta is still hot, add the pesto and toss until all of the noodles are coated.

This makes a great side dish for grilled chicken, steak, or fish. Today I happened to be making this for lunch. I separated it into 4 portions and placed them into plastic containers that I can just grab when I'm on my way out the door to work!

Note: if you only have raw walnuts, you can toast them by adding them to a dry saute pan over medium heat. When the nuts start to release their aroma, swirl the nuts around in the pan. Once they are golden brown, remove them from the pan. You don't want to take your eye off of this for one single second! The nuts could burn in a matter of seconds. And burned nuts smell... bad..