Broccoli & "Duck" Sausage Calzones; Envueltos de Aguacate; Highland Morning





     This was the "Plan B" menu.  Originally the broccoli and duck sausage pizza was supposed to be smokey fruit pizza.  However, out of the four fruits it called for (blueberries, peaches, plums, and cherries), I only found blueberries at Cub.  And, the blueberries were $3.98 for a three ounce package!  Apparently, these fruits are no longer in season.  That recipe will have to go on the back burner for another time.  Unfortunately,  I didn't have a list for the "Plan B" pizza with me at Cub, so that meant another trip. 

     Since I am loathe to go to Cub twice in one week, I went to Sam's.  I had some things I needed to get there anyway, so I decided that I would go with the alternative option of chicken sausages.  Jeff and I had purchased some there before, so I knew I would be able to find some there.  I figured, if I bought chicken sausage on Monday, it could be a back-up...  If I felt like doing the grocery circuit before Wednesday to see if I could find duck sausage, great, but if not, there was no pressure.  The problem came when I got to Sam's.  Previously, there had only been one kind of chicken sausage.  When I went there Monday, there were four varieties: Habenero; Spinach Asiago; Apple; Roasted Garlic Mozzarella; and Italian.  I was at a loss at which one I should get for this.  After much debate, I decided on the apple.  I thought that would be the most like a plain duck sausage, even though I don't believe I have ever tried a duck sausage.  I guess I thought it would be the most like regular, plain, old sausage.  I was afraid the extraneous flavors would confuse the recipe. 

     On the off chance that I was wrong about the fruit season, I checked to see if they had cherries, blueberries, peaches, and plums.  They did have plums and blueberries, but there were no peaches or cherries to be found.  I felt good in my decision to move to the next recipe.

      On Wednesday, I started with making the dough for the crust for the calzones. 

     I know that I have mentioned this before, but every time I make a new batch of crust, I am really struck by the aroma of combining the yeast, water, and sugar.  It is a warm, homey smell that immediately makes my mouth water.  It smells like fresh baked bread, and yet, there is no bread!

     After I added the remaining ingredients to the sugar, yeast, water mixture, I let the Kitchen Aide do its thing.  I always go through the same anxiety while waiting for the dough to come together.  I worry that it needs more water, I add a little more water, and I watch and wait.  After a couple of extra tablespoons of water, it eventually comes together, but watching it, I worry.

     Once I had the crust dough taken care of (I froze half and put the other half in the fridge for Thursday), I decided the next thing I should take care of was the broccoli.  The recipe called for cooked broccoli, but it gave no clue as to how it should be cooked.  I decided a good blanching was in order.  It was the perfect excuse to use my pod.  I could put the entire two cups of broccoli in there, drop the pod in the boiling water for a minute, and then shock them out of cooking any longer by dropping the pod in an ice bath.  I love it when I can use my toys!

       Once I had the broccoli safely packed away in a baggie, I started in on chopping the onions, measuring out the cheeses, and slicing the sausage.  I decided that three cups of mozzarella was excessive, so I made an executive decision to cut it down to two cups.  As I sliced the chicken sausage, I noticed that my hands (and everything else) were getting sticky.  I tried a slice of the sausage.  It was sweeter than I had expected.  I thought that the apple would be a background flavor you wouldn't be able to put your finger on, something to keep the chicken moist during cooking.  Maybe I should have picked a different flavor.

     I didn't believe the notes in the avocado envelope recipe - that you could make the guacamole up to a day in advance.  I have made gallons of guacamole in my life, and just putting the pit into the guacamole and covering it does NOT prevent it from browning and looking completely unappetizing.  I also rejected the parsley as an ingredient and decided to use cilantro.  Parsley does not belong in guacamole.  The only preparing I did for this recipe was to chop the onions and tomatoes, squeeze the lime, and chop the cilantro.  I put them all together in one container for the following day, so it could be easily combined with my fresh avocado.

     When Jennifer and family arrived on Thursday, I set the bag of pre-measured items for the broccoli and duck calzones in front of her, and she got to working on that.  I worked on finishing the guacamole.

     When I originally read the recipe for the Envueltos, I was thinking that I probably didn't really need three whole cups of tomato sauce.  The directions didn't have me boiling it down or anything (just simmer for ten minutes), so I was worried that once we poured it over the "envelopes", they would sog up and drown.  However, after sauteing the onions and adding the chili powder, I poured all three cups of tomato sauce into the pan and let it simmer while I worked on the tortillas.

 They crisped up pretty quickly, and I wasn't sure that I would be able to fold them over the guacamole without cracking them, but it worked just fine.  They folded easily, and we quickly filled up the pan.  10 "envelopes" just barely fit in my 10" x 15" pan.  It may have taken me more than 10 minutes to fill all of the tortillas, and the sauce was simmering the entire time.  By the time I had put all of  the cheese over the tortillas and was ready for the sauce, it had thickened more than I thought it would, and it didn't seem like it was too much at all.  It thickened up even more in the oven.

     Pam's very important task during this assembly was to try and get the cat out of the bag.

     Yes, Pele was in the grocery bag on the floor and was striking out at anything that came close to the opening of the bag, like Pam.  She couldn't help herself, though (and she wasn't even drinking!).
     Speaking of drinking, our drink of the week was called Highland Morning.  The recipe suggested that we not drink it in the morning, however.  It was a shot and a half of scotch (I had Johnnie Red), 3/4 shot of cointreau, and three shots of grapefruit juice.  You are supposed to put this in a shaker filled with ice, and strain it into cocktail glasses.  Out of habit, I started tripling the recipe.  Unfortunately, by the time I got to the grapefruit juice, I wasn't able to fit 9 shots worth in.  I think I was only able to fit in three.  I went with it anyway.  Jennifer liked it.  I thought that the initial flavor was good, but it had an aftertaste that I thought resembled the taste of plastic.  I think maybe if we had used a different scotch (or maybe less of it), I may not have had that issue.  The initial flavor, though, was fruity and slightly sweet.
     Jennifer had brought a Ballatori Chicken Alfredo pizza.  I had cut it into 12 pieces so each of us could have two.

  The kids liked it so much that they had eaten three or more pieces each before we adults figured it out, but we all volunteered to surrender our second pieces to them.  It was a good thing, though, because there was a lot more food coming, and we needed the room.

     After the allotted time in the oven, the calzones appeared to be done - the crust felt crispy, and blue cheese was oozing out of the slits on the top of each calzone - but they weren't browning. 

     I brushed them with a little garlic olive oil and put them on the top rack of the oven.  A minute under the broiler and they had the lovely toasty brownness that I was looking for.

     The calzone was good.  It had a warm, earthy flavor, and lots of gooey cheese.  The sausage was a little too sweet, I thought, and it almost had a Cinnamon flavor to it.  The onions were too strong.  I think that they should have been sauteed before assembly.  I think next time, I would get the habenero sausages.  Or maybe I would spend the extra time to find some duck sausage.

     The avocado envelopes were fantastic!  The sauce over the top was like thick enchilada sauce, and the guacamole stayed green.  It was creamy and flavorful, and the sauce added a little heat and tartness.

     We filled our plates and our bellies and started working on the menu for next week....  THANKSGIVING!

Grilled Pineapple Pizza; Cornish Pasties; Graffiti

     When I was rereading the recipes on Wednesday, I realized that I had misread the ingredient list for the Cornish pasties.  I though it called for two potatoes (yellow) OR white turnips.  I did not buy any turnips on my weekly trip.  I wasn't even sure that I knew what they looked like.  I decided that all was not lost, though.  After reading through the instructions of the recipe, I had decided that I couldn't pre-cut the potatoes, because they would turn grey without some kind of treatment that may change the flavor of the dish.  Using my new chopping contraption, I could cut them up in no time, and as long as I had it out, I could cut the carrots, turnips, and onions as well, and it would be more efficient than cutting everything except the potatoes and the turnips; washing the contraption; finding a container for the chopped vegetables; and then dragging out and assembling the contraption again for the turnips and potatoes on Thursday.  I could buy turnips at Wal-Mart during my lunch time on Thursday.  I would have to walk there, though, because Jeff's car was out of commission, and he was dropping me off at work the next day and taking my car.
     I did make the dough for the crust, though.  I was a little worried about it, because my recent pie crust constructions had been less than successful, but I pressed forward anyway.  I keep my lard in the freezer, because it is something I don't use all that often.  I brought it out and cut the tube in half.  It looked like about half of the tube would be about a cup.  I was a little concerned about cutting it while it was frozen, but I wanted it to be as cold as possible, because that supposedly makes the flakiest crust.  It turns out it wasn't as difficult to cut frozen as I thought it would be.  I was expecting it to be so solid I wouldn't be able to get my knife through it effectively.  I had visions of me exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on the knife to get it through and having the roll of fat slide out from underneath the knife, sending the knife and all my pressure in an odd direction and cleanly severing a finger or a hand.  That didn't happen.   The knife went right through it, and I was able to make nice little pieces to add to my flour.
     The directions said to cut the lard in with two knives.  That wasn't very descriptive, and I am not quite sure how you would do it.  I used a pastry blender and just smashed into it.  I found this process somewhat frustrating, though, because when I thought it resembled "coarse meal", I took my pastry blender out, and there were still lumps of lard clinging to the tines.  Then, I took the lumps off and plopped them into my coarse meal, and started over re-working those pieces into the flour.  This happened about three times before I was (mostly) satisfied with the texture.  I added a little cold water, and the dough came together beautifully.  I tossed it in a zip-top bag and threw it in the fridge for the night.  That was the extent of my preparation for the pasty.
     On Sunday, at the grocery store, I had picked out a  pineapple.  They were $3.89 each.  As we strolled through the produce aisle, Jeff picked up a container pre-cored and "peeled" pineapple and asked why I didn't just buy that.  I told him I needed to make spears, so I could put them on the grill without falling through the grates, and that was pre-sliced.  Besides, it was more expensive.  His next argument was that the particular container he was holding wasn't sliced, so I could easily cut it into spears; it was only a dollar more; and wouldn't it take me a long time to remove all of the eyes and skin?  He sold me.
     So, on Wednesday, I cut the pineapple into spears and brought it outside to the grill. 
     It was actually a fairly decent day for Minnesota in November.  It was about 55 degrees, anyway.  I would like to say it was sunny, but the sun had set a couple of hours ago.  I preheated and cleaned the grill before placing my spears on the grates.  I wondered why the recipe specified spears for this task.  I thought slices would grill just as easily, and since I was cutting them into chunks afterword anyway, what difference would it have made?  I thought thick slices would be less likely to fall through, too.  Not that any did (this time), but it was a strong possibility.  Getting grill marks on the spears took longer than I thought it would.  I think I had them on the grill for about 15 minutes, before some started appearing.  Then, I flipped them onto another side and waited a while again.  Then, because they were spears there was a THIRD side, so I flipped them again and waited.  The grill marks I did get still weren't as pretty or as prominent as I was hoping, but I was mentally done with this part of the project.  Maybe my grill wasn't preheated enough?

     I pulled them off of the grill, and the smell that wafted up to me was wonderful!  It was caramel-ly and sweet and warm all at once.  I couldn't resist snapping an end off of a spear and popping it into my mouth.  It was wonderful.  The little bit of char played well against the deep citrusy, acidic flavor of the pineapple, and it brought the sweetness to the surface.  I would definitely fix a side of this at my next summer barbecue!

     I cut up the rest of the pineapple, chopped the Canadian bacon and the red pepper, and put everything in the fridge.  Then, I sliced the provolone, took some slow-simmered tomato sauce out of the freezer, and made sure that there was mozzarella and cheddar in the fridge. 

     Now it was me-time.  I took the little bit of juice from the bottom of the original pineapple container and poured it into a shaker with a little bit of Chambord and a shot of vodka.  I couldn't waste it, right?  If I closed my eyes, I could almost believe it was still summer and forget that snow would be coming soon.

     We were going to have a full house for pizza night.  My parents were going to go to Mexico for a week on Saturday, and my husband convinced them to drive to the cities and spend a couple of days rather than flying from Brainerd to Minneapolis to Cancun, so my dad could help him on Friday with some projects for the store.  They said they wold be in town early enough on Thursday to join us for dinner.  What a treat!  Jennifer and her family were all in town, and there were no sports or singing events that the children needed to attend, so all four of them were coming.  Pam hadn't been called out on a trip yet, so she was also coming, possibly with her friend Sarah.

     I had asked both Pam and Jennifer to bring something to share for dinner.  I always estimate that each of my recipes on their own would feed two people, and since there was going to be 10 people, I didn't think it would stretch.  Mom showed up with a giant "family" sized pizza from Papa Murphy's on Jennifer's behalf: pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom, and Pam showed up with a large Meat-Lover's from Pizza Hut.  The Meat-Lover's we scarfed as an "appetizer" while preparing the two recipes I had chosen.

     I put Mom to work, rolling out the crust for the pineapple pizza.  Pam rolled out the crusts for the pasties, and Jennifer was on pasty filling duty.  I had cut up most of the vegetables before they arrived with my handy-dandy kitchen chopper.  I sliced the potatoes, onions, and turnips with the slicing blade in the machine.  Then, I changed the blade to the dicing blade and sent them all through again, along with the baby carrots that were standing in for the one regular carrot.

     I had thought about having Pam make the pasty dough into 7 or 8 circles, so each adult could have their own, but then I thought better of it.  The cooking times would be different, one of the kids might have wanted some, and we could still cut the pasties in half and each only have a half.  Also, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to use as much filling overall if we had 8 small pasties rather than 4 large ones.

     I had thawed a package of beef tenderloin ends for the pasties, so Jen was cutting that up and added it to the veggies I had diced.  It turned out to be quite a bit of filling.  I tried to get her to cram it into the dough circles Pam had made, but she didn't think it would work.  She put in as much as she thought each could hold, and we put the rest into a container for hash on Saturday morning.  It was just enough for me and Jeff for breakfast.

     While she was loading the pasties, I assembled the Grilled Pineapple pizza:  sauce, then provolone, mozzarella, pineapple, Canadian bacon, peppers, and topped with cheddar.  I had pre-baked the crust on a preheated pizza stone to simulate the first cooking on the grill.  I had flipped the crust over, so the crisper side was up, and placed the ingredients over that side, so when it went back in the oven, the less cooked side would be in direct contact with the hot stone.  

-

     My co-worker, Debi, had asked me earlier in the day what the "drink of the week" was going to be.  I strained to remember, since I had picked it out last Sunday and hadn't thought about it since.  I knew that I had purchased something for it on Sunday.  I closed my eyes and tried to picture the recipe.  I remember seeing "Sparkling" in the ingredient list.  I told her I thought it had champagne in it and it was supposed to have "Cherryade" in it, but I couldn't find anything like that at Cub, so I bough diet black cherry soda (I couldn't find any regular cherry soda) and made some pink lemonade.  I figured I would combine the two.
     When it came time to actually making the drink, I started thinking about whether or not I had some sparkling wine.  I went downstairs and there were three bottles in the fridge.  One was a rose, and it wasn't all that familiar to me.  Jeff wasn't home yet, so I couldn't ask him how much it was or whether it would be a shame to mix it or not.  I would hate to mix a wine with fruit juice and other stuff and then find out later it was a special, expensive bottle that he was saving for something.   There was a little bottle of Rosa Regale, but that, I knew, was a little on the expensive side, and it was a half bottle, so I wasn't sure it would be enough.  Then, I looked on the bottom shelf, and there it was.  The mother lode.  It was a giant bottle of Cook's.  It is one of the cheapest sparklings I know of, and we probably have had it sitting for 15 years.  As a matter of fact, I think we bought it for our wedding in 1996.  It is a sweet champagne (Spumante), and Jeff and I have grown out of the sweeter wines, so it has sat there.  I was willing to give it a try, since we were just mixing it anyway.
     I brought it upstairs and grabbed a kitchen towel to put over the cork so it wouldn't fly all over the kitchen.  I twisted and pulled and twisted and pulled and pulled some more.  I couldn't get the thing to budge.  Pam made fun of me, asked "would you like me to get that for you, little girl?"  Smiling, I handed her the bottle and the towel.  She gripped the bottom of it with her knees and twisted and pulled and twisted and pulled and pulled some more.  Ha!  I called Dad in to take over.  He worked at it for at least five minutes before he was able to pull the (plastic) cork out.  It made no noise, and his face contorted into the expression I saw once when he realized I had memorized his credit card number.  I asked what was wrong, and he said he didn't think it had any fizz.  I poured a little sample to see if it was still drinkable and still had fizz.  Yes to both.  Amazing!

     At this point, I took a look at the recipe.  White grape juice (check - Pam was making that); vodka (check); sparkling cherryade (diet cherry soda and lemonade - check).  Wait!  Where was the sparkling wine?  I reread the recipe.  Nope, it wasn't in there.  I must have remembered seeing the word "sparkling" and somehow transformed that in my brain as "Sparkling Wine" and put myself on a purposeless mission.  Since Pam and Mom weren't drinking and Jeff and Dad were only drinking whiskey and Roger always turns down the "drink-of-the-week" or wine if other things are available, Jennifer and I had a big job ahead of us to finish the drink AND a magnum of Cook's.

     The drink itself, though, was tasty.  It was fruity and fizzy and a little sweet.  And, it was a lovely pink color.  We decided to have another with dinner but made with Cook's instead of the white grape juice.  That was good, too.

Graffiti: 1½ measures vodka; 2 measures white grape juice; 2 measures sparkling "cherryade"

     I had preheated the oven to 425º as per the instructions on the pizza that Mom had brought, but after having it in the oven for a few minutes, we were ready to add the pineapple pizza and the pasties.  I switched the oven to convection mode, hoping that the heat would circulate around each item better this way for more even cooking.  When the pepperoni mushroom sausage (or PMS pizza, as I like to call it) appeared to be done, I pulled it out of the oven and started slicing.  The whole family then headed into the dining room to start in on the first course.

     When we started dishing it out, it was evident that the crust didn't crisp up as it should have.  The pizza was floppy, but it was good - salty, meaty, greasy.  I guess next time, thought, I should either employ two ovens or put this one on the bottom, closer to the heating element.  I could have put it on a preheated pizza stone, I suppose, but I don't think I have one that big.  Even though Jonah didn't have any (he doesn't like pepperoni or mushrooms) and Grace was saving her room for the pasties, we managed to eat most of it. 

     Next course was the pineapple pizza.  This was really good.  The slow-simmered sauce that I had made the week prior, with homemade dried pepper flakes instead of the regular red pepper flakes, had a slow, building heat to it.  It was just an undertone with all of the other things that were happening on there.  The bottom cheeses made the pizza hold together nicely, but I didn't really detect any great flavor contribution from them.  The sweet pineapple and the salty ham with a sweet pepper kicker was harmony, and the sharp cheddar on top provided even more stability.  I loved it.  Jeff wolfed down his two pieces.  Dad ate it and commented that it had some heat, and Pam, Mom, and Jen seemed to really enjoy it.  Roger said that it was too spicy.  Jonah wouldn't try it because there were peppers on it, and Gracie was still holding out for the pasties.

     I hadn't realized that they needed to cook so long.  I also apparently ignored the fact that there was supposed to be an egg/oil wash over the top of them before they went in the oven.  I think I just get to a point where there is too much activity going on, the kitchen is too full, and  am more interested in socializing than paying attention to what I am doing.  Get it in the oven and baking on its own, so I can sit and chat and drink.  Anyway, the natives were getting restless waiting for that last course, so I checked in them and decided they were done.  They weren't as golden as I was hoping, but that could be because they were missing their egg and oil rub-down.

     Each adult took a half and waited for it to cool.  This had good potential.  The crust was fantastic (pork fat rules!), the vegetables were cooked perfectly, and the meat was still tender.  It needed a little something, though.  A little garlic, a little hot pepper, maybe some Harley's.  It was somewhat like a pot pie, but without any sauce.  Jeff suggested that a little gravy would be nice.

Gougere Aux Epinards & Grilled Spinach and Ricotta Turnover

     This pizza night was a battle of the spinach pie recipes!  It's funny how that happens without planning.  My whole reason for using two books instead of two recipes from one book is that most cookbooks group similar recipes together, and I thought that by using two separate books would solve that.  I was okay with it, though.  Sometimes it is nice to compare two similar recipes.  It helps give me ideas for different preparations of a particular food.  Having two similar recipes side by side can be fun - you can compare and contrast the two styles and what the different preparations do for the flavor.
     I bought some fresh spinach and some frozen.  Since the recipe for the turnover called for precooked spinach, squeezed dry, I figured I could save the cooking process and just use the frozen spinach.  I think I could have done the same for the Gougere, but I hadn't read through the entire recipe before building my grocery list for the week, so that recipe was going to get fresh spinach, steamed.  I did it in the microwave.  I threw the leaves in a bowl, covered the bowl with saran wrap and nuked it for about 3 minutes.  The leaves were just barely steamed, and the volume had reduced by half.  If it is a matter of ease of preparation, I think the two options are equal.  Steaming in the microwave is quick and easy, as is thawing and squeezing.  However, the frozen option is much cheaper.  The fresh spinach was $1.99 for a 9oz bag, and I used one and two-thirds of a second one to get my one pound for the Gougere.  For the turnover, I used one 10oz package, which was less than a dollar.  Even if I used enough of the frozen spinach to equal 16oz, there would still be a significant savings, especially if you actually de-stem all of the fresh spinach, which I didn't do.
     Anyway, I wanted to start on the slow-simmered sauce first, because it takes a long time to make.
    
I didn't have any tomato sauce on hand, and I hadn't thought about making this sauce when I made my grocery list.  Also, I feel kind of weird about buying tomato products when I have half a freezer full of tomatoes from my recently-deceased garden.  So I pulled a bag of tomatoes out for the sauce.  I threw the entire bag into the Vitamix and pureed them until they were smooth.  Voila!  Tomato sauce!

    I think that there was probably a little more moisture content in my "sauce" than a regular can of tomato sauce, because it seemed really thin.  It had been so long since I had made this sauce, that I couldn't remember exactly the consistency, so I wasn't sure if this was how it should be or not.  I put the pot on the back burner and let it bubble away while I worked on the sauce for the Gougere.

     I used my new chopper contraption for the onions, and it was slick.  I used the slicing blade on the onions first, then put the perfect slices back into the chopper with the criss-cross blade in, and it produced the most beautifully uniform squares of onion I have ever seen.  I put the slicing blade back in and did the mushrooms.  I started with them caps down in the "v" of the slice.  After I released the "pusher", the blade came out with it, the mushroom still dangling from its teeth.  I tried the mushrooms in several different positions and found that the only way the blade would stay in place was if the mushroom was sideways on the blade.  Placed in the guillotine in other directions, it still sliced them evenly and thinly, but it was just annoying to have to keep putting the blade back in. 

     I sauteed the onions and mushrooms and put them aside.  I started the roux, following the directions, and I cooked it for four minutes, as it indicated, but I think it was a bit too long.  The resulting paste was very brown.  It didn't smell like it was burned or anything, so I continued on.  I added the half and half a little at a time, and by the time I had added all of it, the sauce was very thick.  I quickly slid the pan off of the burner and added the mushroom-onion mixture back in.  It looked like a mushroom gravy.

     I added it to the steamed spinach, and it certainly brightened up the color scheme.

     I checked on my sauce.  It had been about an hour.  I expected some reduction, but it didn't look like that was happening.  From looking at the sides of the pan, I could tell that the level of the sauce had gone down, but the sauce itself was still very thin. 

     My sauce took about four hours to reach a consistency I felt good about.  I was half asleep by the time it was cool enough to place in the refrigerator for the night.   

     When Jennifer arrived on Thursday, I had her pick out and make us drinks.

     I had laid out all of the ingredients for the crust of the Gougere in the order that we were going to need them.  I set Pam on that task of making that while I rolled out the crust for the turnover.  She was so fast at whisking the butter and flour together, you could scarcely see her hands.

     Once she combined the eggs with the dough, she started putting it in the prepared pan.

     Jennifer caught her sampling the dough and asked how it was.  She said it was bland.  She spread the dough out, and we put it in the oven to do its thing.

     Meanwhile, I combined the frozen spinach, the slow-simmered sauce, and the ricotta.  All of the remaining ingredients for the turnover pizza were combined in one bowl.  Once it was all mixed, I couldn't even tell that there was tomato sauce in the mix.  The tricky part came when it was time to fill the turnover.  There was quite a lot of goo in comparison to the size of the turnover dough.     I had to really stretch the dough to get it together the great mound of filling.  I made an extra effort to crimp the edges closed, since the last turnover leaked all over the inside of my grill.  I wondered, though, if the reason it came open was because there was no vent for when the inside ingredients get all steamy.  I thought about putting some vents in, but then it would still leak out and into the grill.  In the end, I just wet the edges and crimped them as well as I could before grilling.

     When the twenty minute stint in the oven for the Gourge was done, we pulled it out.  It didn't look like I had expected.  I thought it would have puffed completely up - much like a popover.  It looked more like a high-sided wrinkly quiche.

     The next step was to pour the mushroom, spinach, cream mixture over the top and cover with tomatoes.  I actually still had a couple of heirloom tomatoes from the garden that hadn't rotted or molded, so I used one of those. 

     The next task was to cover this with slices of Swiss cheese.  I had only purchased shredded cheese, so I grabbed the bag of Swiss.  I thought it was odd, at the time, that I had placed the cheese over by the crust ingredients instead of by the filling ingredients.  However, I only thought about it for a minute before pressing on.  I realized later, that we were supposed to put 2 cups of cheese in the crust.  Even if I had realized this at this point, it was still too late now that the crust had already been cooked.   I placed the assembled dish into the oven and went to check on my turnover.

     I had kept the grill at medium this time, having learned my lesson last week about putting the grill on too high.  I think my theory about why the turnover's seal was breaking proved correct.  This turnover was opening like a clam.

     Fortunately, this filling wasn't as juicy as the ham one was.  The side of the turnover was opening, but the filling stayed inside for the most part.  I did lose a little down the grates when I flipped it, but what can you do?
     The crust was so crispy, it made it a little difficult to cut the turnover.  We needed 7 pieces, since there were seven of us.  Jonah and Gracie probably wouldn't eat it, but we still had to make a portion for each of them just in case.   When I brought the blade down onto the turnover, the filling squished out the open ends.

     The Gougere looked beautiful when I took it out of the oven.  The cheese was evenly browned and the spinach-mushroom sauce was barely peeking out from underneath it.

     I cut this into 9 pieces and started serving it up.  Even the side view of the finished piece was pretty.

     The picture above didn't do it justice.  The crust was a creamy, eggy, almost-polenta-like texture.  The spinach mushroom sauce was salty and rich.  The tomatoes were a tangy and sweet under the pile of gooey cheese.  It was really good.  We didn't even miss the extra cheese in the crust!  I think if I were to make this again, I would definitely skip the cheese in the crust and decrease the amount of spinach.  I think it took away a little of the creaminess of the sauce and from the mushroom flavor.

     Jennifer had brought and made a Costco pepperoni pizza, too, and it was a good thing.  The kids ate most of that and left the Gourgere and the turnover to the adults.

     The turnover was really good, too.  The crust had a nice, crispy exterior, and the filling was cheesy and gooey.  There was just the barest hint of heat from the slow-simmered sauce - I had used my own hot pepper mixture in there instead of the regular red pepper flakes.  My peppers were ground finely, and there were some habeneros in the mixture, so it brought a little more oomph than regular pepper flake.  Other than that little bite, the tomato sauce was completely lost.  I wonder if it was even needed.
     It was a wonderful evening.  It was nice having everyone there for the whole evening for a change.  After dinner the boys went downstairs to watch the hockey game, while Pam, Jennifer, and I tried to start planning our Thanksgiving meal.  We got some great ideas, but we didn't really solidify any part of the menu.  Oh well.  We have next Thursday, right?