Stuffed Baguette

I realized when I was organizing some pictures on my computer that I had never posted this recipe I made for Christmas. We've started a tradition in my family where we have a bunch of awesome appetizers for Christmas dinner instead of a real, sit-down dinner. It's so much nicer and easier than scrambling around to get dinner ready and everything finished at once while also opening presents and all that Christmas jazz. This was the second year we've done it, and it seems to be a big hit.

Last year we had an insane amount of food, so my mom suggested we scale it back some this year. Honestly the last two weeks of December are such a blur with my dad passing away, I don't even remember what my contributions were. I think I did a baked brie, Lil' Smokies in the crockpot, and this stuffed baguette. There may have been something else, I'm not sure. I don't even remember what all other foods there were. My uncle made an awesome shrimp dip (my pregnant cousin and I finished it off the next night) for which I need to get the recipe. There were meatballs in the crockpot, a ricotta/lemon spread our friend Betty made, deviled eggs. It was a feast, and that's all that really matters.

Last January I came across this recipe somehow and emailed it to myself. When I was trying to figure out what I'd make for Christmas I went through my recipes email folder and saw this. I don't know why I hadn't made it for another event, it sounded super yummy. It also sounded easy and was something I could make ahead of time, so I slated it for one of my contributions to Christmas "dinner."

Stuffed Baguette
Source: BakingObsession.com

Baguette about 14-inch long
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
4 oz fresh goat cheese
1 large garlic clove, minced
½ cup finely chopped red bell pepper (about 1 medium)
½ cup finely chopped sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
¼ cup finely chopped Kalamata olives
2 oz finely chopped spicy salami
About 2 tbsp minced Italian parsley
About 1 tsp minced fresh thyme
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste (very unlikely since there’re plenty of salty ingredients)

Slice off both ends of the baguette. Using a long thin knife and working from the both ends, hollow the baguette out leaving about ½-inch thick crust all around.

Using an electric mixer beat the cream cheese until smooth and lump-free. Beat in the goat cheese and garlic. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.

Working again from the both ends, fill the baguette with the cheese mixture. Pack the filling tight. I like to use a slender tequila shot glass for pressing the filling in. Wrap the stuffed baguette very well in plastic and refrigerate for at least two hours and up to two days. Right before serving, slice the baguette into ½-inch thick slices and serve. For the most neat looking slices, treat it as a cheesecake – each time slice it with a hot dry knife.

*****

Now that I think about it, I think Aggie's Kitchen posted a link to it on Facebook. Perhaps in the future when I email myself recipes I should include in the email how I came across it since after having two kids I have zero memory left.

I didn't make any changes to this because I wanted to see how it turned out on its own. It definitely didn't need any salt, with the salty salami and kalamata olives it was pretty well salted. When I tasted the filling mixture it reminded me a lot of a muffuletta sandwich, so I think at some point I'm going to try making this with muffuletta ingredients and see how it turns out.

I thought I was being really smart in my preparation and threw everything into my food processor that needed to be chopped. My plan was to then add the cream cheese and goat cheese straight to the bowl of the food processor to mix it all up, but I was worried the ingredients would end up just mushing together into a paste and you wouldn't be able to tell what everything was. So after I used the food processor for chopping I threw it all in a bowl and added the goat cheese and cream cheese to that and just mixed by hand. Can you believe I don't own an electic mixer aside from my stand mixer? It's something I keep meaning to get but just never do.

I stood staring down my baguette for awhile trying to decide what to do with it exactly. I ended up cutting it in half to make it slightly more manageable for stuffing. As far as tearing the bread out from the inside, I used a serrated knife at first but then ended up using it to scrape the insides out as I found that to be a lot easier. I did use the tequila shot glass trick to compact the filling, but I was kicking myself because at some point I decided instead of stuffing from just one end I'd stuff from both so it would meet in the middle. It worked out okay, but I was worried there'd be a big empty spot in the middle where the filling wouldn't have met up with the other side, if that makes sense.

This was a big hit. Everyone really liked it. I'd recommend eating it the day of or day after preparing it so the bread doesn't get too soggy. This will definitely go into my appetizer rotation, and it's something that the filling ingredients could easily be changed up to make it a different way each time.

Muffuletta

So, I was lying awake in the middle of the night last night wondering how it is I always end up getting so behind on my blog. I really have no idea because it's not like I'm not on the computer during the day (in actuality I should probably step away from the computer more often, but that's a whole other can of worms) and it's not like it really takes a long time to do. So I'm hoping that starting this week I can stay more current on updating. I noticed I'm down one follower--maybe someone got annoyed that I keep forgetting to post. :(

Anyway, I'm going back a week for this recipe. I've made it before, so I'll just post the link, but I took pictures this time so I wanted to add those in. When we were in New Orleans a few weekends ago we had grand plans to swing by Central Grocery on our way to the airport and get a muffuletta sandwich to eat on the plane, only to find out the store is closed on Sunday. D'oh! We were pretty disappointed as that was one of the top places we were most excited about eating at while we were there. Strangely enough no where at the airport sold them, so the husband had a muffuletta hankering. Even though it broke my Pantry Challenge rule for the month, I told him I'd get everything to make it for our date night dinner that Friday. Let me just say that this is not a cheap sandwich to make. But, oh, is it ever so tasty!!!

Muffuletta Sandwich

The husband was kind of worried when he saw the pile of bread on the counter that I had pulled out from the loaf, but when I explained to him that we got more sandwich that way, he was all for it. Here's the olive salad in the bread:


All wrapped up and ready for the fridge!


I used one of my bigger cookbooks to weight it down. Then I didn't think that was enough so I tied twine around it to really press it down, but I didn't take a picture of my extreme measure.


Check out all the layers!!


In actuality, I think the amount of meat could be scaled back a bit, especially since I added ham onto it too. My olive salad only sat for about six hours, and I think I had the sandwich pressed for a little over two hours. It was tasty! The husband had the wedge that was left the next day for lunch, which I'm sure was even more fantastic as that would really give the juices from the olive salad time to soak into the bread. Just typing this out and looking at the pictures makes me want another one!!

Muffuletta Sandwich

We are back from our trip to Seattle, and I have a ton of blog updating to do!! I can't remember if I had mentioned we were going up there for the LSU vs. UW football game. The husband went to LSU and is a huge Tigers fan. The game wasn't quite the blowout I expected it to be, but it was still fun. We're still a bit hoarse from all the cheering we did.

Prior to the game we had a tailgating party at my bro's house with some of his friends, my friend Jess, my mom, the husband, and my boys. We had quite a feast!! I made Aunt Holly's Gumbo, this muffuletta sandwich, and a shrimp & crab dip. My brother's friend Siri grilled salmon and made an awesome salad with mixed greens, heirloom tomatoes, chives, blue cheese, and a dressing that was kind of like a green goddess. Yum!!! Oh, and my bro had bought three dozen raw oysters. I'm telling you, it was a feast like none other!

The best muffuletta sandwiches are from Central Grocery in New Orleans, but they don't give out the recipe (trust me, I did A LOT of Googling to try and find it). I found this recipe on RecipeZaar.com and thought it sounded good and pretty similar to Central Grocery's. Actually the cookbook this is from is one I'm holding hostage from the library.

Muffuletta
Recipe #373115

Olive Salad
1 cup green olives (pitted and coarsely chopped)
1 cup black olives (pitted and coarsely chopped)
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces jarred roasted red peppers (drained and chopped fine, 1/2 cup)
4 ounces sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil (drained and chopped, 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 garlic clove, minced

Sandwich
1 large round Italian bread (or French bread)
8 ounces thinly sliced mortadella
8 ounces thinly sliced provolone cheese
8 ounces thinly sliced hard salami

For the olive salad, mix everything together. Cover and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours.

To make the sandwich: Drain olive salad, saving the marinade. Cut the bread in half horizontally and remove most of the soft interior. Brush both inside pieces of the bread with the reserved marinade.

Place half of the olive salad in the bottom half of the hollowed-out bread. Top it with the cold cuts. Put on the rest of the olive salad. Put top half of bread on top of it all.

Wrap in plastic wrap. Put it between two dinner plates. (It might work best to turn the top plate upside down, depending on if the plates have any curvature to them or not.) Put 2 or 3 heavy cans on top of it to work as weights. (Mufuletta is pressed-down sandwich). Chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 6 hours.

To serve, unwrap and cut into wedges.

*****

I was having a hard time finding mortadella so resorted to looking for spicy bologna instead, but I ended up finding it at a fancy schmancy grocery store in the deli. I tell you, I would go broke grocery shopping if I lived in Seattle! There are so many nice grocery stores there. I also added ham to mine because I could have sworn that the muffs at Central Grocery had ham as well. This was a FANTASTIC sandwich! The husband said it was as close as he'd ever had to Central Grocery's, so I took that as a huge compliment! I ended up using a loaf of Italian bread because I couldn't find rounds anywhere. And really it could have been pressed down for longer (and with something heavier, but it was slim pickings for things at my brother's), but it was pretty freakin' awesome. I'm guessing the husband will be requesting it every now and then to get his muff fix!

Sigh...I have pics to add to this post, but they keep erroring out. What a pain! I'll post them later.