Stone Soup: Minimalist Home Cooking

A friend (Lindsay) linked this book to me. It has really great recipes, very simple, minimal ingredients. Don't know how some of them would taste as I like to over season my food but... it is worth checking out.

The cookbook:

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/images/free_stonesoup_ecookbook.pdf

The blog:

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/

Baked Apple and Chèvre Chaud Crostini with Honey

Yields: about 25 pieces

Ingredients:

• 1 French baguette
• 4 Fuji apples
• 6-8 oz Chevre (goat cheese)
• 1 cup Apple juice
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Italian herbs
• 2 Tbsp EVOO
• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 1 tsp Cinnamin
• 1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
• Honey

Directions:

Apples:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• Combine cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside.

Core apples, making sure not to puncture the bottom of the apples so that the juices will remain. Remove skin from 1/2-inch around top of apples at the opening. Fill each cavity with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Top each apple with a teaspoon of butter. Place apples in casserole dish and pour apple juice around them. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for approximately 30-45 minutes. When apples are fork tender, remove from oven and allow to cool.

Once apples have cooled cut into quarters then slice as thin as preferred to top each slice of bread.

Crostini:

• Slice the baguette, and place the slices flat on a cookie sheet. Make sure there is some room between the slices, but as close together as you can get them without touching. Drizzle the EVOO over the slices, and sprinkle 1/2 of the fresh herbs evenly over all the pieces Pop them in the oven to get them light brown, and a little crispy--keep an eye on them, so they don't burn--this can happen fast, so be careful!
• Take the light brown crostini out of the oven and turn oven to BROIL. Top slices with 1 tsp goat cheese and put crostini back in the oven for ~2 minutes to brown the cheese.

Once cheese has browned, top each piece with a thin slice of apple and a drop (or two) of honey.