Brie and Radish Crostini

I've been super busy trying to clean up my craft area this new year, so I haven't had a lot of time for posting or cooking (stay tuned for info about a de-stash giveaway I'll be having soon!). As a result, I have been trying to find ways to create easy snacks and dinners without lots of fuss. This Brie and radish crostini is super easy, and goes great as part of a larger meal or is a quick snack!

You will need:

a french baguette (I got one at the grocery store, you can certainly make your own if you're into that)
sliced brie, room temperature
Radishes, sliced

Slice your baguette into fairly thin slices (about 3/4 inch thick or so). Add a slice of brie and a few radish slices to each. Enjoy! If you prefer toasted bread, feel free to pop the sliced baguette into a toaster oven or under the broiler in your conventional oven to lightly toast before adding toppings.

I especially like this because the radishes add a great crunch without adding too much flavor. The hus and I will add stuff like sliced sausage, carrot sticks, or hard boiled eggs to make this more of a meal (we call it "snacky dinner"). It's super quick and easy and you can pre-slice veggies and cheese on your weekend to make this a 5 minute weeknight meal.

Friday Food Craft: Deathly Hallows Brown Sugar Shortbread

For our Harry Potter edition of Friday Food Craft we have some super yummy Shortbread cookies made to look like the Deathly Hallows symbol (the triangle represents the cloak, the circle is the stone and the line is the wand). I chose to cut out my cookies into triangle shapes and then press in the circle and line with the back of a knife, and a bottle cap (washed, of course). You could just as easily cut out circle or squares and draw on a symbol with some frosting or chocolate. Yum!

To make these cookies (with or without Harry Potter theme) you will need:

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

That's it! You could probably add some lemon zest or the inside of a vanilla bean if you are feeling a little fancy, but these are tasty on their own, and the brown sugar rather than white sugar gives them a little added something.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or just use a hand mixer and a bowl of your choosing) whip together your butter and brown sugar. Then, slowly add in your flour until incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth, this doesn't take more than 30 seconds to a minute. Roll out your dough to about 1/3" thick, and cut out using your desired shape cookie cutter.

I have been known to roll my dough into a log shape, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it when I'm not making fancy cookies. Then all you have to do is take the log out of the refrigerator, cut off discs about 1/3" thick and place them on a cookie sheet, and you can keep re-wrapping it to only make a few cookies at a time!

Place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake these in your 300 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes, until slightly golden.

Allow to cool slightly then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

As with all shortbread, you can eat them plain, give them a sweet frosting glaze, or sandwich them together with some chocolate or caramel! This is really a quick and delicious recipe, one of my favorites!