Pain au chocolat & au revoir NJ.....

Been a busy memorial day weekend. After an year of long distance relationship am so glad we can now get back to our routine together. Ah.. the simple pleasures in life that we take for granted. NJ was fun, a heaven for all things Indian. We enjoyed the company of our friends and it was sad that we had to say goodbye. Though we'd miss all that I am pretty excited to scope out the new place, make new friends and discover new tastes. Hopefully we have good things in store for us and we enjoy the place. Moving is crazy and I had just forgotten how difficult it can be until we actually started the process. Inspite of all the help its been one uphill task, packing/unpacking & cleaning. Unpacking and setting up the house looks like a never ending task but there's the silver lining - I can see the carpet now and not just brown boxes on the floor :-)


Obviously the first thing I set up was the kitchen but my pantry is not nearly as stocked as I would otherwise normally have. So I have been making simple, hassle free dinners. I was thinking of starting this first week at our new place with a dessert but I did not have butter. So most of my desserts were ruled out. But luckily, the savior of the day was the frozen puff pastry sheet that I had lying in the freezer. Fill it up with fruits/nuts and chocolate for a yummy dessert and thats what I did. Filled the puff pastry sheet with a mixture of chocolate morsels and nut, baked it for 15 min et voila dessert's ready.

Like I said, I was out of most of my pantry things. So I had to make do with the chocolate chips but using a good chocolate will make this an even better dessert. So I would recommend using good quality chocolate if possible.

Note:

1. Thaw the puff pastry in the refrigerator. I move the puff pastry sheet from the freezer to the fridge 5 hrs before I am ready to start filling the sheet.
2. You can also use chocolate bars for the filling. Just make 1 inch pieces of the chocolate and use that to fill the pastry squares.
3. Use a good quality chocolate for better result though nestle chocolate morsels worked fine.
4. I used egg wash to get a shiny brown crust but if need be you can substitute eggs with milk or cream.
   

Ingredients
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 egg (for egg wash)

Method
Thaw the frozen puff pastry as per the package instructions.
In a bowl mix chocolates and walnuts.
Cut the frozen pastry sheet into 9 square pieces.
Place a spoonful of the mixture at one end of the square. Roll it tightly into a log. make sure the filing stays in place.
Alternately, you can place the mixture at the center and fold one edge over the other to form a triangle.
Brush the top with egg wash and place it on a cookie sheet.
Pre-heat the oven to 350F and bake the pastry for 15 to 20 min or until its golden brown at the top.
Serve warm or at room temp.

Enjoy !!