Brie in Puff Pastry with Ale

Brie rounds are topped with shallots, onions, and mushrooms sauteed in ale, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked.
INGREDIENTS:

* 5 tablespoons butter
* 2 shallots, thinly sliced
* 1/2 cup onions, chopped
* 16 large white mushrooms, washed and sliced
* 1 teaspoon of your favorite herb (thyme, fines herbs, rosemary)
* 1/3 cup Samuel Adams Boston Ale
* 1/3 cup toasted walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped
* 1 package (4 sheets) frozen puff pastry dough, thawed
* 2 small Brie rounds with white skin, chilled thoroughly
* Baking parchment
* 1 egg, beaten slightly

PREPARATION:
Heat 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy skillet, add shallots and onions and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent. Remove from pan. Turn heat to medium high and add remaining butter. Saute mushrooms and herbs, stirring constantly until softened. Add ale and sauteed onions, cooking briskly until the ale has evaporated. Remove from heat and cool. Stir in toasted walnuts or pecans.

Roll one piece of puff pastry into a 12 x 12-inch square on an unfloured surface by picking the pastry up and turning it after each roll. Split one brie round horizontally with a sharp knife, place one half on puff pastry. Spoon one-fourth of the mushroom mixture over the bottom. Gently gather the puff pastry up over the top, sealing by pressing and slightly twisting the dough and forming ends into a flower. Repeat with the other half and second brie round.

Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate at least one hour, or wrap and freeze up to one month. Before baking, brush the surface with beaten egg. Bake at 350 degrees F until puffed and golden brown.

Yield: About 12 servings

Source: Great American Beer Cookbook by Candy Schermerhorn (Brewers Publications)
Reprinted with permission.

Holy cow! What in the world happened?? Our daily points have moved in the opposite direction; we dropped by about 25k for each of the last two days, as a result of which Team Andrax just managed to barely pull ahead of us last night by a slim margin of only 2,422 points, and we hadn't managed to beat IBM Tornonto Software Lab either, as I had anticipated. So, instead of now being #103 as I had predicted, we are still #105. Hopefully that is just a very temporary setback for some reason and that tonight we will move to #104. Losing about 50k points in the last two days shouldn't keep us from our goal of Top-100 by our birthday, but if this reduction persists, then it will be impossible for us to reach our goal. And by the way, our new team member, Gromit, made a very healthy contribution of points (thanks), which is why I was even more surprised by our drop. I'm hoping that we just crunched some very big work units and are still waiting for validation from other crunchers. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

I'll try to make up for the lost machines as best as I can. I'm adding DD to your team and have added one more machine tonight. There should be two more temporary crunchers online tomorrow (in Gromit's profile) if all goes well.

DD and Gromit are "guest crunchers" and will be heading back to their respective teams after this assist. I hope we can make it to the top 100 before the 21st.

Never give in.

Mmmm, Andraxian power to the rescue.

Hi all...
Very bad timing for our number 1 contributer to do down in a screaming heap. I put two more PC's (2Ghz processors) on full time crunching over the weekend, but that is only good for a couple of thousand points per day (though if i converted the linux machine to xp that would bring the extra up towards 3000). I had my eye on a couple of thin clients at an auction today but they went for too many $$ to be a worthwhile addition to the cause.
Time is getting away from us!


Rob