poor man's wellington

Dear Kristin,

I have a confession. I'm in love with a flake.

Before you say "I know - you married dad!", let me clarify.

Specifically, I'm in love with those lovely, flaky sheets of divine decadence known as puffed pastry. Whether it's sweet or savory, puffed pasty has the ability to elevate even the most mundane filling or topping to levels of epicurean delight that scream "I'm special" to the eager diner. Honestly - wrap it around a homely hot dog, and suddenly you have a designer dog that could win at Westminster!

And talk about versatile! Puffed pastry can be shaped into cute little cut-outs for appetizers, layered with custard or fruit for dessert, or in this case, formed into a pouch to hold an entree special enough for Sunday dinner, but easy enough to make on a Wednesday.

I have another confession. I've never had real Beef Wellington. It's not something that appears on Denny's menu in the Senior Citizen's early bird special section, so I decided to try and make it myself, on a shall we say, somewhat less extravagant scale. Modest meatloaf is encased in pastry, and instead of topping the meat with a mushroom duxelles, the pastry packets are topped with a mushroom-wine sauce. This is about as fancy as I can get in my little comfy kitchen - but who needs fancy when dinner is just plain good?

poor man's wellington

For the meat:

1 lb. 80-20% ground beef
1 egg
2 Tblsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 c. seasoned bread crumbs
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
Cooking spray
1 pkg. frozen puffed pastry

For the sauce:

8 medium sized white mushrooms
3 Tblsp. butter
1/2 c. dry red wine
1 c. plus 3 Tblsp. reduced sodium beef broth (divided)
1 1/2 Tblsp. corn starch
1 tsp. dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Make the meatloaves:

Spray 6 regular sized muffin cups with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 375F.
Mix ground beef and next five ingredients gently in a bowl. Divide mixture into prepared muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until center is no longer pink. Run a knife along inside of muffin cups to loosen the
meat. Remove meat muffins from pan. Let cool while you prepare the puffed pastry.

Raise oven temp. to 400F.

Roll 1 sheet of pastry into a square approximately 12" by 12". (Or larger, if the pastry is thicker.) Divide square in half, creating two 12" x 6" rectangles.

When meat is cool enough to handle, cut each meat "muffin" into three slices. Arrange 1 and 1/2 meat muffin slices on lower third of one pastry rectangle, trying to arrange as evenly as possible, and leaving a 1" border between meat and edge of pastry. Moisten edges of rectangle with water. Fold pastry over, completely enclosing the meat, and crimp edges with a fork to seal.

Repeat with remaining pastry and meat muffins.

Bake pastry pouches for 20-25 minutes or until slightly brown.

While pastry bakes, prepare sauce:

Clean and slice mushrooms. Melt butter in a large skillet. Add mushrooms and cook on medium heat for five minutes, or until mushrooms are softened.

Add 1/2 c. wine to mushrooms and continue cooking another 5 minutes.

Mix 3 Tblsp. beef broth with corn starch, making sure corn starch dissolves completely. Add this to the mushrooms along with the remaining cup of broth and thyme. Continue cooking, stirring frequently until sauce thickens and appears rich and silky. Test for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as needed.

Remove pastries from oven, and allow to stand for 3 to 5 minutes. Top with mushroom sauce. Serve additional sauce on the side.

Comfy's note: You can use your favorite meatloaf recipe for these, as long as it is not too moist, or so highly seasoned that it competes with the taste of the sauce.