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Everyday Entertaining: These Pop Tart-like pastries will make you feel like a kid again

 
These slightly grown-up versions of Pop-Tarts are infinitely adaptable and easy to make with storebought puff pastry.
These slightly grown-up versions of Pop-Tarts are infinitely adaptable and easy to make with storebought puff pastry.
Published Jan. 2, 2017

For the past four years, I've written In Our Kitchen, a column on home cooking for the Times.

It began as entries chronicling what went down in the tiny kitchen I shared with my boyfriend as we shook off the eating habits of our college days and learned to cook for ourselves.

We're now coming up on our second wedding anniversary, and we share a more spacious kitchen in a house we own. The way we cook has evolved, and so has my food writing.

I do most of the cooking at home now (he, thankfully, does most of the dishes), and we're often feeding more than just the two of us. So I'm turning my focus in this new column, Everyday Entertaining, to how I cook and entertain for family and friends at home.

It will delve into the recipes and methods I use to feed a large group — or a friend who comes over for movie night. Things like the savory cobbler — with juicy red and yellow cherry tomatoes peeking through biscuits freckled with bits of browned Gruyère — that anchored a summer brunch spread for friends. Or the pork ribs lacquered with caramel sauce for the night before Christmas Eve and the Lasagna Bolognese with homemade bechamel, tomato sauce and noodles I served the following evening. A few years ago, my husband and I worked up three Christmas lasagnas, including a vegetarian one with a chickpea bolognese, despite a late-night breakdown of our pasta maker.

A gloriously puffy Dutch baby pancake made a last-minute sleepover special when a friend's air conditioning stopped working at her house and she spent the night. Chicken braised briefly in a mustard and white wine sauce with shallots and tarragon makes weeknight dinner parties possible. So do meatballs simmered on the stove.

Most recently, it was a batch of homemade Pop-Tart-like pastries, a s'mores version for a party of 26. They were glazed and garnished with crushed graham crackers, a fun and unexpected crowdpleaser to follow baked ziti. Those were inspired by ones I created to munch on while watching the Gilmore Girls revival with a friend, made with Nutella, sprinkles and frozen puff pastry.

Entertaining doesn't end in the twilight hours of New Year's Eve, it just changes shape over the course of the year. After the year-end holidays, there are many occasions, both big and small, that merit celebrating with good food and good company.

I've always liked celebrating the little things, which is why I keep a bottle of prosecco in the refrigerator and puff pastry in the freezer for everyday entertaining.

Ileana Morales Valentine can be reached at ileanamvalentine@gmail.com.