Six years?

I can't believe it sneaked past us... a couple of days ago, the 6th anniversary of this site passed us by. Yikes, boy does time fly! I didn't actually realize it until a reader sent us an e-mail asking if we were going to make anything special for it - oops, guess not! Even though we didn't make a new dish to celebrate, I do have a couple new recipes we've made recently that are worthy of being noted. The first being what we made for this week's Wednesday Treat Day - Mini Cheesecake Tarts.

You will need a fancy pan for these, but I suppose you could always try and use a muffin tin - if you go that route, you would want to line that pan with paper liners to ensure the tarts will pop out. The almond-laced crust is lovely - crisp and nutty, but still tender to cut through with a fork. You can top the individual creamy vanilla tarts with whatever suits your fancy - we went with raspberry jam and three plump fresh raspberries on each. Blueberries are flooding the farmers' market here and I imagine a blueberry compote with some sort of lemon infusion would make a killer topping.

I'll link you directly to the site where we found the next recipe - Black Forest Ham Rolls. I have Dan's site loaded into my rss reader and saved this idea aside just as soon as I finished the post.

These cheesy spiral rolls are prepared using a homemade dough made with bread flour and one of Jeff's favorite flours - rye! To boost the flavor in the dough, butter softened onions, seasoned with caraway seeds to toast along the ride, slide into the dough to mix in with the other liquids. When the dough has rested and been stretched out, a solid layer of grainy mustard is slathered on, followed by shreds of Emmental cheese and chopped pieces of Black Forest ham.

Rolled up (à la cinnamon roll fashion) and sliced into chunky rounds, you can arrange them on the baking sheet a couple of ways - while we did them single file (about an inch or two away from one another), you could also shingle them together in two lines or a large ring. There are no measurements for the fillings, so we just followed our instincts - you don't want too much of any single ingredient as you may have a hard time rolling the log or keeping them together while slicing. Jeff and I both thought these were exceptional, especially hot out of the oven with the golden gooey cheesy oozing all over - they also reheated well, making for a snazzy lunch the next day!

Recipes
Mini Cheesecake Tarts
Black Forest Ham Rolls