This came about because there’s a great sandwich at The Kitchen, which is in the lobby of the Hartford Public Library.  It’s part of Billings Forge Community Works and indeed, they do good great things with the community.  Please check out their website.  But, The Kitchen is a bright and lovely place to grab a bite for lunch.  They have some great offerings, but, “The-Butter-Me-Up” grilled sandwich is what inspired this “croute”.  As you know The Goddess is absolutely into making things from scratch.  You can hear the “but” coming, can’t you?  Buuut…she always has several tubes of crescent rolls in the back of the fridge, lurking there, just waiting for some creative thought to strike.  Sometimes the wait is long and they are there for quite awhile!

She’s been thinking about this for awhile now and today was the day.  The Artful Docent loves “The-Butter-Me-Up”, so The Goddess whacked the loaf in half and shared.  Food tastes better when shared, particularly with special friends.  Have you noticed that, too?  We’ll see what she thinks.

The Kitchen uses Mystic Melinda Mae cheese which is made by The Mystic Cheese Company in, wait for it…Mystic, Ct. If you don’t live in the area, you may be able to purchase it on-line, and some supermarkets carry it.  Since I used ours up, and Brie was in the fridge.  Then, Brie it was!  I purchased these gorgeous Vidalia onions, that look like giant scallions, so I used one of those, as well as a regular Vidalia.  I sautéed them up with some oil, and near the end of cooking, threw in some chopped fresh rosemary and sage that are still holding on in the garden.  Does your sage stay usable during the winter?  Mine seems to, but the rosemary doesn’t survive our New England winters, so I dry that.  I had some roasted winter squash (butternut or Hubbard would work just fine) leftover from dinner and my handy-dandy roll of crescent rolls.  To you non-leftover lovers, and you know who you are; this is why I love leftovers.  I also made some soup with it…it was a really big squash, okay?   So this is how this goes together:Lay the rectangles end-to-end; gently press the seams together.   The sheet pan is lined with parchment, but that isn’t totally necessary.  Lay the Brie slices down the center of the dough rectangle, leaving about 1 inch at the short ends and about 2 inches along the sides.  I found that 2 slices side-by-side was about right.  Spread the onion mixture over the top of the cheese slices.  Grind some black pepper over them.  Spread or lay the squash over the onions and drizzle with balsamic glaze.  Now, you can see how I folded the ends in, cut the edges into strips and folded those over the filling…think Danish Loaf…that’s the form you’re looking for.  Then, some freshly grated Asiago on top and into the oven it went.  It took about 5 minutes to assemble and about 18 minutes to bake.  So here’s the recipe:

This is a great vegetarian luncheon or cocktail offering.  A slice is lovely on a nice leafy salad, dress with a sharp-ish vinaigrette.  I served it for lunch, with a cup of Thai-Inspired Squash Bisque.  The Goddess was in a squash frame of mind, today.