Baked Brie Bites, Smushers, and a Publisher's Nightmare

Last night, I gave my first real cooking lesson--  A friend had approached me a couple of weeks ago and said, "Can I pay you to teach me how to make something?  Like anything?  I can usually boil water without a problem, but that's about it.  Do you do that?"  After about a millisecond, I was like, "OF COURSE!!  I totally do that as of right this second!"  I came up with a menu, sent her the shopping list, then had to send pictures of anything that didn't come in a can, and we got after it.  We made baked brie bites, lemon-butter chicken with proscuitto and artichoke hearts, rice, roasted asparagus, and apple oatmeal crisp.  It was really entertaining for both of us AND at the end she said she felt totally confident she could repeat the meal on her own.  Success!

The Baked Brie Bites came from an idea I saw on Pinterest and then completely changed up because I couldn't figure where I initially saw it and had to rely on my memory.  Argh.  I think what I saw called for phyllo dough, but I'm apparently not very reliable on this and in fact, maybe I dreamt it.  Oops.  Never mind, let's just do it my way.  To hell with Pinterest anyway.    

Fancy, fancy, fancy

 You need:

A package of wonton wrappers ((my new favorite thing which can be found in the produce area of the supermarket, usually by the organics for reasons I don't understand))
EVOO ((extra virgin olive oil))
A wedge of brie
1/2 cup of brown sugar
*Some* honey
Pears for garnish

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Take the wonton wrappers and very lightly brush them with olive oil on one side.  Put them into a mini muffin tin which you have lightly sprayed with cooking spray and smush them down in to make little cups.  I actually have a smusher-type gadget that I didn't realize was a smusher.  I thought it was a pestle.  Oopsiedoodle.  You don't need a smusher.  You can smush them with your fingers.  Smusher.  ((<---Making up words is fun.))

Add about a tablespoon of brie to each of the cups.  ((We under-filled ours...  You will want to fill it basically to the top.))  Sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar over each one.  Finish it with a drizzle of honey.

Bake for about 8 minutes until the edges are golden brown and remove to a cooling rack for a couple of minutes, then serve immediately.

((As we were doing this and I'm sort of meandering through my pantry halfway talking to myself, she says, "Do you know what you're doing?"  Um, no?  "So you are making this up right now?"  Yeah, basically!))

We garnished it with little slivers of pear to be extra fancy and gourmet-y.

*****

From the "I'm apparently not a total idiot file," I *just now* discovered that I can upload pictures without going through the huge rigamarole that I have been.  It's like one button.  Holy shit, maybe I'm getting smarter.  It's about time.  Nah, doubtful.  I actually did it by accident and then somehow figured out how to repeat it.

I'll be back in a few to recap what has now been deemed THE BEST F*CKING CHICKEN EVER!  No, really.  That's its official name.  If I'm serious about actually publishing a cookbook, some editor is going to have one helluva time with me.  I'm still pissed, but totally not really, that the title 101 Desserts to Get You Laid is taken.  Sigh.