It Was a Goat's Cheese Week!!

I think I've bought more Goat's cheese this past month than I have in years. And I've certainly found some wonderful dishes to use it in.

We've had a couple of open house parties to go to this past month, so I've been wanting to 'stock' up on some entertaining ideas for the upcoming holidays.

A few months ago, I bought a jar of Garlic-Pineapple Salsa that we just love. Even mixed with Pesto, it has a delightful flavor. I've been playing with duplicating it and now have one that is close, but not quite there - will play with more. It's missing the fresh 'upfront' pineapple, so will work more with fresh and a couple other ideas.


Garlic-Pineapple Salsa


1 cup pineapple, crushed, drained, but keep juice
2 tsp. honey
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. crystalized ginger, minced

2 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 T. onion, minced
1 jalapeno, minced (will replace with dried pepper flakes next time)
pinch cumin (will omit next time)
1 tsp. cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. sugar


Mix all the ingrdients together, thin with a little of the juice if necessary. Cover and let sit in refrigerator for a few hours before serving.


This is a work in progress - but, it's very good right now!
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Two other dips/spreads tried this past weekend were keepers also - one, from Southern Living's Christmas book is especially flavorful - it would also be great tossed with hot pasta! That's it in the foreground -




Peach & Pecan Tapenade with Goat Cheese


...except no one around here had dried peaches, so subbed about 2/3 dried mango and 1/3 dried apricots - this is so good!! I made half the recipe and it's a very nice amount for a crowd of ~20.

1 cup orange juice
2 cups dried peaches, chopped
1 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
2 T. olive oil
1 T. honey
1 T. capers, drained
1/2 tsp. dried thyme (use fresh)
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
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12 oz. goat cheese
lovash or specialty crackers

Bring orange juice to a boil in a small saucepan over med. heat.Remove from heat and add chopped dried peaches.Cover and let stand 30 min.


Drain, if necessary.Combine olives and next 5 ingred. in a serving bowl. Stir in peaches and pecans.Place tapenade on a serving platter with goat cheese and crackers.

Spread cheese on crackers, and smear with tapenade.Makes 3 3/4 cups.

Do ahead - but don't add pecans until service. Will keep in frig 2 days.
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The second is a dip from Nigella Lawson's book, Feasts (more on this book later in this posting)

Basil and Goat's Cheese Dip
You can use feta in place of goat cheese.

1 cup walnut pieces, toasted
2 scallions, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cup basil leaves
1 packed cup soft goat's cheese
3 T. garlic-infused oil

Process the walnut pieces, scallions & basil leaves, then add the goat cheese and oil; process again to make a grainy paste.Transfer to a bowl.

This topping would also be great tossed with a little hot pasta and sprinkled with a little Parmigiano-Reggiano. Add a little rustic bread and dinner's ready.
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Another dish we tried and could not stop eating on is a take off from a Sandra Lee dish, Couscous with Goat Cheese (again with the goat cheese!) This was a clean the pantry/frig dish for me.

4 oz. fideo
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup pinenuts, toasted
1/3 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/3 cup currants
4 oz. goat cheese, crumbled
1/2 Kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup finely hopped parsley leaves

Cook the fideo and salt in water until just done; drain and pour into a serving bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients and toss together. At this point, either serve the fideo, or cover and chill for a few hours. At serving time, put in microwave for just 1-2 minutes - just to take the chill off, but not hot. This will help melt the cheese and bring out all the flavors.

Grandma Shelledy's Lefse

My two grandmothers were two of the most diverse women that anyone could ever imagine - Grandma (always called 'Moremommie' for some unGodly reason) Fry was as high-falootin' and snobbish as you could imagine in our small town of Yakima, Washington. Ever the lady, short but seemingly tall and stately, she looked down her regal nose at just about everyone in that town. BUT, oh my, she was the most most loving, wonderful Grandmother any child, especially a girl could dream of having. She and her four sisters doted on my sister and me all of their lives.

Grandma 'Mom' Shelledy was the complete opposite in temperment and stature. She was short and plump with pure white hair always pulled back in a bun, held tight with little brown combs. As a young woman, she cooked for the ranch hands on the Columbia River, was a post mistress in her small town, was almost the sole parent of her seven children while my Grandfather was off being a sherriff and probably carousing the countryside. In her later years, she still cooked on her wood stove and the most wonderful foods came out of her kitchen. Lefse is probably my favorite of all she ever made.

It's a Norwegian bread, looks just like a tortilla except for the shape, my Grandma's were usually like triangles of dough she cooked on the wood stove. She made lefse for the family for all my life and probably years before that! I don't know how she kept up with us when the whole family was around her huge round kitchen table, soft butter and the sugar dish in front of us just waiting as the lefse came off her old wood stove. I know we must have eaten faster than she could cook them.

This recipe is how she dictated her it to my sister, Joan and me, many years ago. I made these again the other day (while I was cooking potatoes for Tourtiere Tarts, I thot why not go for it) - I also wanted to 'test' the way the recipe was written. I disovered the most amazing thing - all my life I thot Grandma cooked lefse in triangles, but now I realize what she did - there were always so many of us panting for more lefse that after she cooked these circles of dough, she would portion them out in pie shapes, therefore feeding 4 or 6 of us with one lefse!!!!! It only took me 67 years to figure that one out! she'd be so proud!

Mom Shelledy's Lefse
5 large white potatoes (the old & mushy type)
2 cups sweet cream -- half & half, or milk & water (but cream is the best!)
1 tsp. salt
3 T. butterFlour for rolling the lefse out (I made 1/2 this recipe and needed ~ 1 3/4 cups flour kneaded into the dough to make it workable)

1. Boil potatoes and mash until very fine.
2. Add cream, salt, and butter; beat until light.
3. Let cool (fairly)
4. Add flour until workable.
5. Roll out and bake on top of griddle (or wood burning stove)

More traditional instructions -Follow above through #4 - the dough will be fairly dry, but stay together to be rolled out.

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.Roll the dough out into ropes and cut into 2" chunks.

Roll chunks into thin circles (or long ovals, or whatever) like tortillas.Heat a griddle to about 400 F.

Place a circle of lefse on the dry griddle and cook until brown spots appear on the heated surface. Flip and cook the same way on the other side.

Lay cooked lefse on cooling rack as you cook the rest.

To serve: Some folks like just butter, my family always smeared the softened butter over and topped with a sprinkling of granulated sugar.

Fold twice or roll into a cylinder. Eat and enjoy!!

Oh my, it's amazing the memories that come while making these - I'll have to post a picture of my Grandma, she is just the epitome of what a Grandma should always be.

And Grandma Fry, of the exquisite Chocolate Set and her sets of Fostoria and Limoges Haviland and all good things in life, was also the epitome of what a Grandma should be!!!

A Dinner of Hors D'oeuvre

No pictures of this wonderful little dinner, but my, what a fun dinner!

There are a couple of open house parties scheduled for the coming weeks and I wanted to play with some new hors. Every one turned out a keeper. Our dinner consisted of:

Salmon Spread - a mixture of -
smoked salmon
cream cheese
thinned with a little creme fraiche (or mayo)
capers
corn - roasted and cut from the cob would be best, or use frozen corn thawed
chives
lemon juice
pinch of cayenne

Very tasty on toasted bread rounds and surprisingly spread on hard-cooked eggs.
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PESTO-GOAT CHEESE SPREAD:

In a food processor, put all the ingredients:
11-oz. log goat cheese
8-oz. pkg. softened cream cheese
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
1/2 c. toasted pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
2 T. balsamic vinegar

and process till smooth. Chill 2 hrs. before serving. Makes 3 cups.

Store in frig up to 1 week, or freeze up to 4 mos.
Serve w/toasted pita chips or sliced baguettes.

I think this would be very good tossed with some hot cooked pasta also.
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Grilled Apple Sausages and Pineapple
Hard Cooked eggs, which turned out to be wonderful with the Salmon Spread, will do a stuffed egg with this soon.

Fun dinner treat this was!

Using The Chocolate Set!

While I was growing up, my mother had a chocolate set given to her by her mother - it was a wedding present to my grandparents. I thought it was the most beautiful, fragile thing I'd ever seen. Over the years my mother did make use of the set and serve me hot chocolate once or twice, but mostly it sat in the china cupboard with the other Limoges Haviland, untouched. One day, when I was in my early thirties, she decided it should come to my house because I had loved it so much over the years and she also knew I would made use of it much more than she.

I have used it over the years, not as often as I wish I had, but a couple of weeks ago I saw a recipe for 'Alcoholic Hot Chocolate' by Nigella Lawson - while the name turned me off, the recipe sounded delightful. Since the resident bartender usually makes our weekend lavish drink experiments, Roy offered to make the renamed "Rummed Hot Chocolate" for us and I ran for the Chocolate Set.

We sat in the front courtyard on a Sunday morn drinking our chocolate in the style that my Grandmother would have been so proud!

Rummed Hot Chocolate
Nigella Lawson recipe

2 cups milk
3 1/2 ounces best-quality dark chocolate -- bittersweet or semisweet, as preferred
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons dark rum -- or to taste

Put the milk into a saucepan and break the chocolate into pieces and add to the milk along with a cinnamon stick, honey, and sugar and heat gently until the chocolate is melted.

Add the vanilla and mix with a small hand whisk and still whisking, add a spoonful of the rum first and taste to see if you want more. Add more sugar if you want this sweeter, too. Take out the cinnamon stick and pour into 2 cappuccino or caffe latte cups.

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I'm promising myself we will use the Chocolate Set and this hot chocolate often this coming winter!!!