Too much cheese?

I don't think it is possible to eat too much cheese but we are blessed this season with an abundance of the good stuff from both sides of the pond. I went to Trader Joe's the other day and bought a few cheeses for our upcoming work party. The next day, my wonderful friends Alison and Max gifted us with a blessed abundance from Dean & Deluca. There is a lovely roquefort, an enormous, tasty Brilliant Savarin and a yummy Basque goats cheese. To gild the lily, my Mother sent us a sampling of cheeses from Renard's Cheese in Door County. MMMMmunster, WI cheddar and the classic holiday cheese spread. We are now swimming in cheese. Twelve lovely pounds of cheese.

I've also decided to make crème fraiche for the first time. I found the recipe in Medrich's Cocolat, but it is also available online. It's simple but you need to plan ahead. What you do is:

Heat 1 c. heavy cream (not ultra-pasturized) to 105 degrees

Remove from heat

add 1 tbsp. of buttermilk and stir.

Let sit, lightly covered for 12-36 hours in a warm spot until it has thickened and has a lovely nutty taste. I made 5 cups. Mine didn't thicken too much but has that lovely nutty taste and besides, it's "whipping" cream. Now I get to make tarts and desserts and .... yum!

Long time no keep

I made Thai chicken basil for dinner on Wednesday night and wanted to put bean sprouts in to the mix. When I went to the store I found that bean sprouts now come in restaurant sized packages of about 2lbs. Now I don't mind having 2lbs of bean sprouts but what with take out last night and working late tonight, the bean sprouts were not going to get eaten. I took to "The Google" and found out that the Japanese keep their bean sprouts in water in the refrigerator and change the water every two days. I'm giving it a try, has anyone ever done this? If it doesn't work, I'll let you know. Going to use them Sunday.

Bread Day

Have I told you that my sweetie makes bread? I am a lucky woman as he makes glorious, fabulous, wonderful bread from scratch all winter long. Well, technically it's not winter yet, but here, when it is 36 as a high, (ok you Wisconsinites, stop scoffing!) winter has kicked in full force and yesterday he kicked in full force on the bread as well.

When we were in Vermont last month he bought a big bag of semolina flour from King Arthur and he pulled it out yesterday. He has a lovely recipe that he makes as our everyday loaf but he must have been bored with it as he grabbed the Beranbaum Bible, plunked it in front of me and said "pick 2" so I picked the seminola torpedo and the Levy rye bread which we changed a bit by adding some rosemary from the garden to the recipe as we only had 1/2 the caraway called for. (caution, do not use this book without looking at the errata on her site).

Both, as you can see from the pictures, turned out delicious and paired perfectly with leftovers from the night before.

I also began a sourdough starter. I had made one a few years back which turned out reallly good breads but I didn't "feed the bitch!"and she went away. If you're interested in a chunk, let me know.

Dinner for Papa & Evelyn

Saturday night we had a 6 course tasting menu for dinner... at home. We started off with a roasted butternut squash soup with sage (yes with the leftover squash from Friday night's risotto) and then my sweetie made a wonderful dish of tenderloin scallopini from one of our Roseda tenderloins that he sliced, rolled and quickly panfried, then layered with parmesan and pancetta. I've never seen such marbling on a tenderloin.

We followed that with a chopped salad of fennel, romaine and spring onion tossed with a simple lemon juice and olive oil dressing. It was very refreshing

At this point we were getting a bit full but we soldiered on with a small risotto cake, made from last night's risotto milanese. Fried in the pancetta/tenderloin grease, they were a delightful taste before the main course.

I had decided for the main course that I would make a recipe I had found in a Bon appetit magazine years ago for Baked Ziti with Spicy Pork and Sausage Ragu and I managed to find it again on Epicurious as I recycled most of my magazines a few months ago. It's a good thing I started early as it took me most of the day to make this. The pork was cut up and browned in pancetta grease then a mirepoix was added to this mixture and after stewed with red wine for a few hours. (A good time to take a walk around the neighborhood) The nice thing is then I froze half this mixture for next month as it makes a good 10 servings even though they say 8. We paired this with a marvelous chianti classico riserva from Castello di Meleto and felt very very spoiled.

We finished off the evening in front of the fire with Evelyn's classic lemon meringue pie, the meringue perfectly browned, served with a lovely champagne. We rolled into bed Saturday night.

Big, Bold, Beautiful.... um Fennel

It was a food-filled weekend for sure. After spending Friday night gorging myself at Renee's with cookbook club, (see Julie's post, and Elizabeth's post) what do I do but get up bright and early Saturday morning to hit the Waverly market.

I always have to start by getting my eggs (rather his eggs) and then walking all the way up to the top of the market, controlling my urges to buy right away, then I turn around and actually do my purchasing on the way back. Yes, uber organized that's me. Well, we started our walk and I almost went crazy because the vegetables were absolutely gorgeous. I desperately wanted turnips but the couscous isn't planned 'til next weekend so we passed them by (good excuse to come back next weekend!) and then I went gaga over the fennel. It was so green, so plump so very um LARGE I had to have it.

We went to a Tapas party at Tiffany and John's Saturday night (I was put in charge of Gambas Al Ajillo) thus I had to wait until tonight to utilize my beautiful bulb.

Here's my fennel, and since I seem to be on the mashed potato fetish (lunch Friday, lunch Saturday lunch Sunday), my sweetie suggests that maybe we want something other than fennel mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. Huh? Ok...


I wasn't quite able to give up the whole potato idea. We pulled out the granny bangers from the freezer that we purchased in Vermont at Singleton's store and I fried them up and made this Fennel-Potato gratin to go with them.

Here's the recipe I cobbled together from the 12 I found on the Internet.



Fennel-Potato Gratin

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees

3lb white potatoes peeled and sliced thin
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
1 large fennel bulb with fronds, cored and sliced thin.
1 c. bechamel sauce with white pepper
1 c. heavy cream
Parmesan cheese (probably about 1/2 cup but I'm not sure as I microplaned it on)

Butter a 13x9 pan
Layer 1/2 of the potatoes in the pan, follow with a mixture of fennel and onion, grate parmesan over the top, add 1/2 c. of cream. Salt to taste. Layer the second 1/2 of the potatoes, the rest of the fennel/onion mixture and top with another layer of parmesan. Pour the 1/2 cup of cream and the bechamel evenly over the top. Decorate with a few fronds of fennel. Bake for 1 hour or until potatoes are almost done and top has browned. (turn on convection if not adequately browned) Remove from oven and let stand 10-15 minutes so the juices consolidate. Enjoy.

Steak-Spaetzle-Stilton

Ok so do you hear an S theme here? It wasn't intentional, but we had a hankering for spaetzle and we had lovely flat-iron steaks just waiting to be eaten. I had a gorgeous piece of stilton that was starting to get old so I made a bechamel (no, Coralie, I didn't heat the milk) and crumbled stilton into it. We decided to make an herbed cornmeal spaetzle. Couldn't find a recipe so we invented. It turned out great, a slight cornmeal texture and just herby enough to stand up to the creamy stilton sauce. Next time though I think we'll use a bit more cornmeal to give it a bit more flavor. Here it is:


Cornmeal/Herb Spaetzle with Stilton Bechamel
1 1/4 c. Flour
1/4 c. fine cornmeal (you could add more, the cornmeal flavor was light)
2 large eggs beaten
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 c. water
2 tbsp fresh herbs, chopped fine (I used parsley, oregano and rosemary)


Mix dry ingredients together. Make a well in the middle and add egg, combine well, add water and mix until a gloopy mass. Add fresh herbs and stir in.


What I do when I make spaetzle is put it in a pastry bag with a #12 tip and squeeze and snip. Should I call it squeeze and snip pasta? Many recipes recommend pushing through a colander or getting a spaetzle maker, I find this works fine as you can make small batches.

Wait 1 minute after the spatzele float to the top, remove with a slotted spoon and put into a colander to drain. Usually after this I put them in a baking dish with some butter and cook them for a bit, but in this case as I had the cheese sauce, I just put them into the oven to keep warm until the steaks were ready.

For the stilton bechamel, make a bechamel that uses about 1 1/2 cups milk. (I don't actually measure for my bechamel) I fried a shallot in the butter before adding the flour as well. Then crumble about 1/4 cup of stilton into the finished bechamel and whisk until smooth. Definitely a recipe I would make again. The spaetzle recipe would serve 4 with other courses. Enjoy!!!

Looooove the Black

Ok so my mom just totally rocks!! So she calls me two days before my birthday and says "what do you want for your birthday". I said, really, you don't have to get me anything. She said well, there's this chocolate place.... Um Hello Well Yeahhhh!

I got the chocolates in the mail today and OMG!! Norman Love Confections Black line (take a look). The box was sleek and gorgeous and inside, 15 perfect, beautiful chocolates. There are five kinds, gorgeous in shiny colors, each color representing a different chocolate from a different country with different types of cocoa. Just gorgeous.

Thanks Mom!!!

Pining for Provence

I haven't been to France in (wait, counting on my fingers) Oh my god, 5 years and am missing it. So when I read the article on dining in Provence with Picasso in the New York Times this morning, I totally missed it. The article is a joy and reads like a summer picnic. While the tablecloths in Sanary-sur-Mer, where I spent my days in Provence were green and peach, they still had the paper cloth on the top and you could still look out over the Med., smelling the briny depths as I tasted them in my moules marinières and brandade. Oh yum. Time to pull out my Elizabeth David Cookbook again.

Camel's Hump

A few photos from the walk up Camel's Hump. We got a sub from the new deli in Moscow and took the BIG BAG of potato chips. Boy were we lucky we did. 'Twas cold up there. As you can see, the walk was through the stream.














The views were
spectacular from the top

Vermont Weekend

We had 5 lovely days on our annual pilgrimage to Vermont. Understand that Vermont for me means cooking and eating and leaf and tourist peeping. Attached are a few photos taken by Tam that express some of the delightful experiences I had in VT.

Sheep Being Shipped for Slaughter

Yes we had lamb on Saturday night for dinner.... mmmm tasty. Tam grows her own potatoes and they seem to have an addiction to my feta mashed potatoes, so good with lamb!!! Pair that with the growler of Brewer's Art Resurrection that we hauled up there from Baltimore and we were in 7th heaven.

The water buffalo from whence came the caprese salad (lunch today)

After stopping to get the buffalo mozzarella and stocking up on small batch maple syrup we headed to Singleton's store for the best bacon in the world. Cob smoked bacon, 25 lbs from the surly Vermonters that work there. Yes Josh, you'll get your share next weekend.

Plymouth Cheese (nasty nasty stuff)

Next time we're sticking to the Cabot and Lazy Lady cheese while in VT, but this cheese maker (Frog City Cheese) was located on the Calvin Coolidge homestead so we tried it. They are purported to be using one of the oldest cheese recipes in the country. The landscape was gorgeous gorgeous, the cheese, nicht ser gut! We tried to find 3 other cheese places, but nothing is very well marked in Vermont. Yes we did have to haul our butts up Camel's Hump to work off some of that food. Oof!

More fall foliage photos:

Carmel Pear Terrine

I bought my first Martha Stewart Living Magazine last week. We went to the Barnes & Noble to hang out and drink coffee in the rain and I got stuck. There was this wonderful looking recipe for pear terrine which just sounded fantastic. (BTW here's the recipe) I borrowed Chris' mandoline (yes, yes, we'll get one soon) and got started.

I love when you have to coat the bottom of a pan with caramel. You swirl in this beautiful deep amber syrup and the hard candy shell is like making glass.

She says to use a charlotte mold. I used a souffle pan instead and thought it worked great. She also calls for it to be served with blue cheese. Since we were bringing this to Jake and Mandy's for dessert we decided to give people a choice and I brought along some stilton and my sweetie made homemade ginger, fireweed honey and toasted pecan ice cream. The girls chose the cheese, the guys the ice cream (well, the girls actually chose both). While this recipe took quite a while to make, it was definitely worth it. Make sure the pears are still slightly green as mine were too soft and we had to reduce the cooking time by about 20 minutes. We also boiled the syrup for 20-25 minutes instead of the five she called for as we wanted the syrup to be very viscous. The carmel pear taste was intense.

Nath's Tomates Farcis

I had a ton of tomatoes that we picked before the hurricane so I decided to make stuffed tomatoes like Nathalie used to make when I lived with her in France.

Not remembering the recipe I pulled out my French cookbooks and proceeded to peruse. I found multiple recipes but I wanted NATH's! Luckily she was on IM so I made her send me the recipe. They were deeee-lish. Here is exactly what she said if you feel like translating (or comment and I'll send it to you my translation in English with metric converted too). There was lots of leftover farce, I mixed it with a bunch of rice and put it in the oven.

Recipe starts:

Actually I don't have a recipe for Tomates Farcies because to do the "farce" you can put almost anything and most of the time, I do it with leftovers. But here is how you should do it:

8 tomates moyennes ou grosses

150 g d'échine de porc (ou roti de porc ou jambon ou bacon)

300 g de boeuf cuit (restes de pot au feu par exemple)

2 oignons

persil (note- I put in herbes de provence)

2 oeufs

1 c à soupe d'huile

sel - poivre

un tout petit peu de cumin en poudre : facultatif

Si tu veux que ta farce soit moins riche, tu peux ajouter un morceau de pain rassi et un peu de lait ou quelques courgettes cuites et bien essorées. (did not do this)

Lavez, essuyez les tomates, découpez un chapeau. A l'aide d'une petite cuillère, videz l'intérieur et le gardez pour le mettre dans la farce. Hachez tous les ingrédients (suffisamment pour que les morceaux de viande ne soient pas trop gros mais pas trop pour que ça ne fasse pas de la soupe).Répartissez le contenu du bol dans les tomates, couvrez avec les chapeaux. Posez les côte à côte dans un plat à four huilé. Mettez à four moyen (thermostat 5/6, 180°) pendant 30 minutes.

(Avant de mettre la farce dans les tomates, tu peux aussi ajouter une cuillère à café et demi de riz cru au fond de la tomate. C'est ce que je fais moi mais il faut savoir qu'ensuite, ça fait moins de jus, mais ça grille mieux).

Voilà, j'espère que ça te conviendra. Have fun doing your tomates farcies and bon appétit.

Dove bites and salt

I had bought Dove minature ice cream bars to share when we had company the other day. They were on a diet so poor us we were stuck with the whole box of ice cream bars. We had just finished eating dinner last night so I had my minibar and put it on my plate that I had just eaten roast beef from. (just on the corner mind you). There was an Australian pink salt crystal sitting on my ice cream when I picked it up. I shrugged, bit, and WOW!!! I highly suggest eating your Dove bars with Pink Salt. MMMMMMM

Okay Renee I'll bite -Omnivores 100

Renee Explains:

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred: (I've only got 19 to go and out of them I refuse to smoke a cigar and can't see putting clotted cream in my tea so 17!)

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (no but I've had nettle soup)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile-
6. Black pudding (boudin noir was my Tuesday meal when I was an au pair)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp (smoked in Door County)
9. Borscht That was an interminable meal, I hate beets.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (personally I prefer it stuffed with pork ;)
12. Pho the best is at this divey place in Seattle
13. PB&J sandwich yuk
14. Aloo gobi had it but didn't know it was called this
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses stanky but mmmmm!!!
17. Black truffle only in stuff
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes thanks mom!
19. Steamed pork buns dim sum!!!
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (homegrown and all)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (not home grown)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (worked in a deli in WI, what do you want)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper a small piece and I choked
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (I've had the sweet)
34. Sauerkraut- Homemade!!!
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar Here's where I cross out cigars, yuk.
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (kinda like head cheese ;-)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat superfresh sometimes sells goat!
42. Whole insects (What!!! I bike don't I?)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut- fresh and hot is best
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear Not impressed
52. Umeboshi we got these as a gag gift for someone
53. Abalone
54. Paneer a staple in my closet
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal- but I don't like the special sauce
56. Spaetzle homemade
57. Dirty gin martini have tried, but not a big hard liquor fan.
58. Beer above 8% ABV daily, although today I only had a 1/2 glass MAUDITE!!!
59. Poutine Heading back in 2 weeks for another
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores-
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst (sadly no)
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs believe it or not, I grew up on these!!!
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake all of the above
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette not my favorite
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost had a norwegian girlfriend who ate it every morning
75. Roadkill don't ask!!!
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie best one was at 11,000 feet
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong winter tea
80. Bellini (could definitely do this one!)
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict crab eggs benedict mmmm
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (biased!!!)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers Today, from my garden
89. Horse homemade
90. Criollo chocolate (Guttiard)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab (ok Renee it was good!)
93. Rose harissa (I've had the regular stuff!)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Mad for an herb cookbook

We've been eating almost exclusively this last week from an herb cookbook that actually came out years ago. I've mentioned the Herbfarm Restaurant before (my dream), but never really explored the cookbooks 'til now. Here is the first.

We've made sooo many good things from this book in the last week. Traunfeld features my favorite herb (sorrel) in sooo many ways. I made a green risotto that was filled with herbs (yes sorrel too). My S/O is getting into it too. He made the herbed foccacia (he is the bread man) and baked herb buttermilk chicken. He has another book out called The Herbal Kitchen, that's next on my list. Can one get sick of herbs? With the garden really taking off, it's fun to cut large handfuls of herbs to make dinner. So now that Traunfeld has left the restaurant, it's up to me to make the recipes. I can't wait for the tomatoes to start. Oh and Coralie, I want you to make the Lemon Verbena Ice Cream....

Tomatoes growing, life is good

The garden got planted last weekend. What an effort. I enlarged it by a third so I could put more tomatoes in. Last year I put the tomatoes in behind the azeleas but that didn't work so well so expanding the herb garden out made more room. I think my chamomile likes it's new home better than buried under the rosemary.

I'd show you but I'm having issues with my stupid camera. But as you can see, the fennel is growing like crazy (and coming up all over the place too) and the herbs are taking off. I've planted a second lavendar to the right so there will be a lavendar frame for the garden. The other lavendar has taken over the left of the garden, but the sage is fighting it. My thyme is beautiful, it has purple flowers and is 2 feet around. I've been putting thyme in everything as you can imagine. I have 6 tomato plants in. I thought I had a 7th, a volunteer, but it seems to have gone missing. The tomato plants are up to over 2 feet now and I think there's a little tomato on one. Sooooo slow.

So I've been invited to join a cookbook club. It should be interesting. Renee has her blog called Wine Bread Cheese and she says she's going to blog our cookbook club. The first book is Friday. It's called Fish w/out a Doubt. I am in charge of appetizers. Now I just have to go check out the book (yes, from the library, if they had it) Hopefully I'll get to use my herbs.

Mostly in!

So I have all but a couple of my herbs in and have been profiting from the herb garden. The thyme has gone wild this year but the rosemary is definitely being consumed by the mint in the pot so if I ever finish digging the addition to the garden (poor tomato plants, they reallllly want to be in the ground) I will transplant the rosemary to a happier spot.

I got my nasturtiums finally, had to drive all the way out to Valley View again as they just didn't have the right ones at Greenfields, but I put some of the greens in a salad today along with some of the sorrel. Burgers and salad after a bike ride, mmmmm. Made a lovely vinagrette using the Lemon Thyme that Renee reminded me I had growing. Hadn't used it in a year I think. YUM.

I think I counted 5 tomato flowers and one pepper. Should have veggies soon!!! Last night we went to a friend's for dinner. She found the peas at the Waverly market, I missed them :-( Next week I'm getting peas!!!! Her risotto with peas and asparagus was divine, not to mention the excellent lamb chops. It is cool and lovely and life is good.

Sooooo Lazy

Well really, I have had my herbs for two weeks now and the flat of flowers too. I've yet to plant more than half of it. I need to dig the garden (see last May) and I'm sooo lazy! I guess going backpacking for three days midweek didn't help any, but it was a lovely backpack even if I did get another tick. I hate ticks! Another excuse is the rain, we have had 5 inches in the last week. Good for the grass (groan) but not so good for me. As Tam says, I mould when it rains.

Will photo soon. I can't believe the azaelas are almost finished.

Lemon Verbena

Yaaay,
My lemon Verbena is coming back!!! I did not yank up the stick that was in the ground last week and this morning I noticed that it was coming back. More Tea for meee FUN!!! I've started clearing the ivy and soon will make the garden much much bigger.

Ooh and I put out the hibiscus today. It'll be nice when it starts to flower again. It's 80 out there.

I've bought 'em

Saturday I went on a buying frenzy. I finally managed to get the Japanese Maple that I've been wanting to put in the front yard for a year. Now all we need is a big rock. It is a cut-leaf japanese maple that will take a bit of time to spread out but it looks pretty good. I'm going to put some marigolds around it and it's mulched already but very very exciting.



I also bought most of my herbs and tomatoes. Now Chris says he's already put his tomatoes in, but luckily it was raining all day Sunday so I did NOT get them planted. It's supposed to get down to 34 tonight, plants are coming into the living room. But I got some neat stuff.

5 tomato plants
-Mr. Stripey (see to the left)
-Pink Brandywine
-Yellow Plum (I got this about 4 years ago, yum)
-Big Beef (for canning)
-Marglobe (resistant to wilt!)




The herbs that I missed are:
-Nasturtums (I have to get these, they were so much fun last year)
- Greek oregano (the fuzzy one)
- Lemon verbena (they had it in the market, silly me)

Looking forward to planting on Sunday!!!

It's raining.

April showers, that's what they say. We went for a walk today, it's been raining off and on for about 3 days now and everything is starting to pop in our neighborhood. I love seeing the weeping cherry trees draped with pink flowers with little daffidol heads peeking out from under. I saw the beginnings of the neighbor's phlox today, I just wonder when mine is going to pop! It really got big over the winter. Give the tulips a week and we'll have real color! Very exciting.

It's coming!!!

The daffidols are up and the tulips are approaching 6 inches. I guess that means that spring is in the air. Walked to Sherwood Gardens today and their tulips are even shorter than ours, but the magnolias are popping and asparagus season is upon us. I went yesterday and cleared the leaves from my garden and I have sorrel sprouting so now I am making cream of asparagus and sorrel soup. After the long winter of only getting rosemary, thyme and sage out of the garden it was a joy to see everything coming back. Here is what is coming back in the garden:

• Three kinds of thyme
• Two kinds of rosemary
• Two kinds of oregano
• Three kinds of mint
• Bronze fennel (why oh why did I rip up the other one?)
• The sorrel
• Chives
• Maybe the chamomile, it's hard to tell
• Some miserable Italian parsley that needs replanting
• The sage, though it dearly needs trimming
• And of course the lavendar which also needs a trim.

I have the weekend of the 19th penciled in to start enlarging the garden. Looking forward to it.