Cheese Adventures Make My Tastebuds SING!

Having an abundance of fresh creamy goat milk means a lot of cheese needs to be made and we can have fun creating new cheesy goodness. I told you all I'd update you on the fun things we made with the cheese rolls (Mozzarella rolled into a sheet, filled and then rolled up and cut like pinwheels. Well, We've made the proscuitto, sundried tomato and basil and few times and I never tire of that one. We've made Italian meats and cheese with Prosciutto and salami as well as artichokes and olives (wasn't my favorite - too salty so I may have to modify the way I make it) The Italian meat was good but my new favorite taste sensation is: Proscuitto, Basil and Fig. Okay - sounds wierd but I was surfing some food blogs and found one about a cheese and fig sandwich with Italian bread and basil/pesto on it and the lightbulb went on......Oh yeah, it's GOOD!
there are of course other fun things to be made with OTHER goat milk products - like yogurt. This is a Tex Mex potato salad that I found on another blog; laurasbestrecipes.com. But modified for my tastebuds. This, my friends is delish! I made it with both sweet potatoes and white potatoes (I think Yukon Gold would have been better but I had none on hand) Chipotle Mayo/yogurt dressing (3 TBSP chipotle with adobo paste, 1 C Mayo, 1 C. Yogurt and 2 TBSP spicy mustard) chopped tomatoes, chopped up cilantro and a chopped up red onion and some garlic(minced). I think I could eat this by myself in one sitting but yeah, probably will have to share at the BBQ.
Lastly, Caprese salad. This has always been one of my favs. What more could you ask for - Fresh Tomatoes from the garden, Fresh Homemade Mozzarella, Fresh Basil from the garden, a Balsamic Vinegar reduction with some cracked pepper to top it all off?UM - NOTHING! I would love to take credit for this lovely dish but I have to give credit where credit is due - Thank you Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/06/caprese-salad/

for sharing this lovely dish on your blog. My tastebuds are singing today - Cheese Adventures ROCK!

The Cheese Adventure takes a turn for the SWEETER!

The sweet tooth came out today. I was sitting around wondering what to do with some sweet chevre and got an idea - can you make truffles out of chevre. The answer is YES! I found a few recipes online but decided to go my own route. I had already made some Chevre with agave nectar, orange flavoring and orange peels. (about 1 C of Chevre with 1/2 tsp flavoring and 1/2 tsp. dried orange peel).
So I heated up the Milk chocolate I had left over from the Valentine's chocolates I'd made.
And Dipped them. then sprinkled a tiny bit of sea salt on top (if you've never had sea salt with your chocolate - do not knock it till you try it! HEAVENLY!) I think the ONLY thing that could have made these little gems better is having dark chocolate instead of Milk chocolate! OH YEAH! The most amazing part is how easy this was. NOW I'm thinking what yummy flavors one could make with this chevre deal......lavender, peppermint, strawberry, how about a fig, stuffed with sweet chevre, dipped in chocolate! Let the sweet side of cheese adventures.....begin!

A continuation of the Cheese Adventures

Well, who says I cannot combine my food adventures. Tonight we decided to go on a little journey to France in our culinary adventures and because there is CHEESE involved - yes, it's part of our cheese adventures as well. Tonight is also a vegetarian meal so for those of you doing the veg thing - this one's for you too! First up is Asparagus with bleu cheese and pinon nuts. I'm not sure this is really French but I figure with the Bleu Cheese, why not? EASY to make and the only things I can think of to make this EASY side dish better would be HOME made bleu cheese (maybe someday!) and HOME grown asparagus - again - maybe someday since I planted my first root stock this year. I roasted the asparagus with Olive oil and salt/pepper and then sprinkled pine nuts and bleu cheese on top right toward the end. see - EASY!

Next up is a lovely French Cucumber salad - again easy and oh so yummy. Funny thing is there isn't much difference between this salad and our favorite Cucumber Soup - except maybe a blender. This salad is nothing more than cucumbers, salt, pepper, 1 Tsp lemon juice and 1 C. Greek style yogurt. Also I added some mint leaves chopped up to make it have a bit more zing. YUM! IF you don't like mint leaves I bet you could substitute a myriad of other yummy herbs: lemon thyme, chives, or even dill.
Lastly is my family's favorite cold or hot soup - Potato Leek soup (hot) or Vicchisoise (cold) on a hot summer day - COLD is the way to go. make it early in the morning and refrigerate! After a long hot day, this will hit the spot! It is simple to make: 3 good sized leeks chopped up and washed, then sauteed in EVOO, Then peel and add about 5 - 6 good sized potatoes. Add stock - I used vegetable stock for this but you can use chicken also. Then cook until potatoes are nice and soft. Add Creme Fraische or milk if you don't have CF. Blend and add salt and pepper to taste. We are adding French Bread with Chevre cheese (ooh more french! more cheese!) and pickled beets. I think the only thing this meal is missing is Creme Brulee........

Father's Day Dinner.

Father's day dinner ended up being part of our cheese adventures. I think I have a new FAVORITE. I know, I keep saying that but really, the whole cheese thing - just keeps getting better. So what are these you are asking? Well, Mozzarella pinwheels I guess is what you could call them. Sundried tomato, basil (from the garden) Prosciutto and mozarella cheese - all rolled up and cut!

So today I made homemade mozzarella cheese out of goat's milk. After stretching it, I dunked it back in the hot whey to make it more pliable and then rolled it out. Yep, into a sheet of cheese. Then I brined it and dried it off, laid thin slices of proscuitto, chopped basil from the garden and some sundried tomatoes on it and rolled it up. Let it rest for the rest of the day and cut it up for dinner. YUM! I got to thinking, you could almost fill these with anything and have lots of fun. Stay tuned. I think I could be posting a whole bunch more of the recipes from this particular adventure!

But that's not all folks!!!!! Yes, the cheesy goodness doesn't end here. I found this delish recipe on Cuceesprouts.http://cuceesprouts.com/2010/12/beet-and-orange-soup/

which calls for plain chevre to make it creamy and good! Two cheesy good recipes in one meal and healthy to boot. Also, for those of you cooking Gluten Free - there is NONE here!

Lastly we topped off the meal with this delicious wild rice salad from another of my favorite blogs

Simply Recipes! Nope, no cheese here but that's okay. It is a wonderful salad and a nice complement to the rest of the meal which included fresh salad from the garden.

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/wild_rice_salad/

Adventures in CHEESE!

I was considering doing an "Around the World" tour of recipes - trying some recipes from any country I could find and posting my culinary trip but frankly, I need more time. All of my time currently seems to be spent milking goats, making dairy products, cooking with said dairy products so I went - AHA! for now while the cheese and milk is in abundant supply - I will post about our cheesey adventures. I do not make a LOT of cheeses: so far just ricotta, Chevre, and mozarella.

I will make more as we are trying to save up to get a cheese cave up and running and I know I need to order some more starters but for now I am going to post recipes using the cheeses I currently make. Hopefully sometime in the midst of this, I will also add Feta cheese and cream cheese as well as Marscapone and Creme Fraische to the repertoire.

Today's cheese is Chevre. It's a pretty easy cheese to make. You can make it numerous different ways. I make mine using Flora Danica and Rennet. I heat a gallon of milk to 80* and then add 1/4 tsp of Flora Danica to the heated milk. Let it float for about 10 minutes, then add 2 drops of rennet to the milk and stir. The yield is pretty big with my creamy Nigerian milk so I usually have a lot of cheese to play with. After you add starters, you need to let the cheese rest for about 8 hours, usually I make mine in the evening and then I let it sit overnight. In the morning I use the curd skimmer to put the curds in the drain - I line a colander with cheese cloth, and then spoon the curd in. Sometimes this is where I layer my "fillings" in the cheese. Sometimes I just drain and use the food processor to add flavor to the cheeses. Most of the time I make several different flavors of Chevre so there is a variety.

Here are our favorites:

Chevre with dill and garlic - when you drain the cheese, layer the cheese, salt, dill (fresh or dried is fine, and minced garlic. I let it drain and then roll into a log, wrap and refridgerate.

Plain Chevre with Jalapeno jam. I used to not like Jalapenos, Until I was introduced to Jalapeno jam - I grow jalapenos now just to make the jam. It is sweet-hot and delish on crackers with plain chevre.

Chevre with Chipotles in Adobo - I drain the Chevre to make plain, the put it in the food processor with Chipotles in adobo and give it a whirl!

Chevre with Blueberries and Lemon - Another food processor one - plain chevre with blueberries (fresh or frozen) and lemon peel. This one is great to stuff Crepes with.

Chevre with Artichokes and Spinach - Oh YUM! I put plain chevre in the food processor with

canned artichokes (I like the one in oil) fresh or frozen spinach (IF it's frozen or you cook it yourself drain it really good!!!!) salt, pepper, and some grated romano cheese - it tastes off without the grated cheese - I promise.

Green Chile or Roasted Ancho chile - this one is layered during the draining process and made into logs

Red Chile - I use plain chevre and then layer drained cheese in a jar with homemade red chile sauce. I do not like the storebought stuff but if that is your only option, heat it slightly and add -garlic, cumin, salt and pepper to it, let it cool and then layer the cheese in the jar alternating with the cooled sauce.

I love experimenting and am still working on some new flavors.

I'll let you know how they turn out after I try them. Most of the time we eat our chevre on crackers, I use Graham crackers for the "desert" cheeses and wheat thins or homemade gluten free crackers for the savory cheeses.

Enjoy!

Some GREAT finds!

Okay, so this blog is not always about me. Occasionally I manage to stumble upon some other great blogs (food - mostly) that are just amazing and I am blessed to find recipes that really work for me!!! So my two most recent find are these two:
Homesick Texan - some of the MOST amazingly yummy recipes I've ever found and yes, I've made quite a few already - one is the Texas Potato Salad and her amazing carrot salad. So take a few moments to check out this blog - it's not too hard to convert some of her recipes to GF also!

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2011/05/lavender-brownies.html

And the other one I found recently was this one - Mennonite Girls can Cook. Okay - this one was a nifty little find as it has a ton of recipes that are Gluten Free!!!!! We made the Coconut Flour Brownies. And of course - are you seeing the theme here? Yeah - my goal is to make an amazing Gluten Free Brownies - A Culinary Marriage of sorts between Homesick Texans Lavender Brownies and Mennonite Girls Gluten Free. Stay tuned for the outcome.
But for those of you who cannot wait and are ready for some Gluten Free Brownies - here's the link:

http://mennonitegirlscancook.blogspot.com/2008/09/coconut-flour-brownies-gluten-free.html

You won't be sorry!!! Enjoy and Happy Mother's Day!

Vegetarian, Corn and Gluten Free Baked Ziti

This dinner is a little out of the ordinary in that it is more HOMEMADE than most of what I make is. The spaghetti sauce is made from tomatoes, basil and onions from our garden last summer that I canned. The cheeses (Ricotta and Mozarella) was homemade from our own goatsmilk. OF course if you don't have these things, store bought would work well!!!!

Gluten Free Penne or Ziti pasta - cook according to package directions until Al Dente

1 onion - diced

1 head of broccoli, chopped fine,

1 container of baby shitake mushrooms.

spinach (I prefer fresh

1 - 8 oz container of ricotta cheese

1 - package of mozarella shredded.

1 - quart jar of pasta sauce (homemade or whatever tickles your fancy!)

Mix all the ingredients together EXCEPT the mozarella, dump into a baking dish and

top with Mozarella cheese. Put in the oven for about 20 min on 350* until cheese is melty and bubbly, slightly browned. Oh yeah! Eat Hearty!!!!!

BTW- you could easily add any veggies you want: grated zucchini, carrots, olives etc. and if you don't want to eat VEG. go ahead and add some meat: Italian Sausage, ground beef, lamb, goat or turkey would work great.