Lisa's Culinary Atrocities

(Nitrate/ite, etc free) Ham sandwich with tomato, lettuce, chipotle aioli, dijon, avocado and extra sharp cheddar on ciabatta, with Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper Kettle Chips,  New Seasons, Hillsboro, OR. 

Multi-seed baguette from Trader Joe’s,  broiled with olive oil and:

top left: black mission fig, walnut and shropshire blue cheese (yellow stilton)

top right: fresh pico de gallo topped with micro greens

middle left: homemade basil/walnut/garlic pesto, made chunky, topped with tomato

middle right: chunky garlic hummus, chive, cucumber

bottom: basil leaf, roasted garlic, olive oil/Herbes de Provence marinated mozzarella

…topped with kalamata olive oil, kale, avocado, chili and Asiago.

SO simple:

-Trader Joe’s Cornbread Mix

-make like a normal ol’ waffle in your spiffy waffle maker

-top with desired ingredients

-consume

-nap

-repeat

Pairing two of my favorite things!

Recipe from Kathy S.:

Rather than baking it in the oven, I made the mac-n-cheese into balls, rolled into panko bread crumbs and pressed them into my Nordic Ware Pancake/Waffle Pan until crisp.  Yay.

I love cheese, nuts and figs together, especially with a nice wine.  Here I have Beecher’s No Woman, Comté, Pecorino Toscano and Clawson Blue Shropshire cheeses, raw almonds and dried Calamara Figs.  Heaven.  

Information: 

Beecher’s No Woman: Adding Jamaican Jerk spices creates a cheese with a warm, nutty, spicy flavor. It’s smoky and earthy with a touch of brown sugar and cloves. No Woman’s unusual and satisfying flavor is sure to excite your taste buds.

Comté: Made from unpasteurized cow’s milk in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France.  The taste is mild and slightly tangy, slightly sweet, and with the flavor of straw and nuts. Great with salty olive oil concoction.

Pecorino Toscano: Mild and rather creamy, with some nutty hints. With age Pecorino Toscano becomes firmer and sharper, though it never approaches the sharpness and the saltiness of Pecorino Romano. This gourmet cheese is aged for approximately 6 months and has a firm texture, a nutty flavor and hints of butterscotch.

Clawson Blue Shropshire: A blue cheese made from pasteurised cows’ milk. The orange colour comes from the addition of annatto, a natural food colouring. It has been described as a cross between Stilton and Cheshire.  Made in a similar way to Stilton, it is a soft cheese with a sharp, strong flavour and a slightly tangy aroma. It is slightly sour but sharper than Stilton and generally creamier.

Calimyrna Figs:  To fig connoisseurs, Calimyrnas are the ne plus ultra (nee-plus-UL-tra) of figs. Comparing them with other cultivated varieties is like comparing red snapper with swordfish or hamburger with filet mignon. If you don’t particularly like figs, you probably have never tasted a fresh Calimyrna. Since they are extremely perishable, most of the Calimyrna crop is used for dried figs, confectioneries and pastries.

When tasting cheeses, consider these guidelines:

1. Let the cheese warm to room temperature so that its aromas and flavors are at their maximum levels.
2. Taste milder cheeses first and progress to the stronger flavored ones, leaving blue cheeses till near the end and tasting “stinky” cheeses last.
3. Taste each cheese at its center first and then work your way to the outside where the cheese is most aged and stronger in flavor.
4. Taste the rind/skin last.
5. Taste starting from the tip of your tongue working towards the back of your mouth. This takes advantage of all of the taste receptors in your mouth and brings the cheese in contact with of all of the sense areas: sweet, salty, acidic, bitter, etc.
6. Take note of these characteristics when you taste:
   1. texture — smooth, grainy, crunchy, etc.
   2. density/weight — how compact the cheese feels in your mouth.
   3. intensity — how flavorful is the cheese.
   4. acidity — tartness, lemony.
   5. duration/finish — how long each of the characteristics last.
   6. fruit — fresh dairy tones, sweetness.
   7. saltiness.
   8. flavors — earthy, nutty, roasty, toasted, musty, mushroomy, meaty , etc.
7. Aroma - don’t be shy about smelling the cheese just as you would wine.

Also See ——-> Importance of taking the time to taste the cheese alone…slowly.

In other news:

Regarding my sad camera-in-the-miso-soup trick I performed over the weekend: I put my camera in a bag of desiccant I borrowed from work and three days later it turned on!  Now there is a big-ol-splotch that I thought was on my sensor, but turns out it is just a lens being miso-y issue.  WHEW.  SO, if anyone out there ever drops their camera in liquid, do the following:

1. Immediately remove battery and card & quickly, yet gently, towel off.
2. Get desiccant packets you saved from shoe (and whatnot) purchases you have saved because you read this.
3. Put desiccant and camera in a zip-lock bag for a few days
4. Pray to whatever you pray to/conduct ceremonies and rituals, be patient, pray/conduct some more, have some wine and hopefully it will all dry out and work again. 
5. Take a deep sigh of relief and purchase an underwater housing specifically for soup taking photo sessions.
   

I found adorable mini La Piana Raviolis with Squash Filling at Cost Plus-World Market and just had to try them. So glad I did as they are very delicious! After roasting asparagus with olive oil and sea salt in a 350°F oven for about 10 minutes, I then topped it with the cooked ravioli tossed in olive oil, shaved rosemary asiago and a dash of nutmeg.  Simple and fantastic.

I am in love with this gem of an omelet I found at the OHSU (Oregon Health Science University) hospital cafeteria. What?! Yes!

There is a spunky Yugoslavian woman there who makes omelets in the morning and HOLY-BOPPALooLee she makes a good one.  Dare I say, it’s the best one in Portland?!  It is full of whatever you want, from green onion to sun-dried tomatoes, numerous cheeses (including feta) and meats, and a whole lotta yum yum.  She even puts cheese on both sides, all for under $5.

This is very much a cheesy mass of delicious.

What more is there to say?

From yesterday’s pizza dough I made cute little pizzettas in tartlet pans:

Pesto, Tomato & Raclette du haut Livradois*

Spinach, Walnut, Garlic & Marinara

For the pesto, process until desired consistency:

1 bunch fresh basil

3/4 cups pecans (or whatever nut you like)

1/4 tsp. sea salt

5 cloves garlic

3/4 cups Kalamata olive oil

Vegan Pecan Pesto

* Raclette Description:

Produced in both Switzerland and France, Raclette takes its name from the French verb “racler”, meaning “to scrape.” Traditionally, Alpine cheesemakers would lunch upon boiled potatoes and cornichons, covered with melted cheese scraped from a rock near the smoldering fire. Raclette is a semi-soft pressed cheese, made of raw cows’ milk and washed with brine to impart a deep, fruity pungency. True to its name, it melts beautifully and can be scraped atop all manner of root vegetables for a winter supper.

Raclette du haut Livradois is from Livradois, France

I found some pre-made whole wheat pizza dough at Trader Joe’s (swear I don’t work there) and thought, hmmmm…I can do a lot with this!

Thought I’d make a pretzel.  Nope, didn’t work—too stretchy shrinky.  I’ll have to do that one from scratch some other time.

So what I did do, and do well if I may say so, is make little breads.  Since it was pizza dough the breads were dense, but that’s not a bad thing!

I decided to make 2 little loaves:  Black and White Sesame Seed and Rosemary:

I chose rosemary because I had some Pecorino Toscano cheese that I knew would pair well with it, and after consulting with Deano (mentioned in an earlier post, aka the KING of all things wine), I (we) decided to keep the Italian theme by choosing a 2008 Caravaggio Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

I also made an olive oil concoction with rosemary and black volcanic salt for dipping.  Delicious and oh-so-simple.

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