Bagel Land of Winchester is Boston Strong

I've been amazed at the outpouring of support for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.The owner of Bagel Land in Winchester has pledged all of the proceeds of his retail shop to The One Fund until, according to his sign, "the last victim comes home!" Gail and I got bagels there this morning in solidarity with his effort.

We were glad to find that these are really great bagels. As it turns out, we just picked up our cheese share from Formaggio Kitchen. It included a fresh goat cheese from Bedford Blueberry Goat Farm. We also had another fresh goat cheese from the Concord Cheese Shop: Petit Billy from Triballat Noyal in the Loire
Valley of France. Both these cheeses were a nice alternative to cream cheese.

The Bedford Blueberry was much lighter and milder than the Petit Billy. The Petit Billy's flavor was milky with slight goat and grass flavors. It stood nicely on it's own. We found the Bedford to be a little too mild, but it was beautifully packaged. Later in the day, we added a little balsamic vinegar, which worked nicely with the mild flavors. We expect to get it again to serve it with balsamic and oil on a cheese board.

The bagels were light with a great chewy texture. These are the bagels we look for, but never actually find, when we visit New York City. We've found our bagel shop.

Cheese Log: Ascutney Mountain - Cobb Hill Cheese

Name: Ascutney Mountain
Maker: Cobb Hill Cheese
Milk: Cow

Description:
Strong aged cheddar flavors with a Gouda texture.

Sample Information:
January 6, 2013, $7.00 (0.27lb@$25.95/lb)- Formaggio Kitchen

Cheese Log: Butterwick - Twig Farm

Name: Butterwick
Maker: Twig Farm
Milk: Cow

Description:
This had a brie-like texture and flavor, but a little stronger.

Sample Information:
January 6, 2013, Price unknown - Formaggio Kitchen as part of the January cheese share.

Cheese Log: Slyboro - Consider Bardwell

Name: Slyboro
Maker: Consider Bardwell
Milk: Goat

Description:
We waited too long to taste this, and it went mostly bad. I was able to get a small taste from the middle of the end, but even that was overly funky with ammonia tastes. We'll give it a fair try some other time.

Sample Information:
January 6, 2013, Price unknown - Formaggio Kitchen as part of the January cheese share. We waited too long to sample this and the result was an ammonia rotted sample that barely had a small edible center.

Cheese Log: Landaff - Landaff Creamery

Name: Landaff
Maker: Landaff Creamery
Milk: Cow

Description:
Strong aged cheddar flavors with a buttery smooth texture.

Sample Information:
January 6, 2013, Price unknown - Formaggio Kitchen as part of the January cheese share

Cheese Log: Lake's Edge - Blue Ledge Farm

Name: Lake's Edge
Maker: Blue Ledge Farm
Milk: Goat

Description:
Soft, spreadable center with an ash line. Gooey edge and an edible soft white rind. Tastes like a buttery chèvre with a hint of lemon. The combination of three textures are delightful.

Sample Information:
January 6, 2013, Price unknown - Formaggio Kitchen as part of the January cheese share

Another Great Bread Bowl ... & Cheese

You'll know from past posts how bread bowls hold a special place for Gail and me. Tonight, Gail made homemade wheat bread bowls, and we filled them with soup made with garden potatoes and leeks. Yum.

We also like a little goat cheese in our soup. Since we still have some cheese left from our cheese share, we did a taste test of how various cheeses compared. We typically use grocery store chèvre logs, so this was the cheese to compare against. The other two were the boucheron-like Ada's Pride from Ruggles Hill Creamery and the brie-like Kunik from Nettle Meadow Farm.

Eaten plain, both the Ada's Pride and the Kunik far outshine the chèvre log. I really expected the Ada's Pride to be my favorite in the soup. Surprisingly, the chèvre worked best in this soup. Well, that's why we do these taste tests.

Gail's bread bowls worked particularly well with the soup. She made a half recipe of this whole wheat sourdough bread from about.com. It had a particularly good mouth feel as I scraped the gooey inner walls of the bowl. Gail wishes she had made four loaves with this half recipe, and I agree. Each loaf was too big for one person, but also too big to hold their bowl shapes.

Formaggio Kitchen Local Cheese Share

On Saturday, Gail and I picked up our first local cheese share from Formaggio Kitchen. We signed up for three months, and it looks like something we might keep doing for a while.

Formaggio hires passionate people. By coincidence, the first person we asked about picking up our cheese was Erin Carlman Weber, the person who picks what is in the package. She was excited to tell us about the heirloom apple she included to go with the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. Her enthusiasm made getting our package feel like getting a Christmas present.





The package included:

Ada's Honor, Ruggles Hilll Creamery from Harwick, MA
This is a small round of goat cheese. It has a thick, white rind followed by a thin gooey edge and a dry, flaky center. It reminded me of the texture variety of a Bucheron, but with a thinner gooey edge. It was both mild and richly flavored. I'm not sure how that's possible. We both liked this one very much.

Kunik, Nettle Meadow Farm from Thurman, NY
This is a larger round of cheese, like a small brie. And, this cheese tasted like a mild, but not bland brie. It had the same white rind with a slightly gooey center and a nice buttery flavor. It is made with a delicious combination of goat milk and cow milk. I would favor this over the sometimes funkier flavors of a brie.

Dorset, Consider Bardwell Farm from West Pawlet, VT
This is a wedge of soft, moist cheese. It was mild, but had a slight blue cheese flavor. By chance, we had another cheese in our refrigerator from Consider Bardwell: Pawlet. It is a very similar cheese; a bit dryer and firmer but still soft. It has a similar mild flavor without the tangy blue notes. We liked the Pawlet better.

Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Cellars at Jasper Hill from Greensboro, VT
This was not our first Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, but it was the most well aged, flaky-dry example we've had: wow! There was really no slicing this cheese, and I'm not sure how they sliced the piece we had. It just broke apart under the knife. The result was a rich cheddar flavor with a mild hint of the caramel notes of a great blue cheese.

Erin included a D'Arcy Spicy heirloom apple to go with the cheddar. The apple was from Scott Farm in Dommerston Vermont. The apple alone was mildly tart, not the type of apple I would usually eat plain. I'm also not usually an apple and cheese guy, but I can see why people would like this pairing of sweet and salty. The textures matched so that it was hard to tell what was apple and what was cheese. The cheese mellowed the tartness of the apple, and the apple mellowed the blue notes in the cheese. I'd rather have those flavors independent and prominent.

Thanks for the gift, Erin.

Oktoberfest Celebration Meal with Friends

When I think about Oktoberfest, I think more about beer than food. We had friends over for an Oktoberfest meal recently. The beer I had was not worth a mention here, but oh my the food was great. Gail researched traditional Oktoberfest foods, we practiced the ones we weren't familiar with and made a feast of rich German dishes.

For an appetizer we made pretzels and a cheese dip loaded with butter, garlic and caraway seeds called obatzda. The pretzels were firm and chewy, but didn't hold enough cheese in each bite, which was probably okay because I would have eaten large amounts of that cheese if the pretzels had held it. Gail made some extra pretzels with cinnamon on them that were perfect as a light breakfast.

For dinner we made whiskey roast chicken, steckerlfisch, bratwurst, spaetzel with mushrooms, potato pancakes, tomatoes, and sauteed green beans with tomatoes. The vegetables were from Gail's garden. There probably aren't any legitimate Oktoberfest vegetables. We used trout for the steckerlfisch, and it was really amazing. I'm glad we practiced it once before. The first time it came out over-cooked, but this time worked out perfectly.

I made an apple strudel for dessert using the recipe from the Joy of Cooking. It was an awful lot of work, but it came out very well. The recipe says that an expert can stretch out the dough to a square yard. I was able to get about half of that, and can't imagine how it would be possible to get it that thin. 

Taste Testing Prague: Knedliky and Smazeny Syr

Noele is away on her semester abroad "enjoying" the food of Prague. In solidarity, we made two of the recipes she shared on her blog. I think we might be better cooks than the ones at the restaurant she went to. While we didn't think these were the greatest dishes ever, they were good and fulfilling country food, and gave us a taste of the culture she's living in.

First we made the knedliky, a boiled dumpling that incorporates stale bread. The most interesting difference in this recipe from other dumplings we've made is that the dough is whipped until the gluten is worked up.

This picture shows the consistency of the dough after the gluten has been worked up. The recipe was a bit unclear on this. I'd call this a thick sponge, not quite as thin as pancake batter.

After working up the gluten we add the cubed bread. The bread cubes do eventually disappear, but it takes a while. The result is a thick batter that will form a loaf in the cheese cloth.

You ball up the dough and boil the heck out of it. We made three-eighths of a recipe to use a single egg, so we may have over-cooked it a bit. Not that it would make much difference. The result was a dry, compact, bread-like dumpling, which you slice and cover with a cabbage and bacon mixture.

This is traditionally served with roast pork, and since we skipped that, we used a bunch more bacon in ours. It came out as a hearty dish, which didn't need the pork. If you serve it with pork, a much smaller portion of the knedlicky and cabbage would do.

Smazney Syr is szimply fried cheese. It's made with Edam cheese, and typically served with tartar sauce. Noele reported a rubbery, bland dish. We think she must have gotten cold cheese, because ours was gooey and delicious. We cooked it longer than the recipe said to, the cheese oozing out of the sides. Noele, try cooking this yourself. I think you will like it.

The dish was like our bar-food cheese sticks, but the Edam had a more delicate flavor. We could see how tartar sauce would work with this in a different culture, but it didn't work for our tastes. We have 3/4 of a ball of Edam left over. We might fry up some more. It is often served with boiled potatoes, but we skipped that since we had the knedliky.

The recipe said to serve it with a glass of beer, so I poured a Czech BOOM Böhmerwald’s Majesty. It was unusually malty-sweet. I'm not sure how they got so much residual sugar without the yeast finishing their meal and exploding the bottle. I'm glad they succeeded.

The leftover knedliky is said to make a good breakfast cubed and fried with eggs in the morning. I think I will be having eggs for breakfast.

Both recipes are at the end of Noele's blog entry.

Formaggio Kitchen Cheese Cave Tour

Gail and I are fans of Formaggio Kitchen, so when the opportunity to tour the cheese caves came up, we jumped at it. Tyler, the cave manager, gave us a tour of the two cheese caves in the basement of the store. Matthew, a buyer, taught us about the process of making cheese. Throughout, we were able to sample a number of delicious cheeses that emphasized what we were learning about.

Our tour started downstairs in the caves. The first cave was cool with water on the floors to keep up the humidity. It held many of the big wheels, with cheeses like Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Gouda, and multiple Comtés of various ages.



Our first tasting showed the effect of aging with a "Frais" (fresh) goat cheese called Cabri d'Antan, and the same cheese after a few months of aging called "Affiné" (refined). The aging dries the cheese and develops a rind. The result is a richer and funkier tasting cheese.



While in the cave, Tyler gave us samples of some special cheeses using a cheese corer. He explained how he saves the end of the core to re-plug the hole, allowing the rest of the cheese to continue to age properly. He sealed up any remaining edges by rubbing them with a big chunk of butter.

 

Our second tasting compared two types of Abondance Fermier, a French cow's milk cheese. The first was aged 10 months and the second 16 months. Both were delicious, but the older cheese was dryer and richer with sweeter notes. We were interested to learn that these caves are not just for temperature-controlled storage. Formagio extends the aging process in their local caves, making a better product than you might get at a cheese shop without a cave.

We moved into the second cave, which was cooler and more humid than the first. That is where they store and age many of the wash rind cheeses, including a beer washed cheese. Tyler showed us some of the aging experiments he was conducting, where he made a wash of the rind of one cheese and used it to start a rind on a different fresh cheese.

The second half of our tour was upstairs at the cheese counter. Matthew explained the common elements in making cheeses. In describing the use of rennet, he talked about both animal and vegetable rennet types. Then we tasted two young sheep cheeses. The first was made with animal rennet, and the second with a special rennet used uniquely in cheese from Portugal. That rennet comes from a thistle plant that grows in Portugal.

Our final tasting was a wash rind goat cheese and a strong Roquefort cheese. The Roquefort was deliciously salty and tangy on its own, but Gail noticed how wonderful it tasted when paired with a little honey on the plate. That will be something for us to try at home.

Tom's Mac and Cheese in the Little Truck

Gail and I had mac & cheese tonight from this cute little food truck. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a web page for Tom's Mac & Cheese. We found him at Russell's Garden Center Farmers' Market. Tom said he also goes to the Topsfield Fair.

The man & cheese was delicious and creamy. Tom said he uses Vermont Cheddar and Parmesan he imports himself. He says he can tell the quality of the non-commercial Parmesan because the fats melt so much more smoothly. I appreciated the care he puts into it.

New Year's Eve Feast from Christmas Leftovers

We had so much food left over from Christmas that the refrigerator was making I'm-going-to-die noises. And yet, Gail and I enjoy making a New Year's Eve dinner. Gail suggested a challenge of nice dishes made from the leftovers. The result was spectacular.

First Course: Pumpkin Soup with Chevre and Goose Cracklins
We started by dressing up the pumpkin soup Gail made for when our daughters came home from school. Pumpkin soup is homey and works for Noele's vegetarian diet. This particular soup used winter squash rather than pumpkin and was mashed rather than pureed.  Gail also used more stock rather than milk, since our daughter Anna doesn't do so well with milk.

To dress it up, we took the skin from a goose we cooked for friends and made cracklins. Cracklins are simple with goose skin because it's so fatty. We cut little pieces and cooked them in a hot pan just like bacon, until crispy, about five minutes. The cracklins and a dollop of soft goat cheese blended perfectly with the soup for a perfect starter. Since Noele joined us for the soup, her portion had crisped up sweet potatoes made from Anna's leftover sweet potato fries.

Gail's Pumpkin Soup

Serves: 1 (1 ½ c)

1 t oil

¼ c sliced onion

2 T sliced celery

2/3 c vegetable stock

1 c peeled chopped pumpkin flesh (or other winter squash)

1/16 t salt

¼ c 1% milk (optional)

1 t dark brown sugar

Freshly ground black pepper

1/16 t nutmeg

1. Remove string and chop celery. Melt butter in heavy soup pot; chop onion while butter heats.

2. Sauté onion and celery until tender.

3. Add stock, pumpkin and salt, simmer until pumpkin is tender, about 15 min.

4. Cool enough to put in food processor; puree.

5. Return to soup pot. Add milk, sugar, pepper and nutmeg.

6. Reheat slowly, being careful that soup does not boil.

Second Course: Nova Scotia Hot Lobster in Portabello Mushroom Caps
I'm a bit surprised, but we had just a little bit of Nova Scotia Hot Lobster left over from Christmas dinner. We also had a package of baby porabello mushroom caps that didn't get used in Noele's risotto. We put the lobster in the mushroom caps and simply baked them. The result was a stuffed mushroom that would have made a star appetizer at any party.

In the background of the picture, you can see the split of Veuve Clicquot that we popped for New Year's Eve. That reminded us of our trip to Reims over the summer when we visited that Champagne cellar.



Third Course: Mashed Potato Pancakes
Leftover mashed potatoes became potato pancakes based on this recipe from cooks.com.  They were a bit too thin to be formed, but dropped into the pan just fine. We left out the green peppers.

This recipe would work well as the base for a seafood cake of any kind by adding drained crab, oysters, or even leftover fish.

Fourth Course: Mushroom Risotto Arancini
Noele's risotto is a big hit at every holiday meal. She made a lot more this year, since we usually run out. But we had leftovers this time. Gail found this recipe for arancini from allrecipes.com. Arancini are deep fried risotto balls. Yes, deep frying risotto is as delicious as it sounds.

We modified the recipe to use the leftover risotto and goat cheese we had on hand. We guessed at two cups of risotto for each dry cup of rice, but the result was slightly too thin to work with. We would have done better with three cups of cooked risotto to one egg.




Fifth Course: Pressed Goose with Potatoes and Black Lava Salt
For our last savory course, we made a casserole from leftover goose and potatoes. The potatoes were originally baked with the goose. We made a layer of potato on the bottom of a generously greased ramekin, and topped that by pressing in about a half cup of leftover chopped goose meat. We topped that with a decoration of potato slices. We were pleasantly surprised by the star decoration the potato made on top of the dish. Before baking, we added a pat of butter and some black lava salt. The salt was a Christmas gift from Noele, and added a little something special to the dish.

We ate the whole meal over about three hours, and this final meat dish added the right savory weight to sate us.

Sixth Course: Chocolate Mousse
For dessert, we made a simple dish of chocolate mouse. The mousse was leftover from a chocolate mousse crepes we had with a Hanukkah dinner earlier in the week. For this dessert, we piped the mouse into a wine goblet and topped it with whipped cream. I had a cherry on mine, mostly to decorate it for the picture. I doesn't seem to have helped much.

This particular mousse came from a recipe on cooks.com. The recipe simply adds instant chocolate pudding to fresh whipped cream. When we first made it, we only had half the required heavy cream. That worked fine for the first day. But after sitting in the fridge for a few days, the instant pudding firmed up a bit too much. It wasn't bad, but it would have been better with either more cream, or a lighter cream in the mix.

Epilogue: Rib Roast Open Faced Sandwich with Peppers
Tonight we made one more leftover meal. We took the last bits of the beautifully dry aged Christmas rib roast and sauteed it to render the remaining fat. We served the meat over toast topped with a milk gravy we made from the drippings, and added a sprinkle of the black lava salt. Gail sauteed some leftover peppers and added them to the side for a light but hearty supper. Cooking the meat this way refreshed it much better than a quick trip through the microwave would have.

Cuban Sandwiches with Smoked Pork and Sourdough

Yesterday I smoked a 5 pound pork shoulder. After 10 hours of smoking, we still couldn't pull it, but it made nice tender and smoky slices. We also had a loaf of sourdough bread, so we decided to make this riff on a Cuban sandwich.

Smoked Pork and Sourdough Cuban Sandwiches

2 slices of sourdough bread

A few thin slices of smoked pork

2 slices of provolone cheese

A slice of ham

3 dill pickle slices

Mustard

Butter

1. Butter what will be the outside of the sandwich.
2. Add mustard to the inside to taste.
3. Layer smoked pork, cheese, pickles and ham.
4. Cook in a panini press. (Okay, we're not pretentious.  We used the George Foreman grill.)
5. This is important: cut sandwiches in half. Grilled sandwiches must be cut. Nobody knows why.

Gail said she would like it better with a little less smoked pork and a little more ham.