parsley sage sweet

Homemade Goat Cheese, Mini Cheese ORBS, and Turkish Chevre Pide

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Lisa

Make that, Homemade Goat Cheese, (the Chevre version,) Miniature Goat Cheese (err, Chevre) Orbs (marinated or deep-fried!), and Caramelized Goat Cheese, well, Caramelized Chevre filled Turkish Pide!

So, today I’m making cheese; goat cheese; chevre to be exact. Valerie from A Canadian Foodie has challenged a bunch of us to start making cheese from scratch with her Cheesepalooza challenge. I was extremely excited when she announced this challenge, because I’ve always wanted to dabble a little in artisan cheese making.

So, it’s a ‘palooza’, but not a lala.

Can you dig?

Cheeseballs! Creamy balls of soft cheese, like chevre or cream cheese, loaded with garlic, herbs and a little chili flake, then marinated in olive oil with even more garlic and herbs!
The Red Hot Chili Peppers (and this resulted in a million chili recipes on food blogs) will not be performing at this palooza, but they will be making an appearance in my cheese!

I’ve made cheese from scratch before; Ricotta and Macarpone. I’ve also made Paneer, but I didn’t blog it, so I do have some cheese-making experience under my too tight belt. However, all three were made with cow’s milk. Does pimento cheese count as cheese making?

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Posted in Appetizers, Breads, Middle Eastern, Twelve Loaves, Vegetarian, Yeastspotting | Tagged baking, caramelized goat cheese, cheese balls, Cheese Orbs, cheese pide, cheeseballs, Cheeseorbs, Chevre, Dough, Finger Food, flatbread, Folded Flatbread, garlic, goat cheese, Goat Cheese ORBS, Herbs, homemade cheese, Pide, red hot chili pepper flakes, Turkish Flatbread, Turkish pide | 53 Comments

Getting Buzzed for TEFLON Barb with Chocolate Sorbet Champagne Floats @FridayCocktail

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Lisa

I’d like to introduce you to the first alcoholic beverage on my blog. Actually..I only have one other beverage on this blog, but, whatever. You see, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, particularly my Bad Boy First Love saga, you know I can’t hold my alcohol, so therefore, I rarely drink. One glass of wine and I’m severely buzzing, but it’s a good buzz. Two glasses of wine and I start getting slurry; the room starts to spin. Any more than that and you’re most likely to find me on my knees with my head in the toilet, or in bed with a waste paper basket within reach.

That said, I’ve never even tried a Martini, but am strangely curious because the olive makes me think it will taste ‘olivey’?? I love olives, so much so, I even stuff them with sausage and deep-fry them (coming soon)! I’ve also never tried Eggnog (well, I’ve tried alcohol free eggnog), although I’ve had some great Eggnog cupcakes and cakes (does that count?)

Chocolate Raspberry Sorbet Champagne Floats

Chocolate Ice Cream – Raspberry Sorbet Champagne Floats

When Teflon Barbara of Creative Culinary asked if I would like to join in on her one year Friday Happy Hour Cocktail anniversary..of course I obliged. Her Friday cocktails are pretty amazing and extremely creative, and forget the cake or pie; some of them could be dessert! Personally, I’ve always been quite fond of her Vootbeer; add a scoop of ice cream, you’re all set, so transport yourself to an old-fashioned soda fountain, spinning around on your stool, or in this case, just spinning because of the vodka. That said, Barb is quite the cocktail creator and mixer, so much so, that sometimes I call her the TEFLON ‘Barbtender’ – bah dum bump.

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Posted in Beverages, Frozen, Fruit | Tagged Alcohol, Champagne, champagne float, champagne floats, Chocolate, chocolate ice cream, Cocktails, Drinks, Friday Cocktail, Ice Cream, ice cream float, ice cream floats, Passion Fruit, raspberries, raspberry sorbet, sorbet, Sparkling Wine | 46 Comments

Three Cheese Roasted Red Pepper, Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto Stromboli

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Lisa

Holy Stromboli! Sorry, I had to because it was there for the taking. I can never help myself with the doofy word play! But this Three Cheese Prosciutto Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto, Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli is worth the wordplay, not to mention worth almost everything because it.is.everything.

One of my favorite sandwiches in the world is prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and roasted red peppers, or in Jersey Italian – prah-joot, mootz-ar-ell, and peppuhs. When I was perusing through my assigned blog, Paulchen’s Blog?!, for this month’s Secret Recipe Club..I struck stromboli, and the first thing I thought of was how perfect one of my favorite sandwiches in the world would be wrapped up and baked as a stromboli. I kept wavering back and forth between the stromboli and some luscious looking butterscotch brownies, because next to being a peanut butter freak, I’m a pretty heavy butterscotch user too.

Three Cheese Broccoli Rabe, Prosciutto and Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli
In the end, I couldn’t stop thinking how well melty, gooey, and hot would work for my favorite sandwich combination in a stromboli, so that was it, decision made. BUT, as I thought it over, I wanted more cheese, another cheese like provolone, and definitely something green with garlic to cut into all that rich, gooey cheese. Oh, and why not top it with yet another cheese? Asiago, perhaps? OK, now we’ve got three cheeses, roasted red peppers and prosciutto. This was going to be one heck of a stromboli!