food, reviews and of course coffee
Over Christmas I ate a fair bit of cheese and tried some new cheeses out. One I particularly enjoyed the Cenarth Organic Caerffili from Sainsbury.
It was a mild lemony cheese with a buttery and silky texture. It came in a (proper) wax layer and was delicious.
I was recently up in London and stayed at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. Staying with friends we had the Christmas dinner at the Number Twelve attached restaurant. I started off with the Chestnut Pasta and had the Ribeye steak for my mains.
For my desert I had the cheese.
Well don’t get me wrong it was a very nice cheese, but as that it? Three small (half) slices of Stilton.
Hmmm.
Considering how easy these are to make and taste so much better fresh I am surprised that people don’t make them more often.
Take some puff pastry.
Now here’s a question? Am I hypocritical for being surprised that people buy cheese straws but then go ahead and buy ready made puff pastry to make my own? Is that not just the kettle and the pot calling each other names?
Well yes I did use ready made puff pastry. I usually make straws after using the puff pastry for something else and there is some left over.
So I rolled it out, grated some parmesan onto it, folded it over, repeated twice more.
I then cut the cheesy pastry into strips about six inches long and half an inch wide.
These I then twist, hold each end and twist your hands in opposite directions to get a twisty cheese straw.
Brush with egg and scatter some more grated parmesan onto the top.
Bake in the oven for around eight to ten minutes.
Delicious.
Sometimes when I get a cheese I like it, and sometimes I don’t. I seem to blog more often about cheeses I don’t like though or cooking with cheese, must change that and start to blog about the cheeses I do like.
Well this is a cheese I think is okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy again.
I was at a farm shop and they had a nice looking cheese called Wife of Bath, it looked and sounded interesting and was sold on that. I should have asked to taste some first but I thought it looked really nice.
Well.
I got home and to be honest it was quite bland and lacked substance. It reminded me of Doux De Montagne and if you recall my views on that I said:
To be honest I didn’t think that much of it. The flavour was too mild for me, though I did like the texture. If you like Edam or Port Salut then you will probably enjoy this cheese, though expect the flavour to be quite mild in comparison.
With the Wife of Bath cheese, my views are almost the same.
This is a harder cheese but still lacks “oomph”. It might make an interesting addition to a cheeseboard, but otherwise nothing to go out and try and find.
An amusing look at the online ordering system at Domino’s pizza.
But what I’ve become obsessed with is that when you only want a particular topping on half of your pizza, they make you specify WHICH HALF. LEFT or RIGHT.
I had ordered from them a few times but never paid attention to see if they got the halves correct. I was curious to see if it really would arrive the way I ordered it.
Last night I performed a test.
Can you really order a pizza with NO cheese, NO sauce and NO topping?
This is a quick and easy salad or starter.
Take a mozzarella ball and cut into thin slices, arrange on a plate.
Add some sliced tomatoes, I actually used halved cherry tomatoes. You can either interleave the tomato with the mozzarella or place the tomato halves in the middle of the plate.
Scatter some small basil leaves across the cheese and tomato.
Dress with some white wine vinegar, some fine olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve.
Last night I decided to cook a risotto to go with the shellfish I was cooking. I have done this in the past usually using white wine, lemon, rocket and parmesan to flavour the risotto. Alas I had no white wine, no lemon and no rocket, though I did have a block of parmesan to hand. Little piece of advice here, never buy pre-grated parmesan this is usually grated from dried out pieces of old parmesan or so an old Italian friend of mine once said. Though as it is usually cheaper than the solid stuff I am inclined to believe her! So there I was cooking this risotto and wondering how I should flavour it. Well I had mushrooms and they always work well in risotto, I had some red wine, and I had some chicken stock. There we go, good to go, or so I thought.
Basically it didn’t work quite as well as I hoped. Firstly it came out a grey lilac colour rather than the rich red brown I was expecting. Well that was down to the red wine, lack of dark stock and the mushrooms. Secondly it was rather bland, it had no bite. I think it could have done with a splash of balsamic vinegar.
Most of it was eaten so either we were hungry or it wasn’t half as bad as it looked.
Having said that, the scallops wrapped in pancetta were delicious.
Last night I cooked a very nice stuffed chicken dish.
Take four chicken thigh joints, take out the bone, you can take the skin off, but I usually leave it on.
Take four slices of pancetta bacon (normal streaky bacon can be used, but I prefer the thinness and flavour of pancetta). Lie them flat slightly overlapping. Place the chicken thigh flat out on the pancetta.
You can use a lot of different things for the stuffing, I used some Doux De Montagne that I had left over, a strip of red pepper and some strips of courgette (zucchini). But you could use any other cheese or other vegetables.
I then rolled and wrapped the stuffed chicken thigh with the pancetta bacon. I placed these in a roasting tin and roasted for about thirty minutes.
I served this with some roasted vegtables and some homemade salad consisting of coleslaw and a green bean salad.
Today I bought some from Tesco, it is described as:
A semi hard cheese with a mild, fruity flavour and a firm yet creamy texture, from the Monts de Velay Mountains, in the Auvergne region of France.
To be honest I didn’t think that much of it. The flavour was too mild for me, though I did like the texture. If you like Edam or Port Salut then you will probably enjoy this cheese, though expect the flavour to be quite mild in comparison.
A variety of bruschetta with cheese, tomatoes (fresh and sun-dried), artichokes and mushrooms.
Start off with a ciabatta, though in theory you could use a baguette or french stick (and I have done so).
Slice.
Butter one side only.
Add topping.
Dribble olive oil over.
Bake in a hot oven for less than ten minutes.
Serve.
Eat.