Gran Bu Tartlet

 

Gran Bu is a raw milk buffalo cheese from Lombardia Italy that is made in the canestrato style (aged in wicker baskets).  The flavor is delicate and milky with a sweet finish and the scent is of fresh butter.

The cheese is made at Quattro Portoni Dairy (Translated Four Gates) and is named after the 13^th century gates into their moat-encircled town of Cologno al Serio. The Cheese Markers are bothers Alfio and Bruno.  With a herd of 1000 water buffalo on the farm with 270 of them being milked for cheese at the current time they make over 15 kinds of fresh cheese, semi-mature and seasoned from their herd of buffaloes. Visit us at Florida Cheese Club for all your cheeses.

Pair with white wine

Cheese Type: Hard

Milk Type: Buffalo Raw

Rennet: animal

Age: 8 months

Origin: Italy

Region: Lombardia

Tartlet Granbù 

Ingredients:

1/4 pound leeks

1/4 pound White Potatoes

1/4 pound Granbù

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon breadcrumbs

Filo sheet

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt

White pepper

Preparation

Slice the leeks into thin slices and put them to simmer in a pan with 2 tablespoons of water, 2 tablespoons of butter, salt and white pepper and simmer until the liquid is almost gone.  Thinly slice the potatoes, soak in cold water to remove some of their starch, dry and toss in the pan of leeks for 3-4 minutes with olive oil and salt.

Butter the ramekins, add a little extra butter on bottom and then line ramekin with filo sheets and build the tart starting alternating potatoes with leeks and cheese to create 3-4 layers. Once complete sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake at 350 ° F for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and accompanied with warm appetizers or main courses of meat.

ColoRouge

MouCo Cheese Company was incorporated in July 2000 but their story starts much earlier as a love story. Birgit Halbreiter grew up in Memmingen, Germany, a small town in Bavaria where she learned to make soft ripened cheeses at Kaserei. When Birgit left Germany she eventually came to work at Molson Breweries, where she met Robert Poland.  Soon the pair began making cheese at home with the help of Birgit’s father. After forming their company they made their first sale in 2001 with a Camembert. Over the last few years they have added four more varieties. ColoRouge is one of those four.

MouCo ColoRouge is a natural rind cheese that is reddish-orange in color with a slight white finish. It is made with pasteurized whole milk obtained from a local dairy. The cheese has a two week aging period where the cheese is “smeared” by hand.  Smearing is a process by which each cheese is rubbed to help the development of the special rind characteristics. The cheese is then wrapped in a special foil imported from Europe that allows it to “breathe” oxygen thus keeping the cheese “alive” and fresh during its entire life.  The flavor of the cheese changes as it ages: young – soft and creamy with mild earthy tones, then as it starts to age it gets softer with a pronounced buttery characteristic more complex in its earthy characteristic. Fully aged at 7 to 8 weeks the cheese is quite complex with its buttery creamy flavors that are spicy and just plain addictive.  The cheese is gooey when served at room temperature.

Pair with Colorado’s Redstone Mead Raspberry Nectar was our favorite. Riesling, Carlos, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Champagne work well.

Cheese Type: Soft

Milk Type: Cow

Rennet: vegetarian no GMOs

Age: 2 – 8 weeks

Origin: Fort Collins, CO

Region: USA

 

Ring of Vine Ripe Tomato with Field Grown Green Lettuce

Chef Florian Wehrli, Chimney Park Bistro, Windsor, CO

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

4 Vine Ripe Tomatoes

2 heads of lettuce of your choice or one clamshell of baby salad mix

1 cup original Mead

2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar

¼ vegetable oil

4 Tablespoons fresh chopped chives

Salt, Pepper

1 Mouco ColoRouge cheese

Pan spray

 

Instructions:

To Peel the tomatoes

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Remove the core of the tomatoes and make an incision on the bottom of each one. Plunge them in the boiling water for 20 seconds, then shock them in an ice bath. The skin should now be easy to remove.

Cut the tomatoes in half. Place each half on a cutting board and cut them in thin slices, make sure to keep the tomatoes in their shape.

Place a 5 inch ring mold in the middle of a serving plate. Place 2 tomato halves in it and spread the slices around the circumference of the circle.

Remove the ring mold carefully and start over for your next plate.

To make the vinaigrette:

Put the mead in a small pot and reduce by three quarters. Reserve a little of the reduction for the plate decoration.

Add the vinegar to the rest. Whisk in the oil, season to taste and finish with half of the chopped chives.

For the cheese:

Heat up a non-stick pan as hot as possible. Cut the ColoRouge cheese in 8 even slices. Spray the hot pan and place the cheese in it to toast. Wait about 30 second and remove the cheese with a spatula. They should have a golden brown crust. Flip the cheese slices on a plate and reserve in a warm place.

To plate:

Clean and drain the salad carefully. Place in a bowl and season with the mead vinaigrette.

Arrange the dressed salad in each of the tomato rings. Decorate the outside of the plates with the chives and remaining reduced mead. Top each salad with 2 warm slices of toasted ColoRouge Cheese.

 

Goat Cheese Souffle with Honeyed Apricots

Misty Lovely Goat Cheese

Misty Lovely is an Amish raw milk goat cheese made in Leola, PA by Amos Miller at his Misty Creek Dairy.  The Amish make their cheese with recipes that have been handed down for generations. Misty Lovely is an exception.  Amos Miller has established himself as the “go-to” goat ricotta producer with this velvety invention.

The story goes like this… Once upon a time, in a little tiny village close to Lancaster Pennsylvania cheese maker Amos set out to make a feta goat cheese.  He had a nice farm, and the goats were fed the Pennsylvania grasses and clovers and were cared for like members of the family.  The goats even got to watch the children play at the village school which is next door at lunch time.  They were happy goats.  And yes happy goats make better milk!  Back to the story…. Amos set out to make a feta goat cheese. He took the raw goat milk added vegetable rennet, Celtic sea salt, lots of love and a few secret ingredients and worked his magic.  He watched over his new cheese for 60 days and at the right time he sampled his product and was surprise with the feta.  His cheese did not taste like a feta.  It started out like a feta in your mouth but finished like cheddar.  What to do now?  It’s not a feta nor was it a cheddar but it had a wonderful flavor more like a ricotta salata.  They took the cheese into town and asked Bill, at the Clock Tower Cheese Shoppe in Gap, PA to try it.  Bill sniffed it, pulled the curds apart and tasted it. He did a happy dance and declared it “lovely” and a cheese was named.

Raw milk cheeses are aged for 60 days which allows for a natural pasteurization and allows the cheese maker to retain a lot of the flavors of the raw milk.  More and more Amish families are turning to cheese making to preserve their way of living.  These cheeses are Artisan/Artisanal cheese that are produced primarily by hand, in small batches with lots of attention paid to the tradition of cheese making.  This cheese is also classified as “farmstead” by the American Cheese Society.  This means that it is made with milk from the farmer’s own herd or flock, on the farm where the animals are raised.  More and more people want to know their farmers and where their food is coming from.  Americans are learning that there is so much more to cheese than Kraft and cheddar.  It is reported that an average American will consume 10 pounds of cheddar a year.   One of the other things you will notice is that an Artisanal cheese’s flavor will change over the year.  In the spring it tends to be creamier and richer while in the winter months while the animals are eating hay it becomes more dense and piquant.

But once you taste really good cheese it’s hard to go back to the other cheeses that they grew up with.  This is one of those cheeses. It becomes addictive and the more you eat the more you want!

To start off any cheese souffle, you need a bechamel sauce.  You may be familiar with this sauce from making it for other dishes – mac and cheese or lasagna.  It’s a basic white sauce that’s a staple of French cooking, made from a roux of butter and flour cooked in milk.  You’ll also probably be pretty familiar with how to make it if you’ve ever made your own gravy.

But before we get started, a few tips:

1) Separate your eggs first, right out of the fridge, then let them sit at room temperature while you prepare the rest of the ingredients

2) Pre-measure and lay out everything beforehand.  You don’t want to be running to the fridge for the cheese while your bechamel is burning on the stove.

3) Put your oven rack as low to the floor of the oven as possible.  It helps lift the souffle without the burning of the top.

4)  Be sure the bowl and whisk you’ll be using to beat your egg whites are metal, completely clean and dry.  The smallest trace of oil will prevent the egg whites from whisking properly.

5) Be sure to visit Florida Cheese Club to order your Misty Lovely Goat Cheese.

Honeyed Apricots
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons water
pinch of cinnamon
1/4 cup cognac
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried apricots, halved
juice of half a lemon

Goat Cheese Souffle
2 Tablespoons butter (+1 Tablespoon to grease your ramekin)
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons flour
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
2 oz. crumbled Misty Lovely goat cheese
2 eggs, separated
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

To make the honeyed apricots:

Bring sugar, honey, water, cinnamon, cognac and vanilla extract to simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat until syrupy, about 5 minutes.  Add the apricots and cook 3 minutes more, then add the lemon juice.  Let cool while you make your souffle.

To make the souffle:

Preheat oven to 350°F.   Brush a 16 oz. ramekin with softened butter.  Coat with sugar.

Warm the milk in a small saucepan over low heat.  Meanwhile, melt your butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  When the foam starts to subside, add your flour and nutmeg, whisking constantly for 2-3 minutes.  This is your roux.  You don’t want it to brown, you just want to cook out the starchy taste of the flour, so do not be tempted to raise the heat.  Add your warm milk and continue whisking over low heat until the mixture thickens (if your whisk leaves a noticeable “trail” in the sauce, it’s done).  Remove from heat.

Add your goat cheese and whisk until melted.  Add the egg yolks one at a time, and continue whisking until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate while you whisk your egg whites.

Beat your egg whites and cream of tartar with a stand or hand mixer with a whisk attachment until stiff peaks form.  They should be glossy and smooth, and stand up straight when you pull the whisk out.

Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the cooled bechamel mixture and gently fold in until incorporated.  Repeat with the remaining egg whites.  Pour the mixture into the ramekin, leaving about 1 inch of space from the top.  Run a clean finger around the edge of the ramekin, leaving a sort of “well” so the souffle will rise straighter.

Place on a baking sheet and into the oven for about 20 minutes (keep an eye on them – times can vary).

This is a great, lightly sweet dish that can be eaten as an appetizer or dessert, or even a brunch-time meal.

Hot Asiago and Spinach Dip

 

Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese softened

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 sour cream

2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 cups grated asiago cheese

1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the cream cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream and garlic in a mixing bowl.  Add asiago, parsley and spinach into mixture.  Spread into the bottom of an 8 x 10 baking dish and bake until golden brown 20 to 25 minutes.

Add some pita chips and a Syrah or Rioja and you have a great light summer dinner.

 

Walnut Pasta with Pecorino Sardo

Walnut Pasta with Pecorino Sardo

Ingredients

1 box of linguine pasta

¼ cup pine nuts

½ cup walnuts

2 Tablespoons breadcrumbs

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Salt

2 ½ cups milk or cream

2 ounces Pecorino Sardo grated/shredded

Walnuts for garnish

Directions

Cook the pasta al dente in salted water.

Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet.

Mix pine nuts, walnuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper in a food processor.

Bring the milk / cream to a boil, pour in the nut mix and stir it together.

Mix the walnut sauce with the freshly boiled paste.

Serve garnished with grated pecorino cheese and crushed walnuts.

Tips: using cream gives a smoother result, and because of the fat, the cream brings out the taste so the dish becomes full of flavor (you can use cream with 5% fat and it will still be super good).

Halloumi This Summer Anyone?

Halloumi originated in Cyprus and has been made since the Medieval Byzantine period (AD 395 – 1191).  A firm, slightly springy white cheese from Cyprus, traditionally made with sheep’s’ milk, mass produced versions often uses cows’ milk. In texture, halloumi is similar to a firm mozzarella, making it a popular ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking. It has a strong salty flavor, when preserved in brine.  Halloumi will keep in the refridgerator for many months if left unopened or frozen for up to a year.  It can be eaten straight from the packet, but some chefs recommend soaking it in buttermilk for a day or two to give it a richer, less salty flavor.  Halloumi has a very high melting point, so it is perfect for grilling it without it melting.  There is no need to bread or flour the cheese before frying, and you don’t even need to use oil in the pan. The cheese browns naturally from the sugar in the brine and keeps it shape.  Halloumi is often flavored with dried mint, which goes perfect with grilled peaches and red peppers during the summer months. Some of our favorite ways of eating Halloumi are listed below. Visit us this summer for your taste.  Florida Cheese Club or Fratello Sole

Fried Halloumi with broiled cherry tomatoes and watermelon.

Arugula Apple and Halloumi Salad

Grilled Halloumi with Rosemary Grape Relish on crostini’s

Grilled Halloumi and grilled Meyer Lemons with greens

Grilled Halloumi with Kiwi, navel orange sections, capers and honey

Grilled Halloumi, grilled eggplant and pesto burgers

Grilled Halloumi with caramelized fennel

Grilled Halloumi with green olives and cannellini beans

Grilled Halloumi, beetroot and pumpkin seeds with lemon salad

 

Fried Halloumi with Pear and Spiced Dates.

Ingredients

• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom (only black seeds from within the green pod)
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 8 dates, cut in half and pits removed
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• ¾ pound halloumi cheese cut into 8 slices
• 1 pear, quartered, seeded and sliced into 8 pieces
• 3 tablespoons ouzo

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. In a small sauté pan, big enough to hold the dates, mix the lemon juice, lemon zest, and brown sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the brown sugar melts. Add the spices and dates and cook until the dates soften a little, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and set the mixture aside,

3. Heat a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Arrange the cheese slice in the skillet, being careful not to overlap or crowd them. Brown the cheese, about 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown on each side. Transfer to a heavy gratin or baking dish, placing the halloumi slices side by side.

4. Using the same sauté pan, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil on medium-high heat and then add the pears. Brown the pears for 4 to 5 minutes on one side. Remove the pears from the pan and add them to the baking pan with the halloumi. Spoon a date onto each piece of halloumi and place the pan in the oven until it gets hot and the cheese gets a little softer. 6 to 8 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the oven, place it on the table, and without waiting, add the ouzo to the pan and carefully ignite it. Stand back when you light the dish, as the flames can reach 5 inches. The fire will bum off the alcohol, and after about a minute, it will leave the sweet flavor of the ouzo.