Baked Marinated Goat Cheese

I have a friend who doesn't like chicken.

She has never like any type of poultry, although she does keep trying.

So when I have my friends over for dinner, I might still make chicken, but I'll make sure there is something on the table she'll eat. Like bread. Or salad.

When I saw this recipe for baked goat cheese though, I knew I needed to make it for her.

What it should look like

You see, our favorite appetizer at The Pub is undoubtedly the goat cheese dip (A warm blend of goat cheese and herbs topped with marinara and toasted almonds. Served with toasted pita wedges.) It's just delicious.

Martha Stewart told me to buy pre-marinated goat cheese, but I needed three of those packages to equal one of the large, un-marinated packaged, so I decided to marinate it on my own.

Cut up the goat cheese I had bought, added a little garlic, basil and olive oil and let it sit overnight.

I want to go back to the basil for a second.

I hate buying herbs.

Not because I hate using them, I love using fresh herbs, but because the grocery store forces you to buy a whole bunch and you use what you need and then you have to throw away the rest because the leaves start turning brown and/or slimy before you can use up the rest.

At least that's my experience, and I'm probably doing something wrong.

I fail at growing herbs, too. No green thumb.

Anyway. I was perusing the herbs, thinking about goat cheese and rice (different dish), bemoaning the need buy so much, when I saw something in a tube.

Turns out, there is a company that sells organic herb purees so you don't have to buy a whole bunch of herb, or do any chopping. Time saving and less wasteful? Sign me up. Once I open the tube, I have to use the whole thing in 30 days, evidently, but still. I bought the basil. I'm considering the cilantro.

So I decided to marinate my goat cheese overnight. A little basil, a little olive oil, a little garlic. Thing it, turns out goat cheese doesn't stir/fold/mix well. Maybe I should have listened to Martha Stewart and bought the pre-marinated/herbed kind.

I put the marinated cheese in the smallest baking dish I could find. Martha didn't say anything about non-stick spray, but I sprayed the dish anyway. Who wants to try to scrape off baked on cheese?

I basically let it go until I heard it bubbling/I was ready to start cooking my entree in the oven. I served it with pita chips. I did not put on pink peppercorns or any such silliness.

This is mine. I'm gonna have to start taking better pictures.

We ate the whole thing. It was delicious.

Conclusion: Will totally make again. Maybe with pine nuts.

Pickle follow up

So I was at the grocery store for the umpteenth time this afternoon, picking up yet MORE things I forgot for the dinner I'm making tomorrow night. I finish in the produce section once I realize that I was reading scallions but thinking shallots, and therefore pick up the correct green onions.

From there I go back to pick up eggs because I'm fairly certain I don't have enough at home for the Garden Lavender Pound Cake that's coming later this week. I'm glancing at the meat case I'm passing when I see it.

Claussen Kosher Dills.

Just what the "fried" pickle recipe called for that I didn't think my grocery store carried. Because, you know, THEY WEREN'T WITH THE PICKLES.

I picked up a jar of Izzy's Kosher Dills because they were a better value per ounce and now I have them on hand for my second attempt.

Or a sandwich.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Cookie fail.

I had volunteered to make cookies for a weekend trip to Gatlinburg. My cookies have always gone over well with this particular group of people, so I decided to try a new recipe. From my cookie idol, Martha Stewart, no less.

Utter aesthetic fail.

The Recipe:

Ingredients

·         3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
·         1/3 cup whole wheat flour
·         1 teaspoon baking soda
·         1 teaspoon baking powder
·         1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
·         1 cup packed light-brown sugar
·         1 cup granulated sugar
·         1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
·         1/2 cup natural peanut butter
·         2 large eggs
·         1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
·         2 cups salted whole peanuts
·         2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
2.      Put sugars, butter, and peanut butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Mix in eggs and vanilla.
3.      Reduce speed to low. Add oat mixture, and mix until just combined. Mix in peanuts and chocolate chips.
4.      Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop balls of dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
5.      Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown and just set, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 2 days.

How they were supposed to turn out

Now.

I was not about to go out and buy an entire jar of natural peanut butter for my recipe. I think natural peanut butter is gross so the rest of the jar would be wasted. I used regular old off-brand crunchy peanut butter because that’s what I had.

I’m also not cool enough to own an “electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment”. Read KitchenAid stand mixer. Really. So I just used the same mixer I always use, the one my mom got me at a yard sale that occasionally sparks when I plug it in. It works fine. Same with the ice cream scoop. Two spoons do just as good a job.

Where my fail started was with the butter.

Oh, butter.

I don’t use a lot of butter, so I had not purchased sticks of it for my new apartment. I had tub margarine. And really, if I use then interchangeably in my life, why should I be able to use them interchangeably in baking?

Because, genius, there’s more oil.

I measured out how much "butter" I needed, but I thought the batter seemed too wet before I scooped out the cookies. I added some more oats.

Still fail.

Now, I learned a while ago that when a recipe calls for you to use parchment paper, nothing else will do. So I definitely didn’t substitute anything for that. And it’s a good thing I didn’t.

 When I put the cookie sheets in the oven, I had 12 small mounds of batter.

When I took the cookie sheets out of the oven, I had one large cookie the size and shape of a cookie sheet.

           
Yeah, I wasn’t lying about the fail.

Now, in my defense, the cookies still tasted delicious and I will definitely make them again. It’s just they were more like a brittle than a cookie.

But next time, I will not substitute margarine for butter.

What silly substitution have you made in a recipe?

Conclusion: Use butter.

Potential variation: Instead of peanut butter and peanuts, Nutella and hazelnuts.

"Fried" Pickles

There are two things I know for certain.

First, I have an unnatrual love of fried pickles.

Two, I'm terrified of frying things. Seriously. I don't even like to fry bacon, I'm just so scared of getting burned with oil.

So when I saw a recipe on Pintrest for "fried" pickles that are actually baked, I knew I had to try it. (See pinned post here.)

What they should look like

The recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 jar pickle slices (we like large, thick slices of Claussen dill pickles)
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp hot sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp Cajun seasoning
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
• ranch dressing + hot sauce for dipping

Directions

1. Turn oven broiler on high.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and flour. Add Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder, Cajun seasoning, and pepper. Mix well.
3. Place panko bread crumbs in a shallow dish. Dunk each pickle slice into the egg mixture, than dredge it in the panko bread crumbs.
4. Place coated pickles on a rack set above a baking sheet and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Place pan in the middle rack of the oven. Broil for about 3 minutes on each side.
5. Serve with ranch dressing and a dash of hot sauce.

Now. When I went shopping for ingredients, I looked for the suggested pickle brand. Evidently, my grocery store doesn't carry Claussen. So I went with regular ol' dill pickle chips. And I purchased Cajun seasoning because I didn't know what was in it to make my own substitute.

I followed the directions exactly. And proceeded to blacken parts of the first batch. Because, really, broiling? Unnecessarily hot. I turned it back to 400 degrees and kept a better eye on them.

You do actually have to flip the chips in order for them to crisp up. I usually avoid flipping things even if the recipe says to because I'm lazy.

How mine turned out

I have to say, they didn’t turn out bad! Sure they were best hot out of the oven, but not awful for a first attempt.

Something I didn’t understand though was, when I took a bit without dip, all I could taste was pickle and crunch. Where were all the seasonings I put in the egg wash? I asked My Brother the Chef what was up.

 “Well, of course you couldn’t taste the seasonings,” he said. “You put them in the egg wash.”

 “But that’s what the directions said to do!” I countered.

 “That’s wrong,” he said. “If you want the seasoning to come through, you have to season every step. Especially the panko.”

So now I know for next time, and every time I use an egg wash from now on: Season the breadcrumbs.

Conclusion: Tasty. More seasoning. Try it with a better pickle next time. And when it says “dash of hot sauce,” keep adding dashes until you can actually taste the dang hot sauce.

It started as a favor...

The first Christmas I was unemployed, I made most of my Christmas gifts. Made, or did favors as gifts. One such favor was for my mother. She had been collecting recipes for years and they were scattered all over the first floor of her home – in a drawer, in cookbooks, in novels, in a folder next to her bills, in the basket where she kept coupons. Everywhere. So I found them all, sorted them, glued the little ones onto loose leaf paper, hole-punched the full-page ones, and put everything in a binder.

It took weeks.

The thing is huge.

In fact, it’s a behemoth.

The Behemoth

It’s bulging and all Mom does is keep adding to it. She’ll occasionally try something new (let me tell you, Martha Stewart’s roast chicken recipes are amazing), but mostly she just collects.

After I finished my mother’s, I went to work on my own binder. It’s significantly smaller, with fewer clippings and more photocopies. But it’s still bigger than it should be for someone who doesn’t actually cook that much. And with the addition of a Pinterest addiction, the virtual collection is growing, too.

My more humble Behemoth

I don’t want to become my mother.

I don’t want to be a … recipe hoarder.

I’ve seen those hoarding shows, this is a problem that can get out of control and before you know it you have a stack of cookbooks where the toilet paper should be.

So in an effort to use said recipes, try new things and avoid eating frozen pizza four nights a week, I’m starting this blog.

The goal is to try new things, find improvements and variations, and eat healthier as a secondary result. Unless I start making chocolate-covered, caramel-coated everything.

I shall strive to post three items a week, one of which will probably be an adult beverage. Because don’t they always look so good?

Now the tricky part: Where do I start?