To head off the smartasses at the pass, I’m still planning to use goat cheese as a food.
I love goat cheese, but I usually smear it across some garlic bread and broil for a minute or two, or add little dollops to homemade pita pizzas (whole wheat pitas spread with pesto, with chopped sundried tomatoes and goat cheese sprinkled on top, then baked until the pita is crisp and the cheese is toasty).
These are delicious, but I’m looking for more recipes. So what do you do with goat cheese? And do you have any recipes involving vegetables?
Mash it up with some fresh herbs–whatever sounds good (basil, thyme, etc.) and some minced garlic. Slice a pocket into some large chicken breasts and stuff with the cheese. Then broil or braise the chicken and serve with roasted red pepper or tomato sauce.
Goat cheese is also good dolloped onto roasted vegetables like summer squash, eggplant, peppers and new potatoes. Some rosemary and olive oil should be involved as well.
Chez Panisse has an appetizer that they are not allowed to take off the menu, which is basically rounds of goat cheese rolled in mixed herbs and warmed gently. This is served with the best french-type bread you can find and a mixed baby green salad with your finest vinaigrette.
Slice a red pepper in half, drizzle olive oil, roast for 15 mins take out of oven fill both halfs with goats cheese, basil, herbs, olives, tomato, drizzle more olive oil roast for 10 minutes. Take out, sprinkle chopped nuts of choice.
My missus and I cook with goat cheese a fair amount, probably once a week. We’re herbivores, and we like to try new and unusual things, so these not might be all that interesting to you, but here are two of our favorites:
The first sounds kind of awful but is surprisingly good. It’s a cold salad with goat cheese and watermelon. I’m not at home right now, so I can’t get the exact recipe, but I think it’s this one: here . (We ususally don’t bother with the almonds).
Spaghetti squash is fun to cook with. Our favorite recipe with it uses feta, black olives, and tomatoes. It’s pretty easy too. This one is from allrecipes.com.
you can use it in almost any pasta recipe, like in lasagna instead of ricotta, or mix it with milk and butter and herbs and pour over just about anything. spread it on slices of eggplant or prociutto and roll it up and grill lightly. yum!
These all sound fabulous. Makes me want to skip out of work early to go ome and cook!
Come to think of it, I’ve had a salad of mixed greens topped with dried cranberries, toasted pine nuts, and goat cheese rounds coated with panko bread crumbs, which were either fried or baked. The cranberries really did go well with the cheese.
What is the best way to work with the cheese if I want to shape it into balls or discs or whatever? It’s so sticky!
keep the cheese very cold and your hands lightly oiled. Also, you could spray a little olive oil on some plastic wrap and use that to roll a log of goat cheese, chill it and then you can cut into discs.
Mix it with chopped parsley or other mild herb, form it into patties or balls, and roll them in chopped pistachios or almonds, pressing in the nuts until thoroughly coated. Put the balls into a salad, and incorporate some sweet element into the salad, such as beets, balsamic vinegar salad dressing, fig quarters, etc., because the sweet element and the salty tangy cheese contrast wonderfully.