Say Cheese!

I'm smack dab in the middle of a culinary identity crisis. Ever since giving up gluten and giving in to the reality that we don't get along, I've struggled with finding my groove in the kitchen. No groove in the kitchen = no love on the blog. In the meantime, my husband just keeps sending out delicious-ness. And in light of the fact that our fifth anniversary will be celebrated tomorrow, I thought it only appropriate to share something he wrote about a recent kick-ass meal. 


Thanks for keeping me fed, love!  -Holly


I’m Throwing Seven Different Kinds of Cheese

Of all the atrocious ailments and conditions that may befall the human body during the course of a lifetime, I don’t believe that any can quite compare to lactose intolerance. Sure, I think most of us could forgo the glass of cold milk with our chocolate chip cookie, or the half & half creamer in our morning coffee. But I’ll venture that very few of us would want to know what our lives would be like sans cultured milk. A hamburger without cheese is stomachable, but not very exciting. A pizza without cheese is painful. If you pair the right cheese with a glass of wine, it will make your week. Very few ingredients in modern cooking can measure up to this crucial building block of our food pyramid.


This was precisely what was going through my mind as I perused the aisles at Whole Foods Market on Saturday morning. If you have the patience to deal with things in complete excess (people and prices, namely), then you should swing by the cheese section the next time you’re there. It’s amazing. If Willy Wonka were into cheese instead of chocolate, then his factory would be just like this. There are soft cheeses, hard cheeses, warm and cold, light and dark, sharp and mild and everything in between. There are cheeses you have never heard of. It actually makes you want to drop everything and do whatever it takes to quickly become the most loyal Green Bay Packers fan ever. I wanted to buy all of it. Yet, as much as that would please me, I think we know that it would bring on immediate and stern disapproval of my checkbook, not to mention my stomach which would be working overtime to digest it all. I digress.


So, I set out to get as many different types of cheese into my next meal as possible. I didn’t want to cheat and do a “5 cheese pizza” or anything like that. I wanted the cheeses to be more individually featured, yet complimentary to their counterpart ingredients. Here’s what I came up with, and I have to say, it was delightful.


Aperitif – Harp Lager/Woodchuck Hard Cider (Gluten-Free)


Appetizer – seedless red grapes & smoked gouda


Salad – Organic Mixed Greens with fresh grape tomato, red onion and crumbled bleu cheese. Topped
with 25-year barrel aged Balsamic Vinegar from William Sonoma


Main Course
Grilled Prime Rib Eye topped with Boursin garlic cheese
Grilled portabella mushrooms (marinated in Balsamic Vinegar above)
Fresh brussel sprouts topped with shredded parmigiano-reggiano
Baked Macaroni with Wisconsin Cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheeses


Dessert
Fresh cut strawberries topped with Balsamic Vinegar (from above) and marscapone cheese


In short, it was amazing. And as a good friend of mine put it, “nothing says cheesy like dinner with Ladd.”


I agree!