Cleansing the Palate

Timeless beauty

What would any of the 12 days of Christmas be without a cheese tray? Well…nothing in my house. I live for cheese at any time of the year but it's this season that I allow myself to be excessive. Cheese is traditionally served at the end of meals in many European countries and I am happy to carry on a heritage tradition of serving a cheese plate with a bit of savoury nibbles on the side. It is lovely on the tongue after a heavy meal or a strongly flavoured one in place of a sweet and filling dessert. After a lighter fare a cheese tray can be a course all its own and should be served with a more substantial accompaniment such as hearty breads and compotes or a charcuterie board.  It's just a shame the cheeses I love are so expensive that this has to be a special occasion tradition.

Along with the cheeses shown below I served a Le Sauciflard sausage with a Parmesan rind, a Mennonite Summer Sausage, Spanish Olives of differing types such as cracked and spiced small and Jumbo plain. I managed to find dilled pickles the size of my little finger as sweet pickles such as gherkins aren't popular around here. 

To go with the 'cheese ball' I made, I served Kashi fire-roasted vegetable crackers and Pita crisps with Sea Salt. Absolutely delicious ! I mention the cheese ball with quotes as it isn't truly a cheese ball - more of a thick spreadable dip wrapped with phyllo dough. I originally thought of this as individual appetizers made from Goat's milk but a dearth of the necessary time demanded a change in the plan. This is what I came up with.

To make this again as a whole offering, I would make a bowl out of the phyllo rather than treat it like a galette with a top, like I did here. That way guests can scoop out a spoonful at a time onto their plate without wrestling with temperamental phyllo dough that tends to become shards of confetti when baked. 

Since the filling is the most important part of the dish, I am including the recipe here even though the presentation was a last minute compromise that probably won't make it to my kitchen journal as is.

A sampling of what was served: Top left to bottom right:
Kaltback Gruyère (Switzerland); Swiss Babybel; Snowdonia Smoked Cheddar (Wales); Kerrygold aged cheddar (Ireland);
 Saint Agur Blue Cheese (France); Snowdonia Cheddar (Wales): Cheddar Babybel

Left: The Smoked Cheddar is a grainy, crumbling cheese with a mildly pungent flavour holding a light smokiness.
Right: The aged cheddar in the black wax is simply lovely. Although a firm cheese, as soon as it hits that
sweet spot between the tongue and the upper palate, it turns into a slightly sweet creamy paste that is divine.

Left: The fabulously wonderful Kerrygold along with a Double Gloucester, a Wensleydale or a Red Leicester will be
my favourite go-to cheeses from across the pond.
Right: I do love Stilton and a mild Irish or Danish blue but I can't say this Saint Agur is a favourite. I found the mustiness to be too overpowering for me. I'd rather have a bit more tartness and a little less damp basement.

Oh yeah!! I love me a good gruyere and this one doesn't disappoint. Firm, slightly granular but with the teeniest of
grains, pungent without curling the toes and a milky paste made in that sweet spot all lead to an enjoyable mouth
feel and taste.

How I served this : wedge of galette onto plate with crackers and spread knife

Cheese, Pepper and Artichoke Spread/Dip

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

130g Pickled Peppedaw Peppers from South Africa

175g Pickled Artichoke Hearts

Salt and pepper

butter, melted

phyllo dough, half a pkg

In processor, add softened cheese, peppers, artichokes, salt, pepper and whiz until blended. Cover and refrigerate until ready to bake.

Remove half of the phyllo sheets and return rest to plastic wrap to stop from drying out. Working quickly, lay a sheet at a time onto a baking tray, lathering on melted butter onto each sheet. Place cheese ball in centre of sheets and fold up one corner. Brush melted butter onto fold and repeat on the other three corners, brushing on more butter as you go.

Bake in 375 degree oven for approx 20 minutes or until golden brown all over. If top is browning too quickly, cover the top loosely with foil, removing near the end of cooking time to continue browning.

Can be reheated in the oven - just cover any cut parts with foil or parchment paper to stop the exposed parts from drying out as it reheats. (If you are following my suggestion of a phyllo bowl, cover the entire top when reheating.)

Lovely Chenin Blanc from South Africa is a wonderful wine for both the cheese platter
and the rabbit dish I served for Christmas dinner.

all text and photographs ©michelle levasseur The Groaning Board 2015

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Weekday Suppers: Beer Braised Beef with Peppers and Mushrooms

And the band played on

Okay so I've said it before and I'm saying it again - an ecologically sound, locally sourced, sustainable eating lifestyle is the ideal. Sometimes however, you can't live up to the ideal. Sometimes paycheques won't stretch any further than the meanest of food budgets that forces you to make some hard choices in terms of what sorts of meals you can make for yourself and your family. You know you should be feeding your family and indeed yourself the best of foods in order to stay healthy. You know the ideal is what you should be aiming towards and the guilt starts to eat at you when you can't seem to attain that consistently. 

What do you do then? Do you dig into the very back of your closet, you know the dark place at the back that seems to absorb all light and odd socks, searching for that hair shirt you could swear you hung on to? Should you castigate yourself with a willow switch and a ham sandwich for not being perfect? Of course not. You have to live in the real world and we'll leave the intense guilt for someone who has time for that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, when we are faced with an example of how we cannot live up to the standards we've imposed upon ourselves, we are apt to give up entirely. Dieting, recycling, getting more exercise - all seem to be endeavours of which we demand absolute perfection from ourselves or it isn't worth the effort. We sell ourselves short of so many 'good' things when we do this.

It seems especially dimwitted to me to try to attain perfection when it is a foreign state for us mere mortals, especially to attain perfection as defined by someone else's standards. Better for our sanity and our world if we simply try to be the best we can be as a person and at everything we try, but never perfect.

Two out of three ain't bad

Sounds weird but one of my life goals since, well, forever, is to be the least hypocrite I can be at all times. That little voice in my head, which abhors hypocrisy, especially the willfully blind kind of hypocrisy, analyzes everything I say or do for the scent of it. At times it seems a losing battle as there are so many ways a human can become a hypocrite. It's just easier to talk about doing than to actually do.

 I try to do what I can in terms of sourcing local, sourcing humane and in season foods but I also must make that philosophy budget friendly. It's all fine and dandy to want to save the world one calorie at a time but in the real world of mortgages, credit cards and university dreams, money you can save by going bulk at Costco or the supermarket when there is a sale on is not only prudent but necessary. You must balance a desire to support local business while giving the finger to BigBusiness with the need to keep to a budget, both in money and time. 

In a word: compromise.

Beer Braised Beef with Peppers, Mushrooms & Onions on a bed of arugula

My compromise for weekday dinners is to utilize pantry ingredients more often. Canned, dried, preserved and frozen items can help get a quick and easy meal on the table when you need the help the most. Some items I wouldn't recommend more than twice per year, others once or twice per month. For some, their meals will consist of a boxed or frozen prepared side dish and if that is what is necessary, so be it. Just try to serve it within a balanced meal, or if it is to a meal itself like the college standby of mac and cheese, then add other ingredients to it to balance it out. Try also to limit how many times per week you turn to these types of side dishes. (A three dollar bag of potatoes will go a long way and is a much healthier side alternative to a boxed pasta.)

I use less tender meat cuts or mid-range meats that are on sale when my budget requires me to shop for meat at the grocery store. Let's face it, if you are buying from the supermarket, one cut pretty much is the same as the next regardless of what you may read or hear from marketers. The beef isn't aged and the pigs and chickens are killed too early, in my opinion. Sometimes it is necessary to buy your meat from those stores, so choosing and preparing an inexpensive cut is best and don't really concern yourself with what is on the label. Making cheap cuts stretch for a few meals and taste good is imperative. 

What you need to know

Look for well marbled meat without a thick rind of fat. Not because the fat is bad - it is very necessary for the juiciness of the meat, but not for the added weight that will contribute to a higher cost per lb/kg. Why pay for something you'll just be removing later?(The only time I do that is when I buy a large pork loin roast - the whys and wherefores I will be covering in a later post.) Thick cuts are a better choice than thin ones, especially with pork, for tenderness even if you plan to use a marinade. This recipe is great for every cut of beef and will yield a moist and tasty meat that resembles pulled pork in its consistency.

approx $5.65 per person - serves 4 with leftovers

Beer-Braised Beef with Peppers, Mushrooms & Onions

2 ginormous steaks (I used top sirloin grilling steaks) approx 4-5 lbs total
1 bottle of ale, stout or porter depending on your tastes
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or wine vinegar in a pinch
3 - 4 cups beef broth
1 tbsp oregano
steak seasoning of your choice
      mine: blend of ground pepper, paprika, oregano, celery seed, salt, garlic
2 bay leaves
2 medium onions, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
couple of dashes of liquid smoke, optional

Liberally sprinkle steak seasoning over meat.  Add oil or lard to a large saucepan and get heat to a fairly controllable high heat. Sear meat. Assemble braising liquids in a large bowl. Put seared meat in to sit while onions and garlic are sautéing in same saucepan. Put meat and liquids into pan once onions are softened. Add seasonings and bring pot to the boil. Lower heat to simmer and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until meat falls apart. This works well in a slow cooker at low heat for 8 hours then cranked at high until really done.

Steak top

1 green, 1 red, 1 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced

Sauté until softened and serve on top of beef which in turns sits on a bed of arugula. Spoon a bit of the cooking juices over top of the beef.



Tip: Strain braising liquid and refrigerate. Next day, remove the disc of fat and use it to sauté mushrooms and onions to make a gravy for leftover hot beef sandwiches or a pot pie using the liquids within the recipe.


all text and photographs ©michelle levasseur The Groaning Board 2015

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