Grilled Cheese with Twist

Grilled Cheese with a Twist

Looking for a quick and easy meal, like a grilled cheese, but tired of the same sandwich over and over again, then this is the recipe for you! This new take on a classic is delicious. All you really need to do is choose what kind of cheese you want and you are good to go. Bacon is good on anything, as I am sure you all know, and on this sandwich it is no different. The pears and bacon together with the cheese makes the perfect mix of salty, sweat, and creamy. Apples are also good. Feel free to experiment and try different fruits and cheeses. Of note, check out the Gold Creek Farm website. They are now selling some of their cheeses in local Harmon's store in the Salt Lake Valley. This is perfect for a quick meal and can be entirely local! Please enjoy and keep yourself warm in this chilly weather! 

Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Pear

Ingredients

• 8 slices bacon, cooked (Clifford Farms or Christiansen Farms)
• 2 pears (or apples), thinly sliced (Utah Farms CSA)
• Smoked cheddar cheese from Gold Creek Farm or blue cheese from Snowy Mountain Creamery or Barely Buzzed from Beehive Cheese. 
• Sourdough bread, 8 slices (Crumb Brothers)
• Butter (Winder Farms)

Make like you would any grilled cheese sandwich but only this one uses fruit and bacon and is great when the weather starts getting a little chilly.

Pears in Mulled Red Wine or Port Wine

During the fall season, we tend to get a fair amount of local pears from our CSA.  Years ago my mom remembered this recipe that her friend Kris made with pears poached in Port Wine and then served on a salad but she could not find the recipe. Instead, I found this recipe for canning the pears in red wine. These are pictures of the pears we canned last year and then used in salads over the winter. Our problem is we don't really know how to can that well so we placed these in the refrigerator since my Mom didn't trust our canning skills (she also placed some pickles she made this year in the refrigerator). Maybe, we will get better at canning if we do it a bit more and take a class next year with Wasatch Community Gardens.
Anyway, these pears are really delicious on a fresh salad with some toasted nuts and blue cheese. We add toasted pecans that you can order from Thompson Family Farm and blue cheese from Snowy Mountain creamery. We got some arugula from our CSA this week but the pears we made this year aren't really ready to eat yet. You can use the wine to make the dressing for the salad.  We'll post a picture of the salad with these pears once they are ready.

2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 and 1/2 pounds pears
lemon juice, mixed with water to make 10% solution
small handful of cloves
2 pieces of 2-inch cinnamon stick

1)  Sterilize two 32 ounce canning jars and lids.
2) Make the wine syrup.  Mix sugar in 2 & 1/4 cups water in heavy saucepan and heat over medium heat until it comes to a slow boil and all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add in the wine. Place cover on pan to keep warm.
3)  Peel and slice pears. Place sliced pears in 10% lemon juice solution to keep from browning.
4) Pack the pears into the sterilized jars. Add cloves and one piece of cinnamon stick to each jar.
5) Bring the wine syrup back to a boil and pour over the pears. Leave a 1/4 inch headspace. Process the jars in boiling water canner for 20 minutes. Use within one year (if they last that long).

Red Wine and Balsamic Wine Reduction

1/2 cup of the red wine from the pears
1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
2 tbls. honey

1) Combine red wine, vinegar and honey in small saucepan.  Cook over low-medium heat for about 5-10 minutes or until reduced to a syrup-like consistency.

2) Mix red wine reduction with 1/4 cup of olive oil and serve over fresh green salad with pecans, pears and crumbled blue cheese.

Pasta with Broccoli Aioli

Did you know that Gold Creek Cheese is now being sold at select Harmon's Stores in the Salt Lake Valley? Do you like Gold Creek Cheese as much as we do? Then be excited! This new development means a great opportunities to cook all kinds of delicious dishes like this one. This dish uses delicious broccoli and Gold Creek Cheese to make a tasty pasta dish. Local broccoli has become on of my favorite local vegetables to eat. Local broccoli seems to have more flavor and can be slightly sweeter then the broccoli you get from the grocery store. Along with the cheese this dish is amazingly flavorful. Enjoy this dish and Gold Creek Cheese as much as you can!

Ingredients:

8 ounces fresh pasta
2 cups broccoli, diced into florets (Utah Farms CSA)
1/4 cup butter (Winder Farms)
2 tbl. chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
Salt (Redmond Sea Salt)
Red pepper flakes
Grated parmesan cheese (Gold Creek Farms Cheese)

1) Bring large pot of salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook according to whether you are using fresh or dry pasta. Drain pasta but reserve about 1 cup of pasta water.
2) Heat 2 tablespoonfuls of olive oil in large skillet and saute garlic for 2-3 minutes but do not brown. Add broccoli florets and cook for additional 2-3 minutes.  Add hot pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, and continue cooking until broccoli is tender. Keeping over low heat, add the drained pasta to the skillet. Add remaining olive oil, butter, parsley and red pepper flakes. Toss until all the butter is melted and pasta is well coated. Serve with generous sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Barley Risotto with Eggplant and Tomatoes

We really love risotto at our house. When we visited Italy this past summer, we drove by rice patties in the Emilia-Romagna region where arborio rice is grown. Since no arborio rice is grown locally here in Utah, we have learned to make our risotto with barley, which I also think makes for a healthier dish in general. We get our barley from West Mountain Wheat that is supplied to us via our Utah Farms CSA. You can make this barley risotto from so many different things that we thought we would try it with eggplant, mostly because we had bought a bunch of eggplant at the Farmers Market and did not have time to fry them up to use in Eggplant Parmesan. Since eggplant do not last long uncooked, we needed to cook them fast and this sounded like a good way to do it without having to egg, bread and fry eggplant all night long. Don't get me wrong. I love Eggplant Parmesan and fried eggplant can be frozen to use over the winter but with all my school work, soccer, Girl Scouts and college entrance exams, and all my Mom's work and volunteer activities, frying eggplant just wasn't going to happen and letting the eggplant rot was also not going to happen. 

Once again, one of the only ingredients we ever use that is not local is olive oil! You can substitute

butter for the olive oil but it wouldn't be as healthy so we just go ahead and use olive oil without feeling guilty. Now if only someone could grow olives in Utah! Hope you enjoy this delicious recipe and get creative with your own barley risotto recipe.

Ingredients:

6 cups diced eggplant
2 cups peeled and diced tomatoes
3 tbls. olive oil
1/2 tsp. freshly grated black pepper
5 cups homemade vegetable or chicken broth
2 cups water
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup uncooked pearl barley
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup (2oz) crumbled feta cheese
grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup basil, thinly chopped
chopped nuts, optional (walnut, pine or pistachio)

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Place foil on jelly-roll pan.
2) Toss eggplant, tomatoes, 2 tbls. olive oil and freshly grated pepper in a bowl until vegetables are well coated with oil.
3) Place vegetables in a single layer on prepared jelly-roll pan. Bake in 400 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes or until eggplant is tender and tomatoes collapse.
4) Combine broth with water and heat to simmer on the stove top. Keep this warm over low heat.
5) Heat remaining 1 tbl. olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion to pan and cook until just beginning to turn translucent. Stir in barley and garlic and cook about one minute; stirring constantly.
6) Add wine. Stirring constantly; cook until wine evaporates.
7) Add one cup warm broth to pan. Stirring constantly until broth is absorbed, then add additional cup of warm broth. Continue this process until barley is tender but firm. You may reach this step before adding all 6 cups of liquid so make sure that nearly all liquid is absorbed before adding the next cup of broth and test the barley with each addition for doneness.
8) Stir in the roasted vegetables.
9) Top with cheese, basil and nuts if desired.

Gnocchi with Blue Cheese and Pear Sauce

Gnocchi! I am sure you have seen this one before on my blog, but I repeat only to remind you what a wonderful, entirely local dish this is! When we bought Snowy Mountain Creamery's Delano Peak cheese the idea of a cheese sauce popped into our heads. What better way to use this cheese then to make a delicious pasta dish. The entire idea came when we were participating in the Eat Local Challenge. We were tasked with making a entirely local dish and this was  created. Everything in this recipe can be bought or made locally. All you have to do is sit down and make it. I know I loved this recipe and the pears we got in our CSA, that we added in at a whim, made it even more delicious. I could eat these every week and never get tired of them, so of course I think you should try them.  Enjoy what is left of this season and don't forget to start preparing for the winter!

Ingredients:

Homemade gnocchi (see previous post)
2 tbls. butter (Winder Farms)
2 tbls. flour (we use freshly ground wheat)
1 cup 2% milk ( Winder Farms)
1/2 cup homemade vegetable broth
1/3 pound Delano Peak cheese (Snowy Mountain Creamery)
1 pear, diced
grated parmesan cheese

1) See previous post on the making of homemade gnocchi. Remember to use fresh russet potatoes since these work the best for gnocchi. Don't work the dough too much or the gnocchi will be heavy instead of light and fluffy.  Cook as directed in previous post.
2) Melt butter in the saucepan and then add flour to create a roux, about 3-4 minutes, . Stir continuously so as not to burn the flour. Meanwhile, heat the milk and broth to warm in the microwave.
3) Slowly add the liquid to the roux while continually stirring with a whisk. Continue to cook over low heat until the sauce thickens. Add the Delano Peak cheese and continue to cook until most of the cheese has melted. Add the diced pears.
4)  Toss gnocchi with the sauce and sprinkle with the grated parmesan cheese. Serve warm

Pappardelle with Roasted Butternut Squash

Ingredients:

3 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tbl. honey
1 & 1/2 tbl. olive oil
1 tsp. Redmond Sea Salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
8 shallots, peeled and halved
1 tbl. chopped fresh sage
4 ounces uncooked pappardelle pasta (Nu-Nooz)
1/4 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese (Gold Creek Farms)

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.
2. Combine squash, honey 2 & teaspoons oil, salt, pepper and shallots in a shallow pan. Toss well. Bake at 475 degrees for 20 minutes or until tender. Stir occasionally during roasting. Add sage and toss well.
3. Cook pasta according to instructions. Drain and place pasta in a bowl. Add 2 teaspoonfuls oil, roasted squash and shallots and cheese; toss well.

Adapted from Cooking Light

Spaghetti Squash with Feta, Zucchini, Tomato, Garlic and Basil

We are members of the Bell Organic CSA as we have stated before. This week, we got spaghetti squash, tomatoes, and some sweet red peppers. They gave us a recipe for this dish but, of course, we adjusted it a bit for what we had on hand and what we thought we would like. At the Downtown Farmers Market last week, we bought the Feta Cheese from Gold Creek Farms so we already had this on hand along with some their great parmesan cheese. There are so many local cheese purveyors that I will update my blog to include as many as I can this week. I thought this was an incredibly delicious recipe and it had multiple different flavors that complimented each other. Not only did it taste delicious, it looked delicious. And every ingredient was local except for the olive oil! How is that for being LocaliciousUtah!

Ingredients:

1 medium sized spaghetti squash
2 tbl. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 gloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 cup sliced zucchini
1/2 sweet red pepper, chopped
2 cups chopped tomatoes
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
shredded parmesan cheese
Torn basil leaves to taste, or about 2 tbls. of chopped basil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut squash in half lengthwise and remove seeds (my Mom uses an ice cream scoop to remove the seeds). Place squash cut sides down on a baking dish or baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes or until soft. Saute onion and garlic until tender, add zucchini and red pepper and sauté until tender. Add tomato and cook for additional 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, use the tines of a fork to gently pull strands of squash away from the peel. Add the strands of squash to the sautéed vegetables and heat. Add the cheeses and serve.