Tag: goat cheese

Grilled Stone Fruit Salad with Honey Goat Cheese Dressing

Grilled peaches and plums served over baby greens with walnuts and a sweet honey goat cheese dressing, this salad is light and delicious utilizing some of my favorite summer fruits.

While I hate to think of summer as having an expiration date, the fact
that it’s coming close to the end has me savoring every last moment. I’m a little excited about the change of seasons, but I always mourn the end of summer. So I’m trying to enjoy every last bit of summer’s bounty.

Grilled Stone Fruit Salad with Honey Goat Cheese Dressing
gordon-ramsay-recipe.com
Servings: 4 • Size: 1/4 • Old Points: 5 pts • Weight Watcher Points+: 6 pt
Calories: 232 • Fat: 17 g • Carb: 16 g • Fiber: 3 g • Protein: 6 g • Sugar: 13 g
Sodium: 86 mg • Cholest: 8 mg

Ingredients:

For the Honey Goat Cheese Dressing:

2.5 oz fresh creamy goat cheese, room temperature
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbsp water
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:

6 cups mixed baby greens
2 ripe medium peaches, halved and sliced into wedges
2 medium ripe plums, halved and sliced into wedges
24 walnut or pecan halves

Directions:

In a small blender, combine goat cheese, honey, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, water and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix until fully combined and creamy and refrigerate until ready to use. Makes about 1/2 cup.

Divide the greens between 4 plates, top with fruit and nuts and drizzle 2 tablespoons of dressing over everything.

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Giving Thanks

Michele and I had a very lovely Thanksgiving holiday with the family in Davis, CA. The food and company were wonderful, and as if that wasn’t enough, I also enjoyed a flood of viewers posting pictures of their successful Food Wishes’ recipes on Twitter and Instagram. I want to thank everyone who mentioned us this holiday, and I couldn’t be happier or more proud of all the beautiful food you created and shared. And while we’re on the subject, here are a few highlights from our meal. Enjoy!

Our handsome, free-range turkey was from Branigan’s Turkey Farm in Woodland, California, and it was amazing! I did the old, herb-butter under the skin trick, and it was one of the juiciest, most flavorful turkeys in recent memory.

I love to start the Thanksgiving meal with a small salad. This is a great way to get everyone to the table for toasts, grace, etc., and not have to worry about all the food getting cold. While the turkey rests, enjoy a nice pear, persimmon salad with goat cheese, pomegranate, and candied walnuts.

What’s Thanksgiving, but an elaborate excuse to eat lots of buttery mashed potatoes? These were fortified with cream cheese as family tradition dictates.

These incredibly tasty sweet potatoes were simply roasted with maple butter and topped with salty, crunchy, toasted pistachios. They were perfect.

I decided to eschew the usual green bean casserole for this new addition to the holiday side repertoire. The beans were tossed with copious amounts of roasted garlic, and then warmed in the oven after a crumbling of Point Reyes blue cheese. No one missed the casserole!

We finished with the pumpkin pie you saw posted a while back, and by the looks of my Twitter feed, so did many of you. I hope you had a great holiday, and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Special thanks to Peggy & Al, Nina & Tom, and Jennifer and Leanne for providing us with such an enjoyable Thanksgiving. Stay tuned for a new video tomorrow!

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Columbus Discovers New Sport – Competitive Salami Sandwich Making

I don’t do a lot of sandwich recipes here on Food
Wishes, mostly because, well, they’re sandwiches, but today I’m making an
exception. On Thursday, I participated in a sandwich making contest sponsored
by Columbus Salumeria, and I wanted to share what turned out to be the winning
concoction.

Columbus sponsored the #TopWichSF event to promote their new line of
Farm to Fork Naturals, and things got off to a appetizing start as Sean
Timberlake, from Punk Domestics and Hedonia, treated us to an array of small
bites he created using these great new products.

Photo courtesy of Columbus Salame

I really loved his wonderful
Waldorf-filled endive topped with strips of oven-crisped salami. With
entertaining season right around the corner, I highly recommend you add this to
your repertoire.

I was grateful for the energy and inspiration the tasty
bites provided, as I was up against two very worthy opponents in Michael
Procopio from Food for the Thoughtless, and Lynda Balslev from TasteFood.

The
competition was held at the Hotel Vitale, and started with a romantic pedicab
ride to the Ferry Building across the street. We were given 10 minutes and $10
to buy any additional ingredients we wanted to accessorize our sandwiches with.

My idea was to do a smoked turkey and teleme sandwich,
topped with some kind of meat relish made with soppressata and fruit. I ended
up finding some beautiful pluots, and used the rest of my cash to get a small
bag of pine nuts. They were raw, but I figured I could toast them on the panini
press, which I knew was hot and waiting. I was gifted a few grapes which while delicious, played no part in my creation.

We had just 20 minutes to build our sandwiches, while a
distinguished panel of five judges looked on. I was a little nervous to begin
with, and knowing there were representatives from YumSugar, Chow, SFWeekly, and
Tasting Table there, only added to it. The time went by incredibly fast, which
made my fellow competitors’ work that much more impressive.

Getting ready to bone marrow the bread.
Photo courtesy of Sean Timberlake

Michael bought some bone marrow butter and used it to toast
a turkey, soppressata and apple panini. A brilliant idea, and had time
allowed for a longer, deeper caramelization, it would have crushed my
non-beef-fat-fried offering.

Photo courtesy of Columbus Salame

Lynda did a fennel salami, fig, and goat cheese sandwich,
which she topped with apple slaw, shaved fennel, and her secret ingredient,
fennel pollen. It was a classic combination of flavors, and a great way to show
off the Columbus salami. By the way, check out Lynda’s great recap of the event, where you can see and read more about her beautiful sandwich.

Despite their worthy efforts, the judges awarded my
rustic-looking sandwich the grand prize. I received a dangerously large basket
of salami and other gourmet goodies, as well as $500 cash!

I figured that a two-year’s supply of salami was enough of a prize, so I’m having them donate the
money to the SF Food Bank. I would have just spent the money on more salami
anyway.

A huge thank you to Columbus for inviting me to participate. They have a bunch of great photos on their Facebook page in case you want to check out some more of the action. Also, a sincere thanks to
Michael and Lynda for helping make the event such a fun experience. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of YumSugar

Smoked Turkey & Teleme Sandwich with Pluot, Sopressata,
& Pine Nut Relish

Ingredients for 4 Sandwiches:

For the relish:

8 oz Columbus Sopressata, diced

1 cup pluot, diced

1/4 cup toasted pinenuts

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 basil leaves, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

The rest:

1 tbsp Harissa or other hot chili pepper paste

6 tbsp mayonnaise

8 slices bread or 4 rolls

4 oz room temp teleme cheese

8 oz Columbus Smoked Turkey

Mix relish ingredients and let sit in fridge for 1 hour to
develop flavors. Mix the harissa and mayonnaise; spread on bread. Spread both
sides of bread with teleme cheese and top with turkey. Top with relish, and
serve immediately, or wrap and press with a plate in the fridge for 30 minutes
to compress.