Cheese Platter Cheese and Chicken Casserole

Cheese platters are like the theater and you my friend, are the director. Your job is to entertain and indulge your audience. Who doesn’t love discovering a new cheese? This is your opportunity to share your discoveries with guests. I always go for variety in taste and texture. At least one mild, one medium and one strong. At least one soft-ripened (brie, camembert, triple crème, fromage d’affinois) or surface-ripened (these are the delicate, sometimes tiny ones with the soft skin, like cabécou). At least two semi-soft (i.e., havarti), semi-hard (cheddar) or washed rind (morbiere) and maybe a fresh (chévre) or a blue (roquefort). Anyway. I digress and believe me chickadee, I could go on about cheese!

If you put out a holiday cheese platter and are now left with a whole slew of cheeses and you’re all cheese-and-crackered out, this is a good way to use them up. The cheese sauce is made with a light roux to smooth out the melting, so it should work with most of the common cheese platter players. I chose a smoked Vermont cheddar, a semi-soft aged chèvre from Holland and a soft-ripened triple crème from France.

Use what you’d like for this recipe. The only guideline I’d recommend is to use two semi-soft or semi-hard cheeses and one soft-ripened cheese to get the right saucy consistency. I wouldn’t recommend using Jarlsberg because it tends to get stringy as it melts.

Cheese Platter Cheese and Chicken Casserole – serves 2 – 4

2 C dry short pasta or shells
2 C cooked chicken meat, loosely chopped
1 T butter
1 T flour
3/4 C milk
3 oz smoked cheddar or smoked gouda, finely diced
3 oz milder semi-soft or semi-hard cheese, (fontina, gruyère, emmentaler, havarti, etc.), finely diced
3 oz soft-ripened cheese (brie, camembert, etc) rind removed
Salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper

Cook the pasta as directed.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. When it bubbles, add flour and stir with a whisk for about 2 minutes until light golden brown. Gradually add milk, stirring with whisk for about 3 – 4 minutes until the sauce is smooth and begins to thicken. Add cheeses and stir with a wooden spoon until melted. Season the sauce to taste.

Combine chicken and pasta in a small casserole dish. Pour sauce over the mixture and toss to coat. Top with a few turns of freshly ground pepper. Bake for 35- 45 minutes until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling.

Ingredient Origins: Butter – Maine, Flour – Vermont, Milk – Vemont, Smoked Cheddar – Vermont, Chèvre – Holland, Triple crème brie – France

Vegetable Garden Pasta

Vegetable Garden Pasta gets its name from the raw veggies that star in the dish. The pasta sauce takes less than 20 minutes so that the tomatoes and carrots retain their vitamins and minerals. A quick, covered simmer allows the vegetables to soften in a shorter amount of time than tomato sauce recipes that stew uncovered for several hours. Give the sauce a quick mash, to get a smoother consistency.

The spinach and red onion are left raw and tossed into the dish, adding color and that “put hair on your chest” onion goodness. It’s been said that raw onions and garlic contain compounds that fend off the cold and flu. Carrots add vitamin A, along with a gentle sweetness to cut the tomatoes’ acidity.

Vegetable Garden Pasta – serves 2 – 4

1 T olive oil
1/4 C chopped yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely diced or pressed
1/4 C carrots, finely chopped
4 medium tomatoes, diced
2 T tomato paste
1 C chicken or vegetable stock
1 T chopped red onion
1/2 C baby spinach
1/2 lb. dry pasta
2-4 T Parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in a 2 quart saucepan over a medium flame. Add onions and cook until transparent, but not browned. Add garlic and carrots and cook for one minute. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and stock. Stir until well combined. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Cook pasta as instructed. Drain and pour into a covered casserole dish. Toss with onions and spinach, cover to allow both vegetables to steam slightly by the pasta’s heat.

Pour sauce over pasta, toss well and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Ingredient origins: Olive oil – Spain; Garlic – New Jersey; Onions, Carrots, Tomatoes – New Hampshire; Spinach – Maine; Pasta and cheese – Italy

Pasta with Maine Smoked Salmon, Arugula and Pine Nuts

This is a hearty, nutritious pasta dish that can be made in under a half hour. Pine nuts contain vitamins A, E and K, niacin and folic acid. Arugula also offers vitamins A, K and folic acid along with calcium, iron, zinc and potassium and salmon offers omega-3. The sweetness of the pine nuts compliments the smoked salmon’s briny tang, and the Mornay sauce mellows the arugula’s pungency. I didn’t take pictures of the process because I thought it was too simple to post here – it’s not like the pasta is homemade. But it turned out to be really good and so I decided to share it.

Like anything else, I prefer to use all natural smoked salmon made without coloring. I’ve had pretty good luck with Ducktrap River from Maine – good flavor, not too oily and never stringy or tough – but I’m sure there’s an equally good smoked salmon purveyor near you. Enjoy.

Important: If you make this, be sure the check the country of origin on your pine nuts.  “Pine nut-associated cacogeusia” is a disorder came to light last winter that causes some people to experience a metallic taste in their mouth for up to two weeks after eating some pine nuts. The problem appears to be associated with pine nuts sourced from China. From what I understand, pine nuts from Italy have not caused the disorder. Just be warned. If you’re not into risking it, a good substitute in this recipe would be chopped walnuts.

Pasta with Maine Smoked Salmon, Arugula and Pine Nuts – serves 4-6

1/2 lb dry short pasta
3 C arugula, chopped
1 t olive oil
6 ounces smoked salmon, cut into small squares
1/4 C raw pine nuts
1 1/2 C Mornay Sauce (recipe follows)

Start by cooking the pasta for 1 – 2 minutes less than directed (it will continue to cook as it steams the arugula). Drain, rinse, and pour into a large casserole dish with a lid. Drizzle with a little olive oil, add the arugula and gently toss. Cover to allow the arugula to lightly steam with the hot pasta.

Meanwhile, make the Mornay sauce (recipe below).

Toss the salmon and pine nuts with the pasta, add the sauce and toss to coat.

Mornay Sauce – about 1 1/2 cups

1 T butter
1 T flour
1 C milk
1-2 T grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese
salt to taste

In a small saucepan, melt butter. When it begins to foam, stir in the flour. Allow to cook, stirring with a wire whisk for about 2 minutes. Stir in milk and allow to thicken, then stir in the cheese. Season with salt.

Ingredient Origins: Pasta – Iowa, Organic arugula – Maine,Olive oil – Italy, Smoked Salmon – Maine, Butter – Maine, Flour – Vermont, Organic milk – Vermont, Pecorino Romano cheese – Italy, Pine nuts – Italy

Mac and Cheese

Mac and cheese is traditionally made using a combination of Cheddar and American Cheese, which, while I’m on that topic, I’d like to just put this out there, is not actually cheese.

I’m sure you already figured those little individually wrapped squares from the pre-sliced cold cut section of the supermarket were not lovingly stacked on shelves in a mountain cave and aged for 60 days. Nor was the big, glossy brick of Land O Something-or-other you see behind the deli counter. No no. The cheese labeled “American” is a cheese by-product. Like in the same way that particle board is a wood by-product.

According to the American Cheese Society, American Cheese is a “processed cheese”, which is defined as a cheese by-product made from a combination of natural cheese and added ingredients, such as stabilizers, emulsifiers, and flavor enhancers that are used to create a consistent and shelf-stable product aimed at mass market consumption.

Another interesting fact about cheese is that in the same way that all dogs share the same DNA, from Chihuahua to St. Bernard, all cheese is made from the same three ingredients: starter culture, rennet and milk. The only difference is the way those three ingredients are combined and aged. So Gorgonzola, Camembert, Romano, Cheddar, Gruyere, St. Marcellin, all cheese comes from exactly the same ingredients.

The only exception is processed cheese.

So why mess up such a perfect food with emulsifiers and other stuff your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food (as Pollan would put it)? For many years, when the US had few to no artisan cheese producers, it may have made some sense to do this in order to facilitate national distribution. But that’s just not the case anymore. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an artisan cheese outfit and that’s a wonderful thing!

I really shouldn’t make it sound like artisan cheese producers are everywhere. Though there are pockets of production and grateful consumption of fantastically complex and delicious European-style cheeses nationwide, these producers are up against huge manufacturers and their millions in marketing campaigns. In order to insure the survival of artisanal producers, and our subsequent vast selection of such specialties, there needs to be a major paradigm shift in the way we as consumers shop, namely away from the mass-produced cheese found in every supermarket.

My point there, with the dead cat comment, is that artisan cheeses are around if you look for them. And you should look for them if you like quality cheese and would like to continue to see quality cheese.

It’s just a shame it took us so long and now “American Cheese” is defined as the SPAM of cheeses, and not something flowery like, “One of many regional varieties of complex cheeses produced in the United States.”

So that’s why I don’t use American Cheese in my mac and cheese.

Although, I will admit, I used to love American Cheese on white bread with mayo as a kid, but then I also used to like chewing on wax.

This recipe uses sharp Vermont Cheddar, a blue cheese from Iowa and Pecorino Romano from Italy. The pungent blue cheese and tangy Romano cut right through the sharp cheddar and add layers of flavor. Mustard emulsifies and cumin adds a little bite.

Yankee Cook’s Mac and Cheese – serves 2-4

Half a pound of short pasta, cooked
3 T butter
2 T flour
1 C milk
1 C, +1/2 C grated Cheddar
1/4 C Pecorino Romano
2 T blue cheese, crumbled (but not the “crumbles”)
1/4 t ground mustard
a few dashes of ground cumin
salt to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Once it foams, whisk in flour and blend over medium heat for 1-2 minutes. Pour in milk and whisk until smooth. Allow the roux to thicken. Stir in the cheeses, cumin, mustard and remove from heat. Stir until melted and smooth. Season to taste.

In a small to medium casserole, combine the pasta with the cheese sauce. Top with the additional cheddar.

Bake, uncovered for 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Blue Cheese and Salami Baked Penne

I felt like having a hearty comfort-food type lunch today, and so I decided to make baked penne with salami in the sauce and pecorino romano and blue cheese (for a nice melty effect) on top.

The result was a satisfying combination of flavors. The sweetness of the tomato sauce combined with the occasional peppery cube of salami worked nicely with the blue cheese from Jasper Hill Farm, an artisanal cheese maker in Vermont. I’d tried Constant Bliss, their mold-ripened cheese last summer and I was impressed, so I picked up their Bayley Hazen Blue yesterday at the natural market. The flavor is unlike any blue cheese I’ve tasted. It’s mellow and strong at the same time, without being overly salty. Perfect for this dish.

I’d gotten the salami at the a new conventional grocery store in town. My husband and I decided to check it out, despite having a Pollan-esque disdain for conventional supermarkets. I was checking out their cheese selection and ended up reading the labels of a couple of their salami for nitrates. I love salami, but it’s very difficult to find good salami, especially nitrate-free salami. It had been a while since I’d had any salami though and I was tempted, since this was made without nitrates. The flavor turned out to be a little too sweet and the texture too rubbery on it’s own though, which was why I thought maybe I’d throw it in with the sauce. Melt some of the fats and into the sauce and cut the sweetness with the tomatoes’ acidity. I like to use a gratin dish because it’s shallow and results in more cheese per bite.

Blue Cheese and Salami Baked Penne – serves 4

1 T olive oil
1 clove of garlic, pressed
2 C tomato, diced
1/4 C scallion, chopped
2 T tomato paste
1/4 C chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 C diced salami
1/4 C pecorino romano
1/4 C blue cheese, crumbled (I prefer to crumble it myself rather than buy it crumbled, which I find dry)
2 C dried penne, ziti or your favorite short pasta

Pre-heat oven to 350. Cook pasta as directed, drain, rinse or toss with olive oil, if desired.

Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and scallions and cook one minute. Do not let it brown. Stir in tomato paste. Add stock, tomatoes and salami. Allow to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Pour pasta into a shallow baking dish, pour sauce over pasta, turning with a large spoon or spatula to coat the pasta. Top evenly with cheese and bake for 15 minutes.