I’ll be planting potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day and probably wearing something green. Alas, no Irish cheese board for dinner. My favorite Irish wheels—Gubbeen, Durrus, Coolea—are too hard to find these days. Their high prices make them slow movers at American cheese counters. But green cheese? I can do that. I adore this creamy feta dip, green from pistachios, cilantro and dill. You’ve seen it here before but I’m reprising it as a nod to the holiday and the imminent arrival of spring. I’ve heard raves from readers who’ve made it and hope you’ll soon join that club.
Read morePeaches, Pistachios and Cheese, Oh My!
It’s peach week in Napa Valley. My husband and I were struggling to keep up with the fruit from our own tree when a friend gave me some of hers. I was feeling a bit desperate about all our softening peaches when I saw this glistening conserve in my Facebook feed. The woman who posted it, an acquaintance who has attended my cheese classes, said she made it to go with cheese. Bingo. She sent the recipe, I made it immediately and now I’m eating the conserve straight from the jar. What a super companion for fresh chèvre or aged goat cheese (that’s Stepladder Creamery Ventana in the image), Cheddar, Gouda or blue cheese. In fact, if there’s a cheese this divine conserve won’t complement, I can’t think of it.
Read moreNot Quite Cannoli
I’ve always loved cannoli filling but the fried outside? Not so much. Bakeries refrigerate this perishable pastry, and the crunchy shell loses all its appeal. So I just make the inside—basically, a whipped ricotta mousse with chopped bittersweet chocolate, toasted pistachios and almonds, and candied orange peel. Lately, I’ve used Seville orange marmalade to sweeten the mousse and eliminated the candied peel. So easy. If you’re treating Mom to a homemade meal on Mother’s Day, here’s her dessert. Or her breakfast in bed. What a luscious way to start the day.
Read moreBlack Magic
I was hanging out in the Cakebread Cellars kitchen in Napa Valley not long ago, watching chef Tom Sixsmith assemble cheese plates for visitors. What caught my eye was the accompaniment he was putting on each plate, slices of a dried fruit and pistachio paste that looked delicious. And it was. I hadn’t seen the paste in stores because Tom makes it himself. He calls it dried fruit “salami,” for obvious reasons, and it takes all of five minutes to make. It’s a good keeper, so you can make a lot and use it to dress up your cheese boards all winter long.
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