appetizer – Fervent Foodie

December 21, 2016 No Comments

Being able to throw together a solid cheese plate in a short amount of time is one of the keys to adulting. It’s also key to making a night at home feel like a special occasion, even when you’re short on energy and the budget is tight. Sure, you could eat the cheese on crackers pulled straight from the box while standing in the kitchen mindlessly trolling Facebook, but why not take five minutes to make the whole cheese and carbs thing a little more special?

In my experience, the secret to making a great cheese plate is variety: contrasting flavors and textures make all the difference! So, let’s talk cheese. I like to think that there are four main categories of cheese: soft, hard, stinky, and the wildcard. Other folks may use stuffier categories, but this is what works for me! When picking cheese, I try to select only one from each category. For example, I might pick a brie (a classic, soft cheese that deserves a place on any cheese board), Manchego (hard), Gorgonzola (stinky), and smoked Gouda (wildcard).

Good news. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make a good cheese plate–with just one nice cheese and some inexpensive accouterments, you can create an impressive spread for less than ten buckaroos.

For this simple cheese plate, I picked a rich and creamy goat milk brie ($2.79 at Trader Joe’s), gluten free rice crackers ($2.50 per box), a handle of almonds I had on hand ($FREE), and several goodnessknows snack squares (half a box = $2.50). That’s a fancy, filling cheese plate for less than $8! As an added bonus, this combination is totally gluten free.

Sure they call it a “cheese plate” but I think it’s really all the OTHER stuff that makes a cheese plate shine. Rather than spending tons of money at the grocery store, take a look in your pantry and your fridge, and pull out anything and everything that looks good for nibbling. Pickles of any variety, dried fruit, chocolate, honey, fruit preserves, mustard, nuts, cured meats, fresh bread, crostini, croutons… I realize this sounds like a big hodgepodge, but, assuming you only keep things on hand that you actually enjoy eating, I don’t think you can go wrong! One of my favorite stumbled-upon combinations, for example, is goat cheese Gouda + dill pickles + stadium mustard. THE BEST. The odds-and-ends plate is where it’s at.

Cheese Plate 101 {IFBC 2014}

September 15, 2014 4 Comments

I’m proud to come from a family of foodies. Though some attach a negative connotation to the word (shout out to Huffington Post and Eatocracy, among many others), I use the term “foodie” endearingly. We foodies are people who, at the root of it all, love food, though it’s more than simply eating the food (or excessively consuming the food, as the case may be). Food is the binding tie, the common ground, the one thing that unites us all, family and strangers alike. It’s about sharing, and connecting, and traditions. Food is love, after all.

My foodie family is big on potluck get-togethers. Everyone brings a dish to share and the host handles the main course: MEAT. As far back as I can remember, there were two dishes we’d consistently have on hand for the hors d’oeuvre hour: potato chips and French onion dip (Lawson’s or Heluva Good only, people) OR cheese and crackers. This was my formalized introduction to the cheese plate. The preferred cracker of choice was the round, buttery kind that disintegrated instantly on tongue contact, and the preferred cheese was Colby Jack. If it was a really special get-together, like my Dad’s annual (epic) Christmas Eve parties, there’d also be some pepper jack and a little bit of Swiss. For the life of me, I never understood why they wasted space on the plate with that shitty Swiss cheese. No one liked it. And at the end of the night, it’d be the only thing left, the last cheese standing, all hard and slightly yellowed from the night’s neglect.

But I digress.

The foodie family lesson to be learned here is that when you tell your guests to “come hungry” you better have something on hand for them to nibble on til mealtime. The simpler the better, because as the host, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. The cheese plate is my go-to, and though mine looks much fancier than the cheese plates of my youth, it comes together just as fast. Plus, cheese tastes best at room temperature, so you can fix it and forget it before the guests arrive.

5-Minute Fancy Cheese Plate on a Budget

Cheese Plate 101 {IFBC 2014}