Slow roasted leg of lamb with arugula, lemon, goat cheese salad

Anthony Bourdain is on his last few episodes of No Reservations (very sad).  Last week's episode was in Sydney.  Amazing food.  Porteno Restaurant in Sydney serves an 8 hour wood fired leg of lamb.  Awe inspiring. 

 So, I got my own 6 lb leg of lamb.

Schmered it with a paste of garlic, rosemary, salt and olive oil. 

Cooked it covered in foil for 8 hours at 250 degrees F.   

Took the foil off and cooked for 40 minutes at 475 degrees F (would reduce that time at higher heat next go around).

Served it on a marble cutting board with an arugula/lemon juice/chevre/S&P salad.  Fantastic group fest.

Pasta with Arugula Pesto, Toasted Walnuts, Goat Cheese and Beets

This was another "cleaning out the fridge" recipe, or "mixed grill" if you're the Real Martha. Sick of the usual arugula salad with beets, nuts and goat cheese, I decided to look up pasta recipes incorporating those ingredients.Thank you, Google Machine. You have delivered. Yet again.
Hearty, sweet, salty, garlicky. Mmm.

Arugula and Beet Salad with Fried Goat Cheese Discs, Roast Beef, Hazelnuts and Orange Vinaigrette

Riffing off of a number of different recipes, we pieced this healthy and very brightly colored salad together after checking out the cherry blossoms on this random 80 degree day.

We mixed together arugula, roasted beets, toasted hazelnuts, and orange segments, then we topped that with sliced roast beef and this orange vinaigrette from Cooking Light, and finally, we borrowed the crispy fried goat cheese discs from this John Besh recipe.

We give thumbs up to the recipe as a whole, but think that the roast beef may have been unnecessary, as it gets lost amid all of the other strong flavors in the salad.

White Pizza with Kale and Pepperoni

I had some leftover pizza dough after making some broccoli and mozzarella stromboli the other night (which were good, but messy and difficult to roll up!), so we decided to make a white pizza with crispy kale. Tim insisted that we also put pepperoni on it, because he's a man and men apparently need meat. The pepperoni was good, so I shouldn't complain. We also added some red pepper flakes in with the garlic oil that was spread on the dough. The goat cheese was a tasty and unexpected addition... the tang complemented the earthy flavor of the kale and the salty pepperoni.

I broke my baking stone a while back, so I decided to try a different method for getting a crispy pizza crust: I placed the rolled out dough on an upside-down baking sheet covered in a layer of cornmeal. I think using the baking sheet upside down let the air circulate around the crust a little more- I'd definitely use this method again!

Chicken Sausage Lasagna

For our most recent True Blood TV Club meeting, I decided lasagna would be a good option since it serves a crowd and is delicious. Plus, I had 10 pounds of Roma tomatoes from the CSA to use up, and lasagna uses lots of tomatoes.Ina's recipes are consistently good, so I thought I'd use her lasagna recipe as my jumping off point. I did make a couple changes, though. Rather than use canned crushed tomatoes, I roasted halved Romas at 425 for about an hour, then zipped them in the food processor to make my own crushed tomatoes. Also, I substituted chicken sausage for the turkey sausage Ina recommends, solely because that's what was available (and on sale!) at the Teet.

This recipe was soooo good. Good thing I made a double batch so we had leftovers!!

Beet and Goat Cheese Gnocchi

As a result of my overzealous CSA shopping, I have more Pipe Dreams goat cheese than I know what to do with. Luckily, Alejandra from Always Order Dessert posted a beet/goat cheese gnocchi recipe earlier this week that used up a decent amount of goat cheese and looked amazing to boot. The pink color of the gnocchi really caught my attention, as did the browned butter sauce. You know how I feel about browned butter.I made gnocchi (sweet potato) once before, in the early days of this blog, and while they were decent, they were a little dense and a little bit of a pain in the butt. Alejandra's gnocchi looked light and fluffy, so I thought I would give gnocchi another try... these were super satisfying, despite the fact that when I made them, they looked like little pieces of tuna sashimi! They had the sweet earthiness from the beets and a slight tang from the goat cheese. Plus the brown butter... brrrooooowwwwwnnn buuuuuuttterrrrr....

Oven-roasted Tomatoes

The CSA has brought a bounty of tomatoes to 1346: This week I bought bulk Roma tomatoes (10 lbs!) to make sauce, like I did last year, but I still had a couple Romas and a pint of mixed cherry and grape tomatoes from last week. So clearly it's tomato eatin' time.
I thought these slow-roasted tomatoes from Smitten Kitchen would be a good solution for the smaller tomatoes... roasting the tomatoes really concentrated their sweetness and tomato-y flavors. I served them with an herbed goat cheese spread on crackers... awesome and easy appetizer that would look impressive at a party!

Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms with Pancetta and Chives

Yum. Loosely based on the Other Martha's recipe, but jazzed up with some crumbled pancetta, minced chives, and toasted breadcrumbs. Creamy with salty, earthy, and herby flavors.

Salad with Chicken Paillard, Red Currant Vinaigrette and Goat Cheese

Red currants are beautiful! I always thought it was a bit of hyperbole when food writers or cooking show hosts referred to berries or other fruits as "jewel-like," but I think that description really applies to red currants. They glow like little shiny rubies. Mmm.

The red currants are a little tart. We decided to throw them into a salad with goat cheese, toasted walnuts, lemon-marinated chicken paillards, and this red currant vinaigrette. Pretty decent, definitely pretty to look at, but seemed to be missing a flavor. Bland. I've yet to figure out what it's missing, though. Any ideas?

Carrot, Parsnip and Scallion Fritters on Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese Dressing

This was a total clean-out-the-fridge recipe, but it worked pretty well. I think the fritters themselves wouldn't be much to write home about, but the addition of the tangy, lemony, oniony goat cheese dressing (I added some minced scallions to the dressing in addition to the parsley) and the spicy arugula made the dish.
Pretty healthy, too!

Broccoli Pesto: Meh

Hmmm... I wanted to like this broccoli pesto. It had all of my favorite stinky foods- broccoli, olives, garlic, goat cheese- yet I was not a fan for some reason. It was kinda thick and overwhelming... not enough variation in texture, perhaps?

Chuck totally wasn't fooled by the fact that the olives were all chopped up, either. She hated it. Oh well.

Honey Goat Cheese Salad Dressing

This is a fun new (for us) salad dressing that's super tasty... basically, rather than sprinkling your salad with bits of goat cheese, this dressing has the goat cheese whizzed in. Really tasty and creamy.

This dressing is sweet because of the honey, but I bet you could make a savory version with tarragon and shallots.

We served it on Bibb lettuce, shredded apples and carrots, chopped walnuts and dried cranberries.

P.S.: Chuck made the salad and dressing. Good work!

Beet, Walnut, Goat Cheese, Arugula Salad

As a starter for our tortellini-stuffed squash, I made this other fall favorite: a roasted beet salad with toasted walnuts, crumbled goat cheese and arugula. Lots of different textures and complimentary flavors!

Served with a shallot/red wine vinegar dressing (to which I added a little bit of dijon mustard, to help keep it emulsified).

Arugula Salad with Spiced Butternut Squash, Lentils and Goat Cheese

Yes, butternut abounds here at 1346.

I saw this fall salad recipe in the October issue of Bon Appetit... it looked pretty tasty, and I had all the ingredients here, care of my CSA.

I liked this recipe, but didn't looooove it. It was an interesting combination- the peppery arugula, the summery mint, the earthy lentils, the creamy goat cheese and the spicy butternut. I think the dressing needed a little extra something something, though.... just olive oil and red wine vinegar? Hmm.

Eggplant, Tomato and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

I got some eggplants, Roma tomatoes, garlic, and goat cheese at the farmers market this week. Along with some basil from the Aerogarden, we threw together these easy grilled veggie sandwiches. They were pretty good- not the most amazing sandwich ever, but easy and good enough for government work!

Please excuse the terrible photo- it's a camera phone shot. I was too lazy and hungry to go upstairs to retrieve my camera.

Goat Cheese, Corn and Bacon Stuffed Jalapenos

Mmm... loosely based on a Bobby Flay recipe, these stuffed jalapenos and cherry peppers were great. We added some cooked and crumbled bacon, which was awesome with the corn, baked them instead of grilling them, and skipped the red pepper sauce, since none of us here is enamored of red peppers.

The stuffing was so good, you could probably just make that and warm it in a pan in the oven and serve it with chips, crackers or veggies. Kinda like Martha's crab dip, but with corn and bacon instead of crab.

Ricotta and Goat Cheese Spread

Cheesy, lemony, basily goodness.

Put it on bagel chips or Triscuits.

It's good.

Goat Cheese, Watercress, Apricot and Walnut Sandwich

This is a complete Frankenrecipe... I got a small bag of watercress from my CSA this week, and, as with the horseradish, wasn't sure what to do with it. It's not something I would ever think to buy, but this is why I like the CSA. It makes us try new things. Did you know watercress actually grows in flowing streams? I didn't. But now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

Anyway, back to the cobbling together of this Frankensandwich. Randy, the farmer from Star Hollow farms, suggested the watercress could be used in a little tea sandwich with cream cheese and lemon. Well, I didn't have any cream cheese. But I did have goat cheese! An Epicurious search returned this recipe for goat cheese and watercress sandwiches... I messed with the recipe a little: instead of raisin bread, I used the croissants we had lying around, but added diced dried apricots to make up for the missing raisins. I also put toasted walnuts in the sandwich, rather than on it (to simplify taking it to work for lunch).

We'll see how the sandwiches go over... Tim, Chuck and I are taking them to work tomorrow.

Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta

Made this recipe tonight because I had all of the ingredients on hand and had seen it in a couple places: Bon Appetit and Smitten Kitchen. The recipe was super easy (asparagus and pasta cook in the same water, sauce is no-cook), and super tasty. The lemon really cuts through the richness of the goat cheese.

The only changes I made were to use orecchiette (the little ears) instead of spiral pasta and didn't use a full pound of it. Also, I added about 1 lemon's worth of juice. Didn't end up needing the pasta water.

Goat Cheese Apple Tartlets

These apple tarts are made with apples and goat cheese from the farmers market, and puff pastry from the freezer. Pretty fancy, but super easy.


PS: Chuck gets most of the credit for doing most of the work on these. I was busy making the main course, which was chicken thighs with mushrooms and white wine and roasted root vegetables with rosemary and thyme.