Sweet potato with goat cheese and truffle

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. I'm very underwhelmed by turkey. Next year I will try a turducken largely because I'd rather eat duck or chicken over turkey any day including Thanksgiving Day.

Side dishes are the best part of Thanksgiving. Someone gave me some sweet potatoes from a farm in Johnston County, but I ended up not using them until the weekend. I wanted to do something besides the usual sweet potato with marshmellow (yuck) or praline (yum) topping. One thing I remembered about visiting Australia years ago was that the Aussies seem to combine sweet potato and goat cheese fairly often. Since these are two of my favorite ingredients, I searched for a recipe and found this one from Epicurious.com which also features truffle oil. How could it possibly not taste good? It turned out very well indeed.

The tartness of the goat cheese complimented the sweetness of the potatoes and also made them very creamy. Truffle oil is truly a wonder. I put it on just about everything I can think of including frozen pizza and mashed white potatoes as well as pasta. It's outrageously expensive but it lasts a while since only a few drops are necessary for a nice truffly flavor.

Baked garlic appetizer

My friend, who is a fine cook, brought this delicious concoction of sun dried tomatoes, garlic and goat cheese to a party. The recipe will now be a regular feature at my cocktail parties and dinners. In fact, I may make some for Thanksgiving in order to keep the guests happy and in the living room while I'm finishing the gravy and getting the food ready for the table.

Baked garlic appetizer:

4 heads garlic (not cloves, but whole heads)

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups sundried tomatoes, or a little less (I use the no-oil, no-salt kind)

1-3 tbs. herbs

6 ozs. goat cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Cut top 1/4 inch off garlic heads, peel off loose outer skin. Place heads of garlic in casserole or baking dish just large enough to hold them. Nestle the sun dried tomatoes in around the garlic and pour chicken broth over and sprinkle with herbs. Bake for roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, basting every fifteen minutes or so. Slice goat cheese, place over top of garlic and tomatoes, bake until cheese is melted. Serve with slices of baguette or rice crackers for the gluten free crowd or a spoon if no one is looking!

Stuffed chicken breast

My mom and I made this recipe for a dinner party. It is fairly easy as long as you get a butcher to pound out the chicken breasts.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 2 cloves garlic, minced (1 teaspoon)


• 1 shallot, minced


• 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves


• 6 cups fresh washed spinach leaves


• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste


• 1/2 cup drained, chopped jarred roasted red peppers


• 3 tablespoons pitted and chopped Kalamata olives


• 1 tablespoon chopped capers


• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar


• 2 boneless skinless whole chicken breasts, cut in half and pounded lightly


• 4 ounces mild goat cheese, at room temperature


• 1 tablespoon olive oil for brushing chicken


• 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the garlic, shallot, and thyme for 2 minutes, until softened. Add the spinach, and saute for 1 minute longer, until just wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Remove the skillet from the heat, and let the aromatics cool.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a small bowl, mix the roasted red peppers with the olives, capers, and balsamic vinegar.

Place about one-quarter of the spinach mixture in the center of each pounded chicken breast. Evenly divide the goat cheese among the chicken breasts, placing a small piece over the spinach; then top with 1 tablespoon of the roasted red peppers.

Fold the top of the breast over the filling to form a package, sealing the bottom of the chicken packages wherever needed. Place the chicken on a baking pan. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Uncover, brush the chicken with a little olive oil, and cook an additional 10 minutes, until the chicken is lightly brown.

Place the chicken on a serving platter and sprinkle it with the parsley.

Cheese: my new favorite goat cheese

One of my favorite things is to hang out at the cheese counter at WholeFoods or A Southern Season. Whenever I am in the mood for cheese, I will go to one of these fine purveyors and stand around asking questions. Usually they will offer to let me sample some cheeses. If not, I am brazen enough to ask for a taste. How can one buy a cheese without tasting it first? Not possible. I recommend you insist on a taste.

Cheese is probably my favorite food. I might even give up coffee AND chocolate before giving up cheese. I could not live without cheese. Thank goodness I got the low cholesterol gene in my family!

Those of you who read my blog regularly (you are probably related to me or you are an indulgent friend) know that I go on ad nauseum about goat cheese. I have a lot of recipes with it. Well, my new favorite goat cheese is called capricho de cabra available at WholeFoods. It is, *gasp*, not French but Spanish. While I still prefer aged goat cheese in the capable hands of the French, I've crossed the border with my preference for fresh, white goat cheese. Capricho de cabra is sharp yet smooth, creamy yet with body. It is too fine to use in cooking. It deserves the gentlest of treatment: only a cracker or a thinly sliced baguette. Go get some but leave enough for me!

12th Annual Farm Tour

If you don't have plans for the weekend, you might consider the 12th Annual Piedmont Farm Tour held in Orange and Chatham counties. The tour features 34 sustainable farms that are managed to be environmentally and socially responsible.

One of my favorite spots on the tour is the Celebrity Farm Dairy. It is a goat farm that produces goat cheese. The goats are charming and usually there are baby goats running around this time of year.

Piedmont Biofuels is also on the tour. This "farm" does research on biofuels and produces small quantities of bio-deisel.

I love to go on the tour to pick up organic produce. One of my favorite greens is in season right now: rocket, aka arugula. I try to pick up a large bag at one of the farms to take home to make rocket pesto which is so good that I could eat it w/ a spoon!

This year the farm tour will also feature a couple of Chatham Co. wineries for the first time. I am hoping to hit those.

The tour costs $25 per car and it is a tax deductible.

Endive stuffed w/ goat cheese

OK, by now you've probably noticed that I love goat cheese: endive w/ goat cheese, pizza w/ goat cheese, butternut squash pasta w/ goat cheese, artichokes w/ goat cheese.

I wonder if I need to branch out a bit in terms of favorite recipes. This is probably no accident. I lived in the Poitou region of France which is reknowned for goat cheese. I first had it there and I learned to love it.

Anyway, here is a recipe from Cooking Light for an amazing appetizer for your next cocktail party.

I found it somewhat laborious but definitely worth the effort. Of course to me laborious constitutes peeling 2 oranges! The combination of flavors and textures make this app a winner. It always gets devoured even by people who don't like goat cheese. The crunchy / sweet honey walnuts are a gorgeous foil to the sharpness of the oranges and the tangy, creamy goat cheese. The endive itself has a crunchy bitterness that compliments it well. Whoever thought of this recipe was a genius and certainly very sensitive to the subtleties of the palate.

Artichokes w/ goat cheese

One of my all time favorite recipes is from Bon Appetit April 1995. It is whole artichokes stuffed w/ goat cheese, garlic, thyme and cream then baked. Here is the recipe at epicurious.com

What makes this recipe absolutely delicious is the combination of melted butter and olive oil on each plate that the artichoke sits atop. As you pull apart the artichoke, the goat cheese, butter and oil ooze together into a wonderful tasty mess! This dish is a great starter course for an elegant dinner.

A word about the artichokes: before boiling them, trim the pointy, sharp ends off of the leaves w/ scissors. They will be much easier to handle later without the thorny ends. Let the artichoke cool before you start to pull the choke (the hairy part) out of the middle. Use a small spoon to scrape out the choke gently. When you boil them, throw in a bay leaf and a little salt w/ the lemon juice. Use artichokes in the spring when they are in season. Artichokes out of season are as bad as tomatoes out of season.