Jazz in the Valley

This past weekend, the Big Cheese, one of the gang, and I sold cheese at Jazz In The Valley in Ellensburg, Washington. This is the 4th year that we have participated. We set up a booth in the Clymer Museum along with about 15 wineries. People pay to taste the wines and then, if they want, they can buy a cheese tray from us. This year we had:
Italian Salami - from Molinari in San Francisco
Vlaskaas - a wonderful sharp, creamy Gouda from Holland that finishes kind of sweet
Cotswold - a rich double Gloucester flavored with chives and onions from England
Ivernia - a sharp, dry Cheddar type of cheese from Ireland
We also added some slices of a French baguette. Some people asked for cheeses that we had sold last year and luckily, the Big Cheese had packed some wedges to sell. We had a great time talking with people as well as tasting a little wine.
Jazz In The Valley is an event that covers 3 days (our part was only 6 hours on Saturday). There are jazz musicians that play at many different venues throughout town. After we finished working, we went to Rodeo City BBQ for dinner, then to the main stage and a couple restaurants to listen to some of the musicians. Our favorite, of what we saw, was Hot Club Sandwich a Gypsy jazz group. We stayed in Ellensburg that night and headed back home in the morning.
Check out www.jazzinthevalley.com for information on this event. Lodging in Ellensburg is limited so make reservations early if you are interested in attending.

Teriyaki Marinade for Flank Steak

Ahhhh memories. When I was in college, a friend, Carolyn, and I lived in a four-plex apartment building in Fort Collins, Colorado. A guy named Vance was a renter in one of the other apartments. Once, we had a cook-out for the building and Vance gave me his recipe for the most wonderful marinade for flank steaks. I have carried this recipe around for over 30 years (now I am giving my age away) and I still use it for my marinade. On your next cook-out, try this marinade, you won't be sorry.

Vance's Teriyaki Marinade
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons oil
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon onion salt

Mix all ingredients. Put in a gallon zip-lock bag with your flank steak. Soak a full day, turning over a couple of times.
It is best when grilled medium rare to medium. Thanks Vance.

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

On my cruise to Alaska on the ship Carnival Spirit, my favorite dessert was called "Warm Chocolate Melting Cake". Yesterday, I received my online newsletter from Carnival and in the newsletter was the recipe for, you guessed it, Warm Chocolate Melting Cake. I decided that it would be a good thing to share. Here you go...

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake by Carnival Cruises
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
7 eggs, divided use
6 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt chocolate and butter; cool 10 minutes. In separate bowl, mix four eggs with sugar. Whisk. Add flour and whisk. Add remaining three eggs. Add egg mixture to chocolate mixture. Pour in individual ramekins. Bake until just done, about 15-20 minutes (interior will be melting). Serve with vanilla ice cream. Trust me, it is wonderful

UPDATE: I found out this makes 8 servings at about 450 calories each.
NOTE: The recipe never said how many it would make - my guess is 4.

Cilantro Pesto - My new favorite

I may never go back to basil pesto after having this. I was in heaven. In this post, I will tell you how to make this delicious cilantro pesto. It's funny that up until about 6 months ago, I did not even like cilantro. I wonder if it had to do with smoking, because now I love it on everything.

Cilantro Pesto
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves (packed)
3 Tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano
1/3 cup pecans
2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons plain soft goat cheese
Salt, to taste
Fresh ground pepper, to taste

In a food processor, put the cilantro, Pecorino, pecans and garlic. Process while slowly adding the olive oil. Add the goat cheese and again process until smooth.

You can use this over pasta, on a pizza, on crackers, add some vinegar and extra oil to make a delicious dressing, on fish or chicken, or slathered on a warm slice of French bread. You could also add a seeded jalapeno to this to give it some heat for even more south of the border flavor. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Amazing Spinach Salad

I was craving a spinach salad that I had at a crab boil about 5 years ago. It was a potluck and this was one of the items someone brought. It is sooooo easy and sooooo wonderful, you will understand why when you read how to make it.
Okay, so here goes:

Amazing Spinach Salad
1 bag (about 6 oz.) baby spinach
4-5 strawberries, hulled and sliced
2-3 Tablespoons Poppy Seed Dressing (I use Briannas)
1 small (1.4 oz.) Heath bar, broken into small pieces

Mix all ingredients and enjoy. So wonderful. Wait until you try it! What's not to like?

Rails to Ales Festival

This past Saturday, we attended the Rails to Ales Festival in Cle Elum, Washington. The proceeds go towards the Cascade Rail Foundation, for further development of the depot and the museum. We brought cheese, crackers, and landjaegers to sell to the attendees. "What are landjaegers?", you ask (not sure about my punctuation - someone let me know, please!). They are a German style, dried, smoked, beef and pork sausage, kinda like a jerky'ed Slim Jim with all real meat. For the cheeses, we took horseradish Havarti, a smoked Gouda, and a sharp Irish cheese called Ivernia. There were two bands that played, a few other food vendors and about 30 beers being poured. It was estimated that about 1000 people showed up. My favorite band was the Grammy-nominated Dave Rawlinson Band from Ellensburg, Washington. It was a really nice, albeit HOT - 90+ degrees, event and everyone seemed to have a great time, including us.

Gourmet Dinner Club

I am finally getting back to writing about what we had for gourmet dinner club. It was all sooooo wonderful. For the appetizer, we had tipsy shrimp and individual smoked trout creams (kind of like mini souffles - YUM). This time, another couple joined the group. It was the folks from La Toscana Winery. They brought the wine (who would have guessed). The whites went perfectly with the appetizer and salad courses and the reds paired beautifully with the main course. My favorite is called Smokey's Vino Rosso, their signature blend named after the tasting rooms mainstay, Smokey the cat.

The salad consisted of bib lettuce with melon, shrimp, salami, asparagus, melted cheese crostini all with a light lime/vodka dressing. It was delicious. We are always amazed that even though we don't plan ahead with each other, the courses always flow together well and often have similar ingredients. For example, today the appetizer and the salad course both had shrimp with some sort of alcohol involved.



In between the salad course and the main course, we had a fruit granita to cleanse our palettes. On to the main course and it was beautiful and delicious. Everything had a touch of rosemary in it. There was grilled stuffed flank steak (the stuffing had proscuitto, cheese, rosemary, pecans, plus more in it), potato and yam balls with an apple, rosemary gravy, stuffed squash blossoms, stuffed peppers, and snap peas with rosemary and garlic scapes in a butter sauce. Are you drooling yet?

For dessert, we had a slice of Manouri cheese (a white, very mild, slightly tangy, Greek cheese - kind of like a firm Ricotta) with sliced strawberries and blueberries, with scattered toasted pecans, and honey drizzled over all. Mmmmm. So good, but also red, white and blue due to being a few days before the 4th of July.

All in all, a great culinary evening.

Bettys, Buckles, and Slumps - Oh My

Yummy! I love Blueberry Slump. My mother made this many times when I was growing up and I crave this every summer. There are many terms associated with fruit desserts. Do you know the differences? I didn't so, I looked them up.
A Betty is a baked dessert dating back to colonial times, usually made with brown sugar and calls for buttered bread crumbs
A Buckle is baked and made in two possible ways. One way is where the bottom layer is cake-like with berries mixed in with a crumb-like topping. The other way is where the bottom layer is a cake layer, then the berries and the top is a crumble mixture.
A Clafouti is a dessert that originated in the French countryside and is often considered to be a baked pudding.
A Cobbler is where the fruit filling is put into a deep baking dish and topped with a biscuit dough and baked.
A Crumble and a Crisp both have a topping crumbled over a fruit filling in a pan and both are baked.
A Slump and a Grunt both have a stewed or baked fruit and has a type of dumpling topping.
A Pandowdy has a dough on top of the fruit and although the dough is rolled, it ends up being crumbly.
I think that most of them sound so similar, I would have a hard time telling them apart.
OK, back to my slump, one of my favorite childhood memories. Most people would think of topping it with whipped cream or ice cream, while it is warm. Not me, I top it with a little half and half. MMMMMMM! Here is my mom's recipe...

Mom's Blueberry Slump
1 1/2 cups fresh (or 2 cups frozen) blueberries
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar, divided
1 egg
1 Tbsp. shortening
1 Tbsp. milk
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teas. baking powder
1/4 teas. salt

In a saucepan combine blueberries, water and 1/2 cup sugar. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat but keep hot. Beat the egg, add 1/2 cup sugar and melted shortening and beat until fluffy. Add milk. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Spread batter in a greased 10x6x2 baking dish. Pour hot blueberries over the batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until fruit is tender. Serve with half and half or cream (or ice cream if you must).
*Notice that the batter rises to the top and the fruit ends up mostly on the bottom.

What are these things?

These are garlic scapes and I am in love with them. I will be writing about what we had at gourmet dinner club but, the garlic scapes and the deer are taking priority. Actually, these were part of the main entree and it was the first time I have ever had them. As soon as I tasted them I knew I had to have more. We went to the farmers market and I searched until finding them. I found one stand that had the lovely garlic scapes. What? What do you mean it's the last week they are available? What do you mean they are only available for a few weeks each summer? You mean I have to wait a whole year to have them again? Now I am sad. Garlic scapes are the flowering shoots (or stem) that come off of young, immature garlic. Farmers cut them off to focus the garlic's energy into the bulb. Many people use them in pesto. I am going to try them with buttered pasta with a little salt and pepper (and maybe some bacon). So, early next summer, run to your local farmers market and get some scapes and see what you can come up with to use them.

Checking me out

I was sitting at my computer reading one of my favorite blogs (the pioneer woman) when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. I guess this boy was interested in what I was doing. He has been hanging around a lot lately. You can easily identify him by his antlers (one long and one short). After checking on me and nibbling a few of my trees, he laid down in a cool area of the yard.
We jumped straight into summer today - last week mid- to upper 70's - today mid 90's. I guess he wanted to rest for a little bit.
I was surprised to see him so close to the house so I had to let everyone else share in my delight.

Gourmet Dinner Club - Where we met

Before we get to the main event (the food), let's talk about where we got together last night. The couple who had the main entree own an incredible 3 guest room bed and breakfast called Enchanted River Inn (http://www.enchantedriverinn.com/). The river picture, to the left, is taken from the semi-private balcony that each of the rooms have access to. People staying there often see osprey, otters and eagles. Breakfast is a delicious multi-course feast (I know, I have stayed there). Now, lets talk rooms and more specifically, the bathrooms.
Sorry, I know the pictures came out a little dark - check out the website for better pictures. Each room has a pillowtop king sized bed which is extremely comfortable. The rooms are very stylish and very homey. On to the bathrooms, which are truly amazing. I love jacuzzi tubs. All the rooms have jacuzzi tubs and, as you can hopefully see, the one in the picture has some cool lighting feature. But the showers - oh the showers - not your run of the mill showers. Two of the rooms have these 2 person Dream Shower/Steam Bath with stereo/CD, 2 wands, 16 body sprays and seats under a waterfall showerhead. Can you imagine? I could spend an hour in the shower. The location is incredible, the view is spectacular and the ability to relax is almost impossible to not achieve. If you get the chance, stay here.




I have to tell you something else about me. Before we moved here and bought the cheese shop, I wanted to own and run a bed & breakfast. I had attended seminars, worked with a consultant, and read every book on the subject that I could. I developed spreadsheets to determine the value of an inn for sale or at least try to determine if the inn could cover the expenses based on various occupancy rates. We stayed at a lot of bed & breakfasts and visited several that were for sale. We worked with realtors in Washington, Oregon and Colorado. We came close to finding the right one a few times but something always deterred us from jumping in. I love our cheese shop but sometimes I still want to run a bed & breakfast, although on a smaller scale than what I had looked at before. Due to this interest, I do not recommend bed & breakfasts lightly.