Marinated Goat Cheese

I was walking through the grocery store the other day and stumbled upon the cheese section ... ok, ok I was hording over the cheese section like a little cheese lord. Let's be honest, I make a bee line for the dang cheese section the moment I walk into the store. My obsession with cheese not withstanding, on this particular day I found a tub of marinated feta cheese. Of course I had to try it and what I found was soft cheese swimming around in this lovely pool of tangy olive oil with the tartness of a mildly sweet vinegar and spices. It was delicious! Crumbled on salads, over pastas, spread on crackers....or if you are like me, with a fork standing with the frig wide open. Love at first bite. I make all my own salad dressings so I figured, really, how hard can this be. I opted to take a stab at marinating goat cheese because I buy these massive logs of it at Costco and quite frankly, I'm swimming in goat cheese right now but you could absolutely make it with feta (truth be told I also marinated feta I bought at my farmers market...swoon!!) This is a great party hosting trick too!

Balsamic Sauteed Swiss Chard Spiked with Goat Cheese and Raisins

Another summer beauty....rainbow chard. I love swiss chard. It's a tender but hearty green with colorful stems that makes a fantastic side dish. It's a magical bed for any main and this version brings a slight sweetness to the party. I sauteed the chard with slightly caramelized onions, balsamic vinegar and a dash of red pepper and then dot creamy and tangy goat cheese over the top while it's still warm and watch it melt down the edges of the greens. This is a fantastic side dish for my balsamic and mustard spike lamb loin chops. If you had the time, you could certainly fully caramelize the onions, but that would add maybe 30 minutes to the cooking time so I opt for a long saute with a spiked of balsamic to give you a similar flavor. Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Artichokes

Summer always brings an abundance of vegetables. Personally, I quite adore artichokes. They are delicious and have so many uses. Growing up I remember mounds of steamed artichokes sitting next to glistening bowls of melted butter. A steamed artichoke is never a bad thing, but I've been thinking....there must be another way. Roasting vegetables is like the world's gift to the home cook because it's easy and everything comes out super tasty so I figured, let's see how an artichoke does. The idea here is kind of roast-steam combo because you seal the artichokes in little tinfoil packages so they cook all the way through without burning. I stuffed mine with a spin on a classic Italian combination of sharp and salty pecorino, sweetly tart lemon, crunchy panko bread crumbs and garlic. The artichoke gets soft but with a rich deep flavor and you don't need a dipping sauce for these guys. You'll be licking your fingers though.

Short Ribs with Tagliatelle

Can you imagine a dish where the deep richness of shaved dark chocolate mixed with the salty bite of grated pecorino mingling atop a heading bowl of tender fresh pasta slathered in a rich and meaty sauce? Well Giada De Laurentiis and her everyday Italian recipe did and thank god she did because this is one of the easiest dishes that makes you want to climb into the bowl and roll around in the sauce. It is that good. Seriously. I don’t make a lot of dishes with short ribs. They are a pretty inexpensive cut of meat and you have to cook the heck out of them for a tender result, but it’s worth it. This dish uses a lot of standard pantry ingredients with the exception of the pancetta but honestly, you can substitute in bacon. And then it sits there, in the pot, bubbling away doing all the work so when it’s done, you just shred the meat, toss the sauce with the pasta and away you go! Magic. Pasta and meat magic. That’s my kind of food. And the richness of the meaty sauce is enhanced by a surprising supporting actor….shaved dark chocolate gives a smooth, slightly sweet and unctuous depth to this dish. And let’s face it, the idea of putting chocolate on pasta is just cool. I also add some pecorino because I love the play of the salty with the sweet. I made this on a week night. But I work from home so I can trot down to my kitchen and spend 20 minutes getting it together. After that it just cooks on its own. I highly recommend this one for your next special meal….it’s a hit at dinner parties.

Ravioli Party

We hosted several friends for a ravioli party this past weekend and it was delicious!! We opted for one vegetarian and one meat filling using everyday Italian recipes and two pounds of fresh pasta dough later we were all rubbing our bellies and moaning from fullness but it was so worth it. For the veggie filling (which you can make slightly less veg friendly by adding bacon, because as we all know, bacon really does make everything better) we caramelized a red onion mixed with tender braised kale, creamy ricotta and a salty bite of Parmesan. When topped with a spicy tomato sauce, it was a real winner. But then the meat ravioli came out... and I have to say, while I love love love kale, the pork filling really blew us away. I knew we were in for a treat when I pulled the roasted pork shoulder out of the oven and could barely keep myself from scarfing the whole thing down in one full swoop! When paired with cheese and spices and browned ground pork (yes, more pork!) we were hard pressed not to eat all the filling before it made it into the dough! It was salty and meaty and superbly succulent. Paired with a brown butter sage sauce, it’s another dish you want to climb into the bowl with and do the backstroke. These recipes are pretty straight forward and with some extra hands and a bottle or two of wine, a ravioli party can be an easy way to host and feed your favorite people.