"Frosty" Peach and Prosciutto Bruschetta

Mystic Cheese Company makes amazing cheese. Chris and I first tried their cheese while talking to company founder and cheesemaker Brian Civitello on a tour of Graywall Farm, a dairy farm in Lebanon, Connecticut. While we went crazy over that cheese, a satiny, buttery, wonderfully meltable concoction known as Melville, Brian was explaining that he makes all of Mystic Cheese's cheese in two "cheese pods," shipping containers that he has set up on the farm. It is a fascinating and innovative idea and if you want to read more about it, this article or Mystic's own website both do a better job than I ever could.

Anyway, we fell in love with their cheese that day and when we found out they recently came out with a new cheese, we bought it as soon as we found it (at the Coventry Farmers' Market). It's called "Frost," and it has the texture of spreadable fudge, it stinks to high heaven, and it is very, very earthy. I could barely eat it straight, so I knew any recipe I used it in needed to be well-balanced.

I thought on it for about a week and then it came to me, just in time for Chris's birthday. The recipe calls for a nice mix of basic ingredients - bread, meat, cheese and fruit - and only takes about 5 or 6 minutes to make. And look how pretty and fancy they are!

"Frosty" Peach and Prosciutto Bruschetta

(makes 12)

Ingredients:

1 medium sized baguette, cut into 1/2-inch slices

1 package Mystic Cheese Co.'s Frost

6 slices prosciutto, torn in half

1 large peach, cut into thin slices

olive oil

balsamic glaze

Place the baguette slices on a cookie sheet and put under a high broiler to toast; remove from broiler when toasted to your liking. Spread each piece with a thin layer of Frost. Place 1/2 a slice of prosciutto on top of the cheese. Grill the peach slices on each side, just long enough to warm through and get grill marks, about 4 minutes total. Set the peach slices on top of the prosciutto. Drizzle the bruschetta with olive oil and balsamic glaze, and serve immediately.  

Happy New Year and an Update

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

The past few weeks have been extremely busy, but we wanted to check in with our readers with an update of what we've been doing.

This month, we are making our second "appearance" in Go Local Magazine. Go Local Magazine is a local lifestyle magazine showcasing life around the Massachusetts/Connecticut line. Its mission is to improve the community by promoting the region (which includes the towns of Stafford Springs, Somers, Enfield and Suffield, CT; and Hampden, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow and Agawam, MA) as a destination to live, play, shop and eat, and to showcase the citizens who make it great. 

Not only is our award-winning recipe for Fried Crab and Avocado Wontons being featured in the current (January 2016) issue (perfect for your Super Bowl party!), but Amy also wrote the article featuring Simpaug Farms in Suffield, CT (their Facebook here). You can get a free copy of Go Local at many businesses around these towns (go here for a list) or read current and past issues on their website. The recipe is on page 24 and the article starts on page 29 in the January issue. 

In a few days, we head to New York to enjoy our Grand Prize in the IKEA Together, We Eat Contest, which includes a $1,500 shopping spree at IKEA, a video shoot at the Paramus store, and a photo shoot with O, The Oprah Magazine. 

Obviously, we have much to be excited about, and thank you, our readers, for your continued support and inspiration.

CHEERS!

A.C.K. Returns from Hiatus...Recipe Published in E-Book

Obviously, we took a little break from the blog for a while. We ended an exhausting school year and needed a vacation from, well, everything, including this. And to be honest, we haven't been very creative in the kitchen this summer, so we haven't had a whole lot to share anyway.

Meanwhile, one of our recipes, Scallop Crostini with Blueberry-Rosemary Sauce, has been featured in Our State's 2014 Blueberry Recipe Collection, an E-book presented by the North Carolina Blueberry Council that you can download and check out HERE. This boosted our culinary spirits so we decided to come back and share. We'll be back again soon. 

Sausage Bread for Secret Recipe Club

Time sure does fly, doesn't it? It seems we just made some Cuban Pork in our slow cooker for February's Secret Recipe Club, and here we are already with Reveal Day upon us. By the way, participants in Secret Recipe Club are assigned another food blogger and choose one of their (always amazing) recipes to make and post. This month we were assigned Jamie who writes Cookin' with Moxie.

Jamie is Italian, and many (but certainly not all) of her recipes are as well. We love her "Random Recipe" tab which, when clicked, brings you to one of her recipes. Randomly. So very fun! We clicked on it, and voila! Sausage Bread appeared.

It may have seemed random, but in actuality, it was pure destiny. You see, Amy had just last weekend taken a cooking class featuring stuffed breads (we will be posting about it soon, promise), and Jamie's Sausage Bread version seemed both tasty and simple. Plus, Jamie calls this recipe a "family tradition." One of the things we love most about Secret Recipe Club is connecting with other food bloggers and sharing those food stories and traditions. And finally, this recipe that featured sausage as a main ingredient gave us a reason to use this beautiful Green Valley Farm Berkshire Pork Hot Italian Sausage we found at the final winter Ellington Farmers Market. 

We made the sausage bread according to Jamie's instructions and brought it to dinner at the neighbors to enjoy as an appetizer. Everyone pounced on it and not only was it gone very quickly, but all pronounced it tasty, delicious, and yummy. It just may become a tradition of our own! Next time, though, we will be more careful about shaping the bread. Ours got a little bulky in the middle. 

Sausage Bread

from Cookin' with Moxie

Ingredients:

1 lb. store-bought pizza dough

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 lb. ground Italian sausage (hot or sweet)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg, slightly beaten

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. spread a tablespoon of the olive oil onto a cookie sheet. Stretch out and form pizza dough to fit the size of the cookie sheet and set aside. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet and cook the sausage until crumbled and cooked through. Place sausage, both cheeses, egg and pepper in a large bowl and fold together. Top the center of the dough with the sausage mixture. Fold sides of dough to cover completely and overlap to form a seam. Turn the bread over so the seam side is down. Rub the dough with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, turning over halfway through cooking, until dough is golden brown. Cut into 1-inch slices and serve at room temperature (slightly cooled).

Take a look at our pizza sauce made by The Texan New Yorker and more Secret Recipe Club posts from Group C:

An InLinkz Link-up

Christmas Eve is Here, and We Can't Wait for Crabbies

The countdown is over. We made and delivered our foodie gift packages and we are just about prepared for our annual Christmas Eve with Amy's family. There are 17 of us total, including neighbors D and J and their two kids, who are pretty much family to us. Our usual thing is to serve a variety of appetizers and then do one "main" event dish. We like to do something different each year, but certain things are just tradition. And you can't mess with tradition, especially on Christmas! So we spend our efforts on the main dish and also make those certain appetizers everyone loves and waits all year for. 

One of those traditional apps is "Crabbies." Crabbies have been a part of Christmas Eve for as long as Amy can remember, back to when the whole family came to Amy's parents house for the celebration, even her uncle's parents, Anita and Tito, who have since passed. They were the ones who made the crabbies, and we now make them in their honor. And as much as we've been tempted to change an ingredient or "upgrade" them in some way, we wouldn't dare. One bite brings back so many childhood memories that it simply wouldn't be Christmas Eve without them, just the way they've always been. 

Crabbies

(makes 12)

Ingredients:

1 package (6) Thomas's English muffins, split in half

1 6-ounce can fancy lump crabmeat

1 5-ounce jar Old English cheesespread

1 stick margarine, softened

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Lay out English muffins on a cookie sheet. Fold together remaining ingredients until well combined. Spread cheesy crab mixture evenly onto English muffins. Broil until bubbly and golden brown. 

Note: To make ahead, do not broil but lay cheese-covered English muffins between layers of wax paper in a zip bag and freeze. When ready to serve, broil from frozen. 

HAVE A WONDERFUL, SAFE, AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Grana Padano Dipping Sauce

The two of us have had a slight fixation with cheese ever since we attended the Connecticut Cheese Festival a few weeks back. We have been meaning to tell you about that, and we promise we'll get to it, but for now, we want to share our latest cheese-inspired appetizer creation - Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Grana Padano Dipping Sauce.

When we learned about the Legends from Europe Market Basket Recipe Contest, we jumped at the chance to use one of these outstanding ingredients in a recipe. There are five "Legends from Europe," and they are Grana Padano, Parmigiano Reggiano, Montasio, Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele, all of which are part of a special campaign to celebrate the legendary quality, tradition and taste of these world-renowned products. We were told to email the contest administrators and we would be assigned one of these incredible cheeses or hams, then we were to create and post our recipe to our blog to be entered into the contest.

We were ecstatic to be assigned Grana Padano, one of the world's first hard cheeses, and one of Italy's most famous. It is named after its distinctively grainy texture (grana, Italian for "grain"),  and its region of origin, the Pianura Padana, or the Po Valley in Northern Italy. It is a hard cheese that is cooked and ripened slowly, it can last a long time without spoiling, and its DOP (protected designation of origin) status can be verified by the fire-branded trademark on the rind. It has a mildly nutty flavor, more subtle and less salty than its cousin, Parmigiano, which is actually a type of Grana, as that name refers specifically to the texture of the cheese.

We had in mind a beautiful head of cauliflower, simmered in a lemony-herb broth, then slow-roasted, with a creamy dip made from the Grana Padano. And we think we succeeded. The cauliflower tasted as wonderful as it looked, with the olive oil and butter from the broth clinging to it enough to facilitate the browning. And the cheese sauce was so scrumptious in its simplicity - milk, cream, plenty of grated Grana Padano, salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg - that we began to look around for other things to dip into what was left after we conquered the cauliflower (we found Italian bread and baby carrots worked nicely). We served the cauliflower whole on a cutting board with the dipping sauce nearby, and we all oohhed and aahhed over the flavor imparted by this special, legendary cheese.

Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Grana Padano Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1 whole head of cauliflower

6 cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 large bay leaf

rind from one lemon

3/4 cup light cream

1 cup whole milk

pinch of ground nutmeg

2 cups grated Grana Padano cheese

kosher salt and white pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. In a pot large enough to fit the cauliflower, bring to boil the water, olive oil, butter, bay leaf and lemon rind. Submerge the cauliflower top down into the pot, reduce heat, cover and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from pot and place on a baking sheet or roasting pan. Roast cauliflower for 30-45 minutes, until tender and nicely browned. In the meantime, make the dipping sauce by bringing to a boil the cream, milk and nutmeg. Remove cream mixture from heat and stir in the cheese until well incorporated. Add salt and white pepper to taste and serve alongside roasted cauliflower as the start to a wonderful meal.

Asian Lettuce Wraps - April Foodie Penpals

Check out the great items our April Foodie Penpal Molly K. sent us -- all the (non-perishable) makings for Asian Lettuce Wraps, with tips and instructions on how to make them. It was so very thoughtful, and it made for an easy and delicious weeknight dinner for the two of us during a very hectic work week.

We decided to make the wraps using ground pork along with the water chestnuts provided in our penpal package. Molly had asked ahead of time what we liked/disliked, and when Amy admitted to hating mushrooms (it's a texture thing more than a flavor thing), she sent the water chestnuts instead. It was the perfect substitution!

On his way home from work, Chris picked up a quart of pork fried rice so that we could make the wraps into a full meal. Then we started cooking. First we browned the pork then added the water chestnuts that we had chopped finely. (In other words, we followed the directions on the bottle of sauce!) 

The sauce, from Williams-Sonoma, had plenty of garlic and soy flavor, and glazed the pork wonderfully with a nice tanginess. 

We laid the lettuce out on a platter so each of us could make our own wraps, with the chopped peanuts and sweet chili sauce that Molly had sent us for garnishing. She also sent us some rice stick noodles, but we didn't feel the lettuce wraps needed them, so we are saving them for another Asian-themed dinner.

Thanks, Molly!

To find out more about Foodie Penpals, go here!

Guinness Glazed Chicken Wings for St. Patrick's Day

We are heading out to our neighbors' house for our annual St. Patty's Day corned beef and cabbage dinner. Our part of dinner consists of the appetizer and the dessert, so we have today's post as well as tomorrow's post all set and ready to go. Read on!

Today, we bring you the appetizer: Guinness Glazed Chicken Wings. These little lovelies get their flavor from a mix of root vegetables and a can of Guinness, Ireland's popular dark stout. Reducing this gravy-of-sorts turns it into a nice glaze to brush on the wings right before broiling and serving. 

The rest of the meal was equally delish. Corned beef with cabbage, carrots, turnips and potatoes, with roasted vegetables, and mashers. Our ancestors would be proud!  (Check out the photos below!) 

And, of course, tune in tomorrow to find out what we had for dessert.

Guinness Glazed Chicken Wings

adapted from this recipe at Little Shamrocks

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 medium onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds chicken wings, butchered into blades and drums

1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and quartered

1 carrot, peeled and quartered

1 parsnip, peeled and quartered

1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

1 can Guinness Stout

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sweat for 2-3 minutes. Remove onion and garlic with a slotted spoon. Season wings with salt and pepper. Add chicken wings to the pan and cook, about 5 minutes each side, until nicely browned. Return onion and garlic to the pan and add ginger, carrot, parsnip and thyme. Pour Guinness into the pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and reduce heat to low; simmer for 30 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken wings from the pan and place on a baking sheet. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve; discard vegetables. Pour sauce into a small saucepan and boil over high heat until reduced by half. When ready to serve, heat broiler on low. Brush wings with glaze and broil for 5-6 minutes; turn, baste and broil other side 4-5 minutes. Eat with a freshly poured Guinness to wash them down - Slainte!

Wordless Weekender: Tattooed Potato Tart

Recipe here

Moonshine Sticky Wings *Award-Winning"

Okay, so maybe this week has been all about cooking with liquor. What can we say? We are madly in love with Onyx Moonshine and since we already tried a sweet dish, we wanted to do something savory with it. Thus we give you Moonshine Sticky Wings. A dozen wings, a little honey to pick up the honey notes in the moonshine, some soy and sesame oil, and of course, the moonshine itself. Pretty good stuff, but a few notes on this one since it's not yet perfect. We baked them in the sauce then broiled them for a few minutes to attempt to get some crispiness, but next time we're gonna go ahead and fry these things. We suggest you start there. Also next time we'd add more moonshine because, well, why not?

Lay wings out in baking dish;

sprinkle with garlic salt

Combine these ingredients to make the sauce

Pour sauce over wings then bake and broil

Moonshine Sticky Wings

Ingredients:

1 dozen chicken wings

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons Onyx Moonshine

2 cloves garlic, pressed

sesame seeds for garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lay wings out in a large glass baking dish. Sprinkle with garlic salt and set aside. In a medium bowl, mix remaining ingredients. Pour evenly over wings. Bake at 450 for 25 minutes, then broil on high for a few minutes to brown and crisp. Garnish with sesame seeds.

UPDATED MARCH 12, 2013: THIS RECIPE WON AN EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD IN SPLASHPAD MOBILE'S "STICK A FORK IN IT" CONTEST FOR THE TOP RECIPE ANDROID APP. 

GET THE APP HERE AND LOOK FOR OUR RECIPE DESIGNATED WITH THIS RIBBON: 

Chow Chow Phyllo Bites

One of the most simple appetizers we've ever made were a big hit at our Christmas Eve party, mostly due to the awesome product we found at the CT Food and Wine Festival - Mariah's Chow Chow Relish. Amy had a nice chat with company founder and CEO Phyllis W. Haynes who takes a lot of pride in her amazing relishes and who created her company's tagline, "Relish What You Eat." Available in four flavors, Mariah's Chow Chow Relishes are made with fresh vegetables and plenty of savory spices for a Southern style relish that packs a flavorful punch. They are an all-natural product made here in CT without preservatives or artificial coloring. One taste of the "Sweet and Hot" and we knew we had the perfect ingredient for one great party bite - "Chow Chow Phyllo Bites." We filled phyllo cups with plain goat cheese and topped them with a spoonful of Mariah's Sweet and Hot Chow Chow. No baking necessary, done in five minutes, and they flew off the plate. Plus, the red and green colors in the relish were very festive. Here's to easy appetizers!

Chow Chow Phyllo Bites

Ingredients:

2 packages Athens brand phyllo cups

6 ounces plain goat cheese

1 jar Mariah's Sweet and Hot Chow Chow Relish

Remove phyllo cups from package and set out on serving tray. Fill phyllo cups with desired amount of goat cheese and top with spoonful of relish. Enjoy!