Broccoli Cheese Soup

 Well hello there!  Depending on where you are in the world, it's getting pretty cold.  If you were a Stark, you might even say, "Winter is Coming" (and it will in fact be here officially Saturday).  Anyways right now it is the type of weather that makes me want to curl up under a blanket near the wood stove and knit all day.  What also is good on a cold, wintery day?  Soup!

I am basing the majority of the recipe for this week off of a recipe I found on Food.com, Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup, though I made a few changes.  It went really great with a grilled cheese sandwich, because if it is one thing I never run low on in my house, it's cheese.

Ingredients for this recipe:

• 1 tbsp Butter
• 1/2 Onion chopped
• 1/4 cup Butter
• 1/4 cup Flour
• 2 cups Half-and-Half
• 2 cups Chicken Stock
• 4 - 4 1/2 cups Broccoli chopped
• 1 - 1/2 cups Carrot, julienned
• 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1 cup Water
• 2 1/2 cup mixed Cheeses (Jersey Girl, Abbie Gouda, and Toma Duro from Cooperstown Cheese Company)
• additional Mozzarella
• 6 cloves Garlic
• Red Pepper Flakes
• Salt

First prep the ingredients.  Finely chop the onion.  Cut the broccoli up to the florets, and into bite-sized pieces.  Julienne the carrot (cut into thin pieces about an inch or so long).  Mince the garlic.

In a small pan, melt the 1 tbsp of butter and saute the onion.  Cook until the onion is very soft and set aside.

Next, in a medium sized pot, melt the 1/4 cup of butter, and mix in the flour with a whisk.  Stir constantly for about 4 minutes, and the mixture thickens some, add the half-and-half.  Be careful because it will want to burn on the bottom, so keep stirring.  Then add the chicken stock to the mix, and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add the broccoli, carrots, onions, and garlic.  At this time also add the water to increase the volume of the liquid.  Continue to cook for another 25 or so minutes.

Add your mixed cheese to a blender.  Grind it up and set aside.  I added Jersey Girl, Abbie Gouda, and Toma Duro from Cooperstown Cheese Company, especially since these would melt nicely.

After the soup has cooked for 25 minutes, add the cheese.  Add the nutmeg.  Add red pepper flakes, and salt to taste.  Once the rest of the soup is to your liking, add the additional Mozzarella to the top and let it melt.  Now it is ready to serve!

And Now for Something Completely Cheesy (Butternut Squash Gratin)

I needed a little more time to finish my main post for this week, so for today I will be posting something shorter.  Look for my other post around Friday.

A few weeks ago, my dad made a wonderful dinner.  There isn't garlic in this recipe, but I just had to share anyways.  The recipe used was this Butternut Squash Gratin recipe from Culture magazine (a magazine for all things cheesy).  Instead of the cheeses they listed to use, Cooperstown Cheese Company's Jersey Girl and Toma Celena were used.

To be honest, I am not usually the biggest fan of butternut squash, but I loved this!  It was a spicy meal that was nice, warm, and gooey for how cool the evening was when we ate it.  It was definitely a tasty way to clear out your sinuses when you are suffering from a cold.

Jersey Girl Panini

For my first blog post, I wanted to make something to congratulate Cooperstown Cheese Company with their cheese Jersey Girl placing 3^rd in American Originals at the American Cheese Society Convention. What better way than making a grilled cheese/panini? Of the cheese they make, Jersey Girl is one of my all time favorites.  Jersey Girl is a raw milk Colby that is made from the milk of Jersey cows (hence the name Jersey Girl).  On top of its recent award, it was also one of the two cheeses from Cooperstown Cheese Company that were on the 2013 Inauguration menu (the other being Toma Celena).

For this sandwich, my ingredient list is:

• Jersey Girl (Cooperstown Cheese Company), thinly sliced
• Loaf of Ciabatta (Balthazar Bakery)
• 1 Roasted Red Pepper
• Cremini mushrooms
• Garlic (I used about 4 cloves and minced them)
• Lemon Juice
• Oregano
• Black Pepper

 

First, roast the red pepper. It's perfectly fine to buy a jar of roasted red peppers, but I find it isn't too hard to roast the pepper myself, and it's quite a bit cheaper. Get rid of the stem and seeds, and put it in the broiler while keeping an eye on it.

When one side starts to blacken, use tongs to rotate it until all of the sides seem cooked enough. For this meal, I pealed off the skin when I was done roasting it. After roasting, cut the pepper into strips.

Next, saute the mushrooms. I tend to like creminis a lot and I thought they would be a good pick for this meal. Keep the pan at medium heat with olive oil when sauteeing the mushrooms until they seem partly cooked.

Add minced garlic (I used four cloves because I always like a lot of garlic, and for this it seemed to be a good amount) to cook with the mushrooms, and add black pepper and oregano. When the mushrooms seem more fully cooked, sprinkle lemon juice over the top (not too much). When the mushrooms are cooked enough, take them off of the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer them (and garlic) into a bowl and drain the liquid.

Now that the pepper and mushrooms are cooked, it is time to assemble the sandwich. Slice the ciabatta loaf lengthwise, grill the whole loaf, then slice it after it's done. Generally, my first layer is sliced Jersey Girl, and on top of that I like to put down a layer of the roasted red peppers, followed by the mushrooms and garlic.

One of the saddest things that can happen to a family of cheese-makers is for the panini press to stop working...which it did about two months ago. If you're like me and don't own a working panini press, this step is where we're going to get a little bit creative.  Because of the volume of the ciabatta bread, I generally like to press it, and make sure that the cheese on the inside is getting melted.  What I end up using is another pot and to press down my sandwich (which stirs up quite a few chuckles from my parents watching me from the other side of the kitchen).

When the cheese is melted and both sides of the bread are toasted, it's done!  After taking the whole thing out of the pan, cut it into six slices to serve (as you can see from the first image of this post).

So there we have it, my first addition to this blog!  Cooperstown Cheese Company's Jersey Girl melted wonderfully for this panini, and I highly recommend it for any variety of panini or grilled cheese sandwiches you may wish to make.