Roasted garlic beer cheese dip

 

One of the main football-watching food groups seems to be something questionable involving molten cheese and another is beer, so naturally you combine them if possible.

I was looking for a slightly better version of a beer cheese dip, and ran across this one on the Beeroness site, an online repository devoted to the intersection of food and craft beer. I filed it away under recipes to possibly try for a game day, noting that I had most of the ingredients on hand already, which isn't surprising since it involves many of my usual suspects. 

Oddly, the one thing we didn't have was a Saison or an IPA, the odds of which seem slim in our house, but Dude: inventory control. We were at South Lyndale remedying that shortcoming and other deficiencies when I happened to notice the very beer (Saison du BUFF) she was raving about having used in the dip. 

Sign taken.

Roasted garlic and Parmesan beer cheese dip

From thebeeroness.com

Ingredients

2 heads of garlic, roasted and peeled

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1¾ cups grated Parmesan cheese, divided

6 ounces grated smoked Gouda

1 cup beer (she calls for a Saison or IPA)

1 teaspoon Sriracha

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ chopped green onions

Method

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix cream cheese and roasted garlic in a food processor. Add 1½ cups grated Parmesan cheese, Gouda, beer, Sriracha, salt, pepper and cornstarch. Blend well.

Pour into a medium baking dish. Top with remaining ¼ cup grated Parmesan. Bake for 35 minutes or so until golden and puffy. Top with green onions and serve warm.

Note: To roast garlic, score the top tip of the head all the way around the outside, not cutting through. Place each head on a square of tin foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Wrap up in foil and bake for 30 minutes at 425. When cool enough to handle, squeeze out pulp and discard skins.

Rating: It's tasty melted cheese. I felt like it wants just a bit more garlic? But no one will complain if you serve this because it's not polite to snark about food with your mouth full of hot tasty cheese.

Now about that beer: I thought the description had been a tad glowing, as craft beer sites are wont to be. It often seems as if they've run out of adjectives and only hyperbole remains. But. She was not wrong. This is a really, really, really nice beer that I wouldn't tell you about but I'm pretty sure no one is really reading this anyway so the secret is safe. It's a combined release in stages from three breweries; the current one is from Dogfish Head. It's brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. No, it does not taste like stuffing, but you could drink it with that. Or with pretty much anything, because it's food friendly. Wonder if the house brewmaster would care to experiment with our own herbs next year?

Tomato pizzettes

If you're looking for a variation on the familiar pizza for game day, these cute little tarts mix it up a bit, without being too unfamiliar.

Tomato tartlettes
Adapted from rothcheese.com

Ingredients
3 to 5 medium-size tomatoes (err on the shorter side, since you want them to fit easily on the pastry)
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed (overnight in the fridge works best for ease of working with it, but in a pinch you can thaw it on the counter for about 35-40 minutes)
2 tablespoons oil
1 chopped garlic clove, optional

1 ½ cup shredded Gouda cheese

1 small bunch basil leaves, cut into thin ribbons

Balsamic glaze, optional

Method

Slice tomatoes about 3/8-inch thick. Sprinkle lightly with salt and lay on paper towels.

Heat olive oil over low heat. Add garlic and cook 1 minute until fragrant but not browned. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. (If you're not using the garlic, there's no need to heat the oil so you can skip this step. But it kicks it up a flavor notch.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

On a lightly floured board, roll puff pastry sheet into a square. Cut into 12 squares. Transfer to prepared sheet.

Brush each square with garlic oil, leaving a narrow frame around the outside of each square. This untouched frame is what lets the pastry puff up around the toppings.

Top each square with about a tablespoon of grated cheese. Top with tomato.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until puffed and golden. Top with basil and drizzle with balsamic glaze if desired.

Rating: Tasty and a quick fix. While you could prepare everything but the tomato and basil slices in advance, you could also nip into the kitchen and whip these up when there's a lull in the action. There's always a lull.

Roasted tomato red pepper salsa

With all the hoopla downtown, it's even harder than usual to forget about the upcoming Super Bowl. If you're still inclined to watch (there are always the commercials to diss), the question of suitable noshes comes up. You don't want to veer too pretentious (this is football we're talking about), and it has to be something you can scarf in between yelling at the TV if you actually care who wins.

 There's nothing wrong with opening up a jar of your favorite salsa and bag of your favorite chips and inhaling it while watching the game. Generally speaking I prefer a fresh salsa like the one from Martha Rose Shulman's "Classic Party Fare." But if you're looking for a bit of variety, this roasted salsa offers a nice combination of mellow flavors with some notes of heat.

Oven-roasted tomato and red pepper salsa

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, Aug. 2014

Ingredients

2 pints cherry tomatoes

1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and cut into large chunks

2 Fresno chili peppers, stemmed and seeded, cut in half

5 garlic cloves, peeled, divided

4 green onions, white and light green parts only, left whole

1 medium yellow onion, peeled, halved, divided

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 dried chiles de arbol, crushed

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

½ tablespoon balsamic vinegar

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

Salt

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with tin foil. Place tomatoes, red and Fresno peppers, green onions and 4 whole garlic cloves on the sheet. Cut one half of the onion into 8 quarters; place on baking sheet. Bake until tomatoes are wrinkled and onions begin to soften, about 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Chop coarsely and put into a serving bowl.

Heat olive oil in a small pan. Chop remaining onion half and dice remaining garlic clove. Add onion to the warm oil and cook until soft. Add garlic and arbol chiles and cook a minute more. Add to tomato mixture in bowl.

Stir in parsley, vinegar, cumin and salt to taste.

Makes a goodly amount, the equivalent of two average size jars. You can make it in advance and let it come up to room temperature.

Rating: Nice. And unlike your team, it's not likely to disappoint you.

 

Pasta with creamy mushroom bacon sauce

 

It's snowing, again. And predicted to soon get down into the single digits, and negative single digits at that -- again. So cue the comfort food.

Creamy mushroom and bacon pasta

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, February 2018

Ingredients

4 slices of thick-cut bacon, cut into lardons

8 ounces sliced shiitake mushrooms

3 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup cream

½ cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

¼ cup chopped fresh chives

12 ounces orecchiette pasta, cooked and drained

Method

Cook bacon in a large skillet until crispy. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

Add mushrooms and garlic to drippings in pan, seasoning with salt and pepper. Cook until mushrooms and tender. Add cream and broth and cook until slightly thickened; it won’t take long. Return bacon to pan. Add vinegar, chives and cooked pasta and toss to coat. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.

Rating: Tasty, tasty, and super fast to fix. One to keep in your back pocket and a way to use up some of those chives before they get buried in snow each fall. Makes 4 moderate servings, if anything can be said to be moderate about a recipe that includes cream and bacon.

Slow cooker soupe au pistou

I've made other versions of this before. But they didn't have the magic word slow cooker in the title, which always draws me in. Make sure you use a large slow cooker. Perhaps they have a different idea of what constitutes a medium vegetable, but this came alarmingly close to the brim of the crock even before the beans and pasta were added.

Soupe au pistou (Provencal vegetable soup with pesto)

Adapted from “The French Slow Cooker” by Michele Scicolone

Ingredients

4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

1½ cups petite diced canned tomatoes

1 medium zucchini, sliced in half lengthwise, then in half lengthwise again, then sliced crosswise into ¼-inch slices

1 medium summer squash, sliced in half lengthwise, then in half lengthwise again, then sliced crosswise into ¼-inch slices

8 cups water

Salt and pepper

2 cups cooked cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup ditalini or other small pasta such as elbows

Pesto

Method

In a large slow cooker, combine carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and summer squash. Stir to combine. Add 8 cups water and season with salt and pepper. Cook on low heat for 8 hours.

Add beans and ditalini and cook another half hour or until pasta is done. Adjust seasonings as needed.

Serve in bowls topped with a spoonful of pesto as desired.

Rating: The resulting veggie broth in this is pretty thin and borderline bland. Maybe a bouquet garni would have helped? But it still works fine once you add a generous dollop of good pesto and swirl it in a bit to the hot liquid: instant flavor and warmth. Making this soup on the stove is probably preferable so the broth can concentrate a bit, but it if it's the only way to have warm soup at the end of the day, it's not bad, and fairly filling. I'd say it serves 10 quite easily.

Braised onion sauce with Madeira

 

And now for something completely different: onion sauce. Yes, I just made an onion sauce last week. But that was light and creamy, and this one is dark and dreamy.

And even more pantry friendly: Butter, onions, pasta and Madeira. Hard to get more basic than that. It does take a time commitment, but most of that time isn't hands-on.

Braised onion sauce

Adapted from “Beard on Pasta,” which shows an illustration of author James Beard tossing pasta with a somewhat maniacally intent look.

Ingredients

½ pound butter (Holy Cow, that’s a LOT of butter)

6 largish onions, peeled and sliced

¼ cup Madeira

Grated cheese, such as Parmesan or Gruyere

Pasta, 12-ounces to a pound. Pick something substantial like wide ribbons.

Method

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add onions and cook over medium heat until soft and translucent. Reduce heat to quite low and cook onions for an hour, uncovered. The goal here is not to brown the onions but to bronze them. How long that takes is going to depend on your burner and your pan. It took about 75 minutes for me. 

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. (The recipe did indeed give that range of pasta; I used a 12-ounce package and that was about right for the amount of sauce it made because the onions really cook down.)

At this point you have nice bronze onions simmering in what still seems like a LOT of butter and you’re wondering whether you should have cut back on the amount … But you add the Madeira and cook for another few minutes and somehow it turns into a sauce instead of a separated mess of onions and butter. If you used unsalted butter, you may need to adjust the seasoning with salt at this point. I used salted butter and didn't need any additional flavoring. Toss with pasta and serve garnished with grated cheese.

Rating: Very, very nice. Those onions are elevated to about their highest level in this dish. Caramelization and the glug of Madeira give it a nice richness. Still wondering about that much butter ... but heavens, it's tasty.