Bread and Cheese Make Me Happy

We had cheese fondue the other evening for dinner.  It’s a fun, cheap, kid-friendly, and mostly healthy meal. 

I have fond memories of eating fondue with my family as a child. (Yes, I grew up in the 70s!) I modified a recipe for a cheddar cheese fondue that I ran across years ago in a fondue recipe book.

Because my children prefer it, I use a milder cheddar and sometimes combine a little Colby cheese so the taste isn’t as sharp. We dip French bread because I usually have some in the freezer, but just about any kind of bread would work.  (I’ve been known to dig at the leftovers with saltine crackers when we ran out of french bread, but I get a little insane about cheese.) I cut the bread into chunks and toast it lightly in the oven. When I’m feeling reckless or if the bread is particularly stale, I butter it before toasting it. 

I use any vegetables I have on hand, like carrots, celery, broccoli, or cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces. Apple slices are also good. I usually very lightly steam the broccoli or cauliflower, so it's still crispy but not raw. 

The base liquid for the recipe is beer, but you could use white wine or maybe even a broth.  Dark beer adds a nice, rich flavor to the fondue, but we usually have light beer so that’s what I use most often.

While I do actually own a cheese fondue pot, I rarely use it. I haven’t figured out a way to control the flame so it doesn’t scorch the cheese. Instead we use a ceramic bowl that fits into a saucepan with a low level of hot water to keep the cheese warm. You could also use a small Crock-pot or just transfer the saucepan used to cook the fondue directly to the table. It doesn’t usually last long enough to cool and congeal. 

The long color-coded fondue forks are fun but very sharp. We use them more now that my children are older but fingers or regular forks work just as well.

Cheddar Cheese Fondue

1 cup beer

12 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

1½ tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Toss the cheese with the flour. In a small bowl, dissolve the mustard in the Worcestershire sauce. Bring beer to simmer in saucepan over medium heat. Gradually stir the cheese into the beer, a small handful at a time allowing each addition to melt before adding more. Stir in the Worcestershire and mustard mix. Serve immediately.

A Bushel or Just a Peck?

These are just some of the jalapenos that only two plants in our garden produced this year.  The rest have been shared with friends and family, frozen for winter’s use in chili, chopped in salsas this summer, or stuffed with sausage or pimento cheese and gingerly devoured.

These suckers were hot!

Was it the very hot summer we had that made these peppers so much spicier than last year? The variety of plant?  Something different in the garden soil?  I really don’t know, but the ones we’ve picked since the nights have cooled off have been much more tolerable than the ones produced in August.  I also noticed that production dwindled during the hot months and picked back up noticeably when the heat broke.

To freeze jalapenos, I usually cut off the stem, slice them in half, scrape the seeds and membranes, and freeze them in freezer bags.  Later I can pull them from the freezer ready to use for stuffing and baking or chopping for chili and salsa.

I tried this method several times throughout the summer which resulted in coughing and choking and eyes tearing like day-long crying jag.  I left several of the latter crop ripening on the vine because - I’ll admit it! - I was scared.  This last batch I just washed and bagged whole.  We’ll see how that turns out.

Simple Vinaigrette

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. honey

Whisk together in a small bowl, cover, and chill.

This is a dressing that I keep in the fridge most of the time, because it’s good on all types of salads.  When I use the dark-colored balsamic vinegar, it has a deeper, richer taste that works well on Greek salads or an Italian-type mixed green salad.  

If I use white balsamic vinegar instead, the mustard flavor is more apparent and it's more like a honey-mustard vinaigrette. This version is great on a spinach and mushroom salad .  Sometimes I substitute sliced pears, goat cheese, and walnuts for the mushrooms, parmesan, and pecans just to make life interesting.

My Favorite Salad

This is my favorite salad right now.  I guess you might want to call it a spinach and mushroom salad but I've been putting spinach in all the salads I make lately.  It's pretty easy to hide some baby spinach leaves in with the lettuce and no one really knows they're there.  A great little burst of nutrition without much whining.  But this one actually started as a spinach mushroom salad so that's what it shall remain.

There's some Romaine lettuce and some of the aforementioned baby spinach leaves.  I don't usually have red onions but I really like the color they added this time so I'll probably do that again.  

Of all mushrooms, I'd have to say I like baby portobellos the best so that's what's on this salad.  (Not the pre-sliced variety.  I really can't wrap my mind around pre-sliced mushrooms.  Don't you still have to wash them?  How does that make things any easier?)  

I like toasted pecans on top but I've used walnuts when necessary.  The cheese is parmesan but I really like it with fontina when I have it.  Fontina is also really good on cheese pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches, so why don't I have it all the time?

This salad is great with simple balsamic vinaigrette. 

Emily's New Space

We traded out the queen-size bed that took up so much space in Emily's room and replaced it with a day-bed with a trundle that her grandmother passed on to her.  (No, no, she's fine!  My mother-in-law is just redecorating.  That sounded a little morbid.)

It has opened up her room so nicely.  The queen bed just took over her little 10x10 room.  With the single bed, she has floor space to play or waller around in.  (That's Southern for laze around and relax.) Plus, I think the pretty and feminine day-bed really shows off her choice of brightly colored bed linens.

The stool under the window to make a little "window seat" was Emily's idea.  Billy helped her decide on the chair placement to make a little reading nook where she can sit with her feet up on the stool.

I love Emily's room.  It's bright and cheerful and probably the sunniest place in the house this winter.

Wonder if she'll notice if I sneak in there with a book some afternoon?

Country Living

We travel through several small rural towns on our way to the South Carolina coast to visit our family there.  We like the back roads best but really there's not a lot of choice on this particular route.  There's something about slowing down to 35 mph that really lets you see what's going on.

Forbidden fruit creates many jams.  

That was on the sign in front of a small white church in one of those towns.  It sounds like something your old granny would tell you and, oh, so true.

On one trip, I saw a chicken literally crossing the road.  Now I know there's truth behind that old joke.  He really was heading to the other side where, I believe, his homestead was located.  What made him cross over in the first place, I guess we'll never know.

Do you ever see houses off the side of the road on long trips and wonder about the families that live there? Well, here's my favorite redneck story.

There is a nicely maintained double-wide on a nice lot along one of the highways we regularly travel.  On one trip we noticed they were clearing land behind the trailer and building a foundation.  "How nice!," I thought. "They must have finally saved enough to build a bigger home!"

On subsequent trips, we watched the building take shape.  Until, at one point, it was obvious that what they were building was a very large, two-story, three-bay garage.  So, while they're still living in the trailer, their cars, boats, four-wheelers and what-not are safely stowed in their three-car garage.

Winter Beauty

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind 

than to be hopelessly in love with spring.

- George Santayana

I read this quote recently and I keep coming back to it.  I would definitely describe myself as being "hopelessly in love with spring," especially in these cold, dreary days of January and now, finally, February.  I'm trying to find, and remember, the beauty in winter.  What has helped is remembering a recent visit to the beach on a blustery January.

It was windy and as cold as you'd expect.  Not much sun, but a beautiful sky with interesting streaks of clouds brightened with sunlight.

It wasn't too cold for finding treasures!

Champ, of course, didn't mind the cold wind.  He said he much prefers it to the hot sands of August.