On Goat Cheese...

Dear Tricia, Goat cheese might be my favorite out of all the cheeses...behind brie of course. Do you have any suggestions on ways to use it besides crumbling it on a salad?

Hell yes I do! I f-ing love goat cheese. And you're right... brie is superior, but that's another blog for another time. Lets talk goats.
For pasta: if you ever make a white cream sauce for pasta, or use one out of a packet (Hey, I don't judge), you can whisk in a handful of goat cheese into the sauce until it melts to give your sauce some extra oomph. So good. If you've never made a cream sauce from scratch, I found a simple one for "alfredo sauce" (its not really alfredo sauce but its still good) that cheats and uses cream cheese.

1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 teaspoons garlic powder
2 cups milk
6 ounces crumbled goat cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add cream cheese and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth. Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in goat cheese and pepper. Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency. Sauce will thicken rapidly, thin with milk if cooked too long. Toss with hot pasta to serve.

You can also cook chicken breasts with goat cheese stuffed in the middle of them. All you have to do is take a seasoned, raw, boneless chicken breast (with or without skin. That depends on your own preference.), lay it flat, and cut a little pocket into the side of it. Try to keep one side open and one side closed. Take your goat cheese and stuff it into the middle of the chicken. Cook your chicken in a skillet on both sides for about 3 minutes and then finish it off in a 400 degree oven until its fully cooked- about 5-8 minutes. When you cut into the chicken, there will be ooey gooey melty goat cheese and its completely awesome.

For dessert: take your favorite cheesecake recipe and substitute half of the cream cheese for goat cheese. I know, this might seem weird but, trust me, its better than the first time you heard the New Kids on the Block sing "Please Don't Go Girl" in 1988. (Oh, that Joey McIntyre. His voice gets me every time.) When its finished and cool, drizzle it with honey and serve with some fruit. So freaking good.

For cocktail party hors d'oevres: take a package of goat cheese and mix it with a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of honey. With the palms of your hands, roll the mixture in little balls and then roll them in chopped pecans. Chill and serve. Oooh la la.

Inversely, you can make savory version of those delectable little goat cheese balls (I hope you can come up with a more appetizing name, though. Let me know.) using black pepper, minced fresh chives, and any other yummy herbs. These are really versatile and you can use whatever you think sounds good at the time. Be careful with roasted red peppers though... if you mix everything up too much it turns pink. Which could actually be fitting if you're having a valentines day party (blech) or a baby shower for a baby girl (double blech.)

If you're reading this post and you hate goat cheese, I understand. It took me some time to like it too, but I have some advice for newbies: don't buy any goat cheese that says "aged" on the label. Look for words like "un-ripened," "fresh," and "young." These are the goat cheeses that taste more mellow and are easier to eat if you're new at it. But have some balls and give it a go sometime... It won't kill you. And when you love it, you can come back here and I'll say I told you so.

I Want a New Kids Kind of Cheesecake, But All I Can Get is N'Sync. And that N'Sucks.

Dear Tricia, I live in France. But even in a country where gastronomy is a national pastime, I get a hankering every now and then for some good ol' fashion American food, namely cheesecake. The main ingredient, as any self-respecting American knows, is Philidelphia cream cheese. So I'm thinking, "what better place to find cream cheese than France?!!". You'd think in a country that has over 300 sorts of cheeses you'd be able to find whichever one you wanted. That's simply not the case. I have no idea about a substitute for cream cheese. I've tried everything and nothing has worked! The closest I've come to anything edible has been a mixture of Mascarpone and Ricotta. Can you provide any suggestions, or am I condemned to give up on the whole cheesecake idea?

You've actually done me proud with the mascarpone and ricotta substitutes. When I think back to all of the cheesecakes I've made in restaurants, most of them contained ricotta or mascarpone with the cream cheese, and some I've made with only ricotta or mascarpone to get rid of extra product that was about to expire. By the way, that's pretty much where restaurant specials come from: "Hmmm, we've got a bunch of ricotta that's about to go bad. How can we get rid of it?" I know. It makes you think twice about ordering that seafood special at Sunday brunch, doesn't it?
While France may be the home of 300+ different cheeses, Philledelphia cream cheese is a very American product, created by New York dairyman in the late 1800's. The type you see in grocery stores usually contains thickening agents and gums that aren't used in traditional cheese making: probably the reason why you can't find it in France. This isn't surprising... France is as snobby with their cheese standards as they are with their wine. And I can't really fault them for that. After all, they're the only country who will publicly declare Scientology a fraud.
Cream cheese is classified as a "fresh cheese," meaning its uncooked and unripened to give it a very mellow, lightly tart flavor. Two other cheeses in the same category are... you guessed it, ricotta and mascarpone, which is why they're such great substitutes in cheesecake. If cream cheese is New Kids on the Block, then mascarpone is N'Sync and ricotta is The Backstreet Boys.
Ricotta is lower in fat than cream cheese and comes from sheep's milk, while mascarpone is from cows' milk and much higher in fat. In fact, mascarpone is over 70% fat, which is almost as high as cheese can be without being classified as butter. That's why its my favorite of the two. (Just like how I prefer N'Sync over the Backstreet Boys.) Mascarpone will give you a smoother, softer cheesecake than ricotta. Why? Because fat is awesome. And so is Justin Timberlake.
The other substitute you may want to check out is a cheese called petit suisse, or "little swiss." Its a cows' milk cheese that is softer and more jiggly than cream cheese, but it's still in the fresh cheese category with a really mellow flavor and commonly used in desserts.
If you're feeling daring and have a liking for goat cheese, try using half mascarpone and half goat cheese in a cheesecake recipe. When its cooled, you can drizzle honey over it and serve it with fresh fruit for a less-sweet dessert.
I also have to bring up a cheese called Neufchatel, which is a product in American grocery stores sold next to the cream cheese. All it is is a reduced-fat cream cheese with a really fancy name. Why its not just called "reduced fat cream cheese" is beyond me. But its vastly different than the real neufchatel, which is a stronger- tasting, ripened cheese that you can actually find in France. Don't let a midwestern tourist visiting gay Paris tell you any different. Just wanted to clear that up.
I'm sorry you can't find the cream cheese in the snobby country that you live in. But while you're craving that American taste of cream cheese cheesecake, know that the cheesecakes you're already making are super duper gourmet. And that's something that you can brag about in a French accent and get away with.

How to Win Friends with Flaccid Cheesecake

Dear Tricia, I make a delicious little cheesecake cup that comes in a phyllo shell. I love making them, and people love eating them, but what I hate is the mushiness of the shell after a while. Is there a way to keep those once crispy little shells from becoming flaccid?

Hey fancy pants, you sound too well-versed in a kitchen to be reading my blog. Phyllo cups and cheesecake? You're good. You're almost smug. I like you.
To start off with, lets explain what phyllo cups are, for those who aren't quite as savvy as your Martha Stewart-self. Phyllo dough (pronounced "feel-o", no "fy-lo." You know, like your Fila running shoes you wore when they were cool for about 2 weeks in the eighth grade? Say it like that.) is a very thin layer of dough that, when baked, gets very crispy and flaky. Its so thin, in fact, that it usually has to be baked in layers of a few sheets at a time, otherwise it just falls apart. Have you ever eaten that little delicious Greek piece of magic known as Baklava? That's got layers upon layers of phyllo dough.
The thing about phyllo dough is that its a little hard to work with because its very dry when it is unbaked. And when you bake it, that makes it even drier and crispier. And what happens to dry things around moisture? They suck it up like there's no tomorrow. Just like me right now: I have a ridiculous sunburn that makes my body suck up lotion really fast, and makes me really thirsty. Unfortunately for the burn, I'm sucking up Chardonnay instead, which is why I'll have to remember to spellcheck this later. Maybe twice.
So you have your crispy little baked phyllo shells with cheesecake inside them. Needless to say, they're going to suck up moisture from the cheesecake and get soggy. Now, how do you fix it? Just like my personality, the answer is simple, but only if you bake the cheesecakes before you put them in the shells. Bake your phyllo shells, empty. When they are cool, coat the inside with a little bit of melted chocolate. You can use your finger to do this: I won't tell. Pop them in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes, just until the chocolate hardens. Then you can take your already-baked cheesecake, and either spoon it into the shells, or take a small cutter and cut small circles of the cheesecake to put in the shell. The chocolate will make a hard barrier so that the cheesecake can't touch the phyllo to make it soggy. If it looks too sloppy for your liking (and it probably will, based on the tone of your voice in your smug question), just top it off with some whipped cream or berries. People f-ing love berries on their cheesecake. Seriously, in a retail bakery, you can charge twice as much for a cheesecake if you just throw a couple of blueberries on it.
If that doesn't answer your question because you're used to baking the cheesecake batter inside the phyllo shells, then I'm sorry but I don't have an answer for you because I can't defy the laws of physics. Anytime you bake something in a phyllo shell, its going to soak up moisture from the filling while it bakes and get soggy. That is, unless you fill the shell with a lovely sawdust filling or a careful selection of hairballs. But I'm pretty sure those won't go over too well at your dinner party.
And remember, when you hear someone mispronounce "phyllo," just do what I do and mercilessly make fun of their ignorance. I tend to upset people by always saying the wrong thing, so sometimes I like to just get it out of the way early. Happy cheescake-ing!
No, on that that spellcheck...