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.

Like Oil and Water... and Noodles

Dear Tricia, My mom always cooked spaghetti with a little bit of oil in the water because she said it helped to keep the noodles from sticking together. Is she right? I have money riding on this.

Well friend, I don't know who just lost money, but whomever agreed with your mom needs to pay up. Putting oil in pasta water is something that I've seen a lot of people do, but they're all just wasting good olive oil. In fact, one of the first things I learned from Chef Pardus at the Culinary Institute of America was that tip right there. He also taught me that my knife skills are terrible. I was called "Lefty" because I was always cutting my fingers. (Unintentionally. Despite my burn marks and scars, I'm not into self-mutilation.)
In theory, it seems like a good idea: oil keeps things from sticking. But like me and Rachael Ray, oil and water are mortal enemies. Oil won't disperse itself throughout the water to evenly coat all the pasta, it will only stay in one spot because oil and water just don't mix. I mean, come on... how many euphemisms are there about oil and water not going together? When you pour the cooked pasta out into a colander, the only noodles that will get oil on them are the ones closest to the little blob of oil that never mixed in with the water. That's like hosting a frat party with one beer and expecting everyone to drink it and get wasted. There's just not enough to go around.
If you want to keep your pasta from sticking, leave the oil out of the water. (And salt the water, dammit. If there's one thing you should learn from this blog, it's that.) When you pour out the cooked pasta to drain, put the oil directly on the pasta and toss them around to coat them. Simple as that.
Back to my pocket Tetris game...

How to make pesto in your meth lab

Dear Tricia, How do I make pesto? I mean, how to do I really make it?


Well, I can tell you how to make it, but I'm not sure if I can tell you how to really make it. Okay, that was a stupid joke. For reals, it's easy. So easy, in fact, that I'll tell you right here in seconds. Er... minutes. But if you're on meth, you'll be able to read it in seconds, I'm sure.
Get a food processor. (See my Swedish meatball post for how to steal one from your divorcing neighbors. Very important to master that trick if you want to pimp your kitchen for free.) If you don't have divorcing neighbors, or no neighbors at all because you live in a meth lab (congrats on your meth haze-induced culinary endeavors!! A real gourmet, huh??), then use a blender. It won't look as nice and smooth, but it'll still taste good. You'll need:

2 cups packed full of basil leaves
1/3 cup pine nuts (Buy them in bulk at a health food store or an upscale grocery store other than Whole Foods Market because they fired me.)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 grated parmesan cheese
3 chopped garlic cloves
salt and pepper

Blend the basil leaves and pine nuts together. Add the garlic and blend that in. Add the olive oil in a slow stream until it's all blended together. Scrape the sides of the food processor or blender with a spatula to get all the goodness off the sides. Add the parmesan cheese, and however much salt and pepper tastes good to you. Seriously... taste it. Does it need more salt? Then add more salt. I'm always surprised at how many people don't check. Maybe that's why they're sending me their questions on this blog.

Simple as that. A little expensive if you're trying to have a homemade pesto dinner party for 30, but come on... you live in a meth lab. You can afford it.

Happy pasta for fun noodle time dinner

Dear Tricia, Is there an easy way to know when different types of pasta are 'al dente'? I tend to way overcook anything besides spaghetti.

First of all, let's talk vocabulary for the less-inclined-to-know-foreign-words people who are reading this. "Al dente" (pronounced like "den-tay") is Italian for "to the tooth" or "to the bite." That means you have to chew the pasta because it is firm enough to chew, but not hard. If you've never had this delightful pasta experience, then you've been suffering from what I like to call Mush Mouth. If you're not overcooking your spaghetti, than you don't have far to go until you're a pasta expert. Seriously, there's only about 600 different pasta shapes in the world, so 1 out of 600 ain't bad. It's a good jumping off point, at least.
It's easy to just tell you you're leaving the pasta in the water too long and to stop doing that. However, if you find yourself in a bind and you've overcooked the farfalle and its too late to start over and your girlfriend has showed up for the make-up dinner you promised her after your fight yesterday about you playing too much Halo, take the pasta, drain it, and dump it in a bowl of ice water. This stops the pasta from cooking further. It won't fix your pasta, but it'll help it from getting mushier.
Truthfully, you're probably boiling your water wrong to begin with. I promise I'm not trying to talking to you like you're stupid (I saved that for the first paragraph), but there is a very particular way to boil pasta water. First, you've got to get the water to a rolling boil: not just an impatient couple of bubbles at the bottom... let the water get seriously messy, like someone on "Girls Gone Wild." After its messy and rolling and you got it to put its shirt back on, add lots and lots of salt; enough so that you can taste the salt in the water. And only after the salt has dissolved, you can add the pasta. There are no exact times for how long to cook your pasta because the shape, size, and thickness will determine when they are al dente. The best way to learn is to not get distracted by your Halo game, and keep checking on the pasta by tasting it. When it is soft enough to chew, but still firm, its done. And remember, if you think you've gone too far, pour it into ice water. In fact, the first couple of times you practice, just go ahead and have that ice water ready. Only 599 varieties left until you're a pro!