Recipes + News + Foodie School

How do we love sheep’s milk? Let us count the ways! This week we want to share with you the beautiful world of cheeses made with sheep’s milk and what it is about our wooly friends that makes their milk so special and delicious. So hop in the sheep jeep, there’s a lot of ground to cover!

This is an easy 1-pot recipe that makes a big pot of smoky beans with our favorite bacon, the Maplewood Smoked version from Broadbent in KY! (Just remember to soak your beans the night before!) The salty, porky flavor is brought out even more by the addition of Burlap and Barrel’s Smoked Pimenton Paprika. This is more than enough for one meal, so we like to use the leftovers as a base for weeknight Cassoulet! (Recipe coming later this week!) 

This might be the best darn squash soup we've ever had! The combination of sweet squash, deeply caramelized onions and aged Gouda is absolutely incredible! 

Ingredients:  

2 Medium to Large Butternut Squash (Peeled, seeds removed and cubed)

2/3 Cup Jam Band - or other well-aged gouda cheese (finely grated)

2 Large Shallots (Sliced)

2 Medium Red Onion (Diced)

6 Cups Quick Chicken Stock (recipe below, or any other chicken stock you have!)

1 Meyer Lemon (Juiced)

½ cup Dry White Wine

Italian Compound Salt

EVOO

2oz. Beurre de Baratte 

Plain Yogurt or Creme Fraiche (optional, for serving)

Black Urfa Chili (optional, for serving)

Any cheesemaker will tell you that great cheese starts with great milk. Great milk is just one reason we’re excited to highlight Arethusa Farm, one of our favorite American cheese producers!

Located only a few hours drive out of the city in Litchfield, Connecticut, Arethusa Farm has been producing top quality milk for decades from a mixed herd of Jerseys, Brown Swiss, and Holsteins. About 10 years ago they began making a beautiful selection of European-inspired cheeses that are truly exemplary of the quality you get when you start with the best ingredients. We love to support and work directly with American cheese producers across the country because we truly believe in these small operations that care about the animals, environment, and final product. Arethusa’s cheeses may be European-inspired but they are pure American gold. Two of our favorites we have on hand right now are Europa and Arethusa Blue (pictured above).

Europa is made in the style of a traditional Dutch Gouda, but it’s buttery texture and savory/sweet flavor makes us think of that beloved slice of good ol’ American deli cheese, just brought to a whole new level. Europa is the kind of cheese you’ll want to simply snack on or make the perfectly gooey grilled cheese or egg sandwich. 

For all you blue lovers out there, Arethusa Blue just might be the closest thing you can get to classic English Stilton this side of the pond. Beneath a delicate natural rind is the most mesmerizing blue veining and dense fudgey paste. This blue has that chocolatey, nutty and deeply rich flavor that will pair perfectly with fresh or dried fruit and is bold enough to stand up to a nice steak and add savory depth to a salad.

If you have yet to explore the wide, beautiful world of domestic artisanal cheese, Arethusa Farm is a great place to start--and get hooked!

One of the perks of having the best San Marzano tomatoes available all year long is having a little taste of summer at the end of winter! One of the other great things is that you only need a few other complimentary ingredients to make something really delicious! The controne pepper adds some fruity heat, but if you don’t like the spice you can leave it out. Drizzle some of the oil from the marinated feta over the top of your bowl for some extra garlicky, herby flavor. 

This is an easy way to turn a snack into a condiment! Or combine the remains of a bunch of random jars into something delicious! Spoon your tapenade over roast vegetables and meats, spread it on your sandwich, or serve it on your next veggie or cheese board. Use it as a pizza topping, as a loose sauce for pasta or jazz up your eggs! This recipe is very loose and depends more on what's left after you’ve already been snacking. Not all of us can bite into a Calabrian chili without sweating a little, so this will help you use up every last piece in the mix, and everything that's left in the jar! 

This was a HUGE hit from our family meal this week. Who doesn’t love slurping up some noodles?! We loved the contrast in textures between the nuts and the beef. The crisp vegetables and the fresh herbs (almost) made us feel like we were eating a salad. If you want to add a bit of depth or some funk, swap out some of the kosher salt for fish sauce or soy sauce when seasoning the meat. And don’t skip the lime wedge! Squeezing some fresh juice over the top adds some nice acidity to the final product. This can easily be made with whatever ground meat you have on hand, or with mushrooms if you want a vegetarian version! 

Raw, roasted, braised, poached… the possibilities are endless when it comes to radishes! They are one of our favorite vegetables to have on hand year round. This is the clutch player on the fridge team. There are a myriad of varieties that are available year round with a myriad of applications!

This is one of the tastiest, easiest, slam dunk, soul satisfying, “how did you make something so darn delicious in only 20 minutes?” dinners we have ever made.  As the name suggests, we are hacking our leftovers, because the only thing more delicious than leftovers is a casserole full of the combination of all them!  The inspiration for this was a deep craving for Chicken Parmesan, but we only had a 1/4 chicken (not enough for 2 adults and a baby) and 20 minutes before dinner time. Out of necessity deliciousness was born!  The secret to getting this meal on the table in 15 minutes? We are going to cook it from both sides.

We've made a lot of tomato sauce in our day, but this one is REALLY tops! The addition of Calabrian Chilis, Anchovies, Capers, sweet preserved peppers and a hearty helping of Parmigiano Reggiano give this sauce so much dimension, hence, the "ultimate"!

Let's get to know American farmstead cheese! "Farmstead" refers to cheese that is made on the same land that the animals live on. An intimate knowledge of the animals that produce the milk for your cheese takes the craft of cheesemaking to whole different level, one that harkens back to the days before industrialized cheese and back to the days of the family-run farm.

The best mushrooms are crispy ones with beautiful flavor and a hearty bite, for the ultimate treat, take these crispy shrooms to the next level by making them into Shroom Tartiflette.