Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread

Pinterest, you are bad for my arteries. It was this photo thanks to Deseree Kazda of Life’s Ambrosia blog that sealed my fate for me. This recipe uses roasted garlic butter and brie to stuff the bread, but as Des pointed out, she also saw the Beantown Baker use butter and mushrooms and herbs, and Christy of the Girl Who Ate Everything blog used green onions and Monterey Jack cheese.

So it’s up to you what you want to stuff your bread with! I love all of Des’ and Christy’s recipes, which tend to be very comforting, so consider adding them to your RSS feed- they are on mine (I used to be on Google Reader but with the sad news of its impending demise recently am trying out Feedly).

Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread

Ingredients (serves 4):

  • 1 large boule of some sort. The original recipe calls for sourdough, but I went with Pearl Bakery Italian country bread Paesano.
  • 1 bulb garlic
  • 1 tablespoon and then 7 tablespoons of butter
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  • pinch of salt
  • a few grounds of freshly ground black pepper
  • 8 ounces of brie cheese

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
  2. First, let’s roast the garlic in the skin. Cut 1/4 inch of the top of the bulb of garlic to expose all the cloves. Place the garlic with the cut side up in a piece of aluminum foil, and put one tablespoon of butter on top, right on those cloves, in such a way it will melt and get each clove. Yum already right? Alternately you can use olive oil for this instead of butter, but why have one little sliver of a tablespoon of butter left? Oh, I guess you could just use all olive oil as a substitute for butter in this recipe. Well, I didn’t.
  3. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the garlic and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Twist the aluminum foil to close it to finish your little present, and roast the garlic for 1 hour. The cloves should be soft and golden and squishy. Set aside to cool.
  4. Slice the bread vertically and horizontally into squares, but do not cut all the way through as you want the bottom of the loaf to hold all these pieces together (sort of like one of those blooming onions of the 80s and 90s…). You will probably want to do the cuts in rows first, making each row about an inch or less apart, and then turn it and cut the other way. Place the bread on a sheet of foil that is large enough to later wrap the whole bread.
    Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread
  5. Dice the brie- the size may vary depending on your bread and how you sliced it- you want each piece of brie to fit in between every cut of bread. It’s up to you whether you want to carefully trim off the white outer layer first- that skin is edible, but it does have a chewiness to it, so not everyone likes it. The people I was sharing this with I have noticed always leave the outer layer behind (I eat it all) so I did trim it off for this recipe. Dip your knife in hot water so the cheese doesn’t stick to it.
  6. Set the oven to 350 degrees F and using a teaspoon, scoop out the soft garlic cloves. Melt the 7 tablespoons of butter in a small pan with the garlic. If you want to add any herbs, you can do so now. Combine well with a quick stir in that pan
  7. Pour this garlic butter YES ALL OVER all the bread, making sure the bread gets down into the doughy inside spaces you cut access to. I used a silicon pastry brush I have to actually spread the liquid gold garlic butter in all the crevices. Seriously, I can just eat this now, but let’s finish this with the cheese like the recipe intends…
    Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread
  8. Press the brie in between each cut. Wrap up the bread and bake for 15 minutes. Then uncover and bake for 10 more minutes- the cheese should get bubbly!
    Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread

Finally, we can eat this! If you’d like, you can drizzle a little balsamic vinegar on top, or serve it as a dip on the side for the bread. You want to let it cool down for about 10 minutes before you serve so the cheese can get oozy and calm down from the bubbling and your guests don’t burn their fingers and tongues.

Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread Roasted Garlic and Brie Stuffed Bread

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Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night

On March 21st, Alma Chocolates hosted Alberta St.’s The Cheese Plate Food Cart in the Alma Kitchen to create a dinner of inventive grilled cheese bites. The Alma Kitchen is separate from their shop on NE 28th- instead this is a special event room in the newly renovated 105 year old American Brush Building, a former candy factory and grocery distribution center and then American Brush company (and thus the name- the sign for this still is painted on in white letters on the red bricks on one side of the building as you approach from Burnside) and which is supposedly haunted. Thankfully, although the building is rather quiet, when I pulled open one of the two bathroom doors at the end of the hall (not marked- you just have to look for the sliding lock that switches from In Use to Vacant) that said Vacant and saw just a bunch of janitorial and construction tools, I quickly closed it but nothing was moving and I noticed no shadows.

The event was set up as a casual cocktail party with rustic charm using burlap sacks to cover tables and the glow of lots of white candles: it would not have surprised me to hear there were 100 candles throughout the room.

There were a few wooden chairs set up at small tables along the walls around the rectangular space. This was a bit of a surprise to me as most cocktail events I know use lots of tall cocktail tables so that people may not be sitting, but they can anchor themselves by putting food and drink there, and those are throughout the space, including the middle. I got there close to when the doors opened at 6 and my friends and I snagged chairs by a good sized table, but more chairs must have been brought in as additional people sat in a row behind us. Most people ended up being able to sit as the staff brought out the wooden cutting boards to pass out bites of the grilled cheeses, although a few were left leaning against a wall. In the corner, musicians with a guitar and saxophone provided background music.

Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen

The first half hour included snacking from a table with plates of cheese and Alma chocolate- preview of individual bites of all of the cheeses that were being used in the sandwiches we would soon enjoy: River’s Edge “Up in Smoke” Chèvre, Portland Creamery “Sweet Fire” chèvre, Willamette Valley French Prairie Brie, Briar Rose Creamery Feta, Rogue Creamery “Crater Lake” Blue, La Mariposa Five Corners cheese, and Briar Rose Creamery “Madrona” (tallegio style) cheese.

When you first entered the room and saw this table, you couldn’t help but be really impressed by the selection and quality of artisan goods here. The accompaniment here of popcorn rather than the expected vehicle of crackers or baguettes was surprising (especially given 2 of the 5 cheeses were chèvres and how awesome the PDX Cheese Cart’s homemade crackers which I sampled at Wedge 2012 are) but that didn’t stop anyone from enjoying the cheeses, and kept our appetite ready for the grilled cheese bites.

Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Briar Rose Creamery "Madrona" (tallegio style) cheese Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Portland Creamery "Sweet Fire" chèvre Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Rogue Creamery "Crater Lake" Blue Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen La Mariposa Five Corners cheese Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Briar Rose Creamery Feta Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Willamette Valley French Prairie Brie Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Meyer Lemon Bourbon chocolate truffle Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Coconut Mexican and Habanero Caramel chocolate truffles Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen

The Menu of Oregon Cheese & Alma Chocolate included

  • Briar Rose Creamery “Madrona” with pear chutney, toasted and sandwiched with salted peanut butter cup cookies. A great start and end salty and savory and sweet “grilled cheese” course.
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Briar Rose Creamery Madrona salted peanut butter cup cookie sandwich Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Briar Rose Creamery Madrona salted peanut butter cup cookie sandwich
  • Rogue Creamery “Crater Lake Blue” with mocha almond nibby bark, toasted on cranberry bread. Warming up the blue cheese really brought out more of the flavor
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Rogue Creamery Crater Lake Blue with mocha almond nibby bark, toasted on cranberry bread Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Rogue Creamery Crater Lake Blue with mocha almond nibby bark, toasted on cranberry bread
  • Willamette Valley “French Prairie Brie,” habanero caramel, toasted on warm moist banana bread, I may have had 3 of these and taken 4 bites home in one of the pink boxes they offered at the end…
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Willamette Valley French Prairie Brie, habanero caramel, banana bread
  • La Mariposa “Five Corners” cheese and Briar Rose Creamery Feta, Mexican chocolate mole sauce, toasted on corn bread. Although this was tasty, since I was able to enjoy larger chunks of the feta earlier during the first half hour (which is mild and not as salty as you might assume with feta), I would say I liked it earlier than here because there just wasn’t enough of it and although I could see the Five Corners cheese it got a little lost with the corn bread and mole.
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen La Mariposa Five Corners cheese and Briar Rose Creamery Feta, Mexican chocolate mole sauce, corn bread Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen La Mariposa Five Corners cheese and Briar Rose Creamery Feta, Mexican chocolate mole sauce, corn bread
  • Portland Creamery “Sweet Fire Chèvre,” shaved dark chocolate truffle, toasted on buttery soft almond brioche was a spicy sweet soft bite
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen Portland Creamery Sweet Fire Chèvre shaved dark chocolate truffle, almond brioche
  • River’s Edge “Up in Smoke” Chèvre, lavender caramel sauce, toasted on pretzel bread. This was my favorite cheese of the night with its strong smoky flavor
    Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen River’s Edge Up in Smoke Chèvre, lavender caramel sauce,pretzel bread

The event was BYOB, although DRY’s sodas were also available in vanilla bean or lavender or you could mix the two! I really liked the vanilla bean soda- and although we also enjoyed a bubbly sparkling wine I had brought along, the soda also was a lovely refreshing pairing. The April F+P birthday party is coming up in April, and I am intrigued with the idea of including a couple cases of DRY soda with a bar for DIY mixers: if you visit the website they offer several cocktail mix recipes.
Alma Dinner Series: Grilled Cheese Night at the Alma Kitchen DRY soda vanilla bean

The next event in the Alma Dinner series is An Evening of Beer + Chocolate featuring five local breweries (Alameda, pFriem, Hopworks, The Commons Brewery, and Double Mountain) and five local chocolatiers (Alma Chocolate, Cacao, Cocanu, Woodblock, and Xocolatl de David) pairing their chocolate and beer together on April 4th, again at the Alma Studio.

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A visit to Leaky Roof

Leaky Roof Gastropub visit  started out with a full appetizer of Vanilla Bourbon Brie, with Coconut-panko crusted Brie, house made berry compote, grilled baguette, as well as a happy hour portion of the Hummus Plate with Hummus, tomato, Chevre, pickled onion, cucumber, Kalamata olives, pita

Leaky Roof gastropubLeaky Roof gastropub

For the main event, I opted for the delicious and well executed duck entree (the risotto was a bit overly rich with cream and didn’t have enough season to bridge between that richness and the bright perks of the sundried tomato- maybe if they had used arugula isntead of baby spinach it could have evened it out a bit, but still great duck) of Grilled Duck Breast Risotto with Grilled duck breast with a creamy sundried tomato and roasted garlic truffle risotto over baby spinach. He had the satisfactory Vegetarian Black Bean Burger of Black beans & barley infused with cilantro, lime & jalapeño, Tillamook Cheddar, chipotle aioli & avocado, lettuce, tomato, onion. The meat burgers all sounded much better. Leaky Roof gastropubLeaky Roof gastropub I saw many people around me ordering the burgers, but given the quaility of the duck entree, I think they are missing some goodness there. Sure, they are not far from the Timbers stadium and Leaky Roof does have a great happy hour… but they also serve some quality entrees that are equal to the quality of the impressive whiskey flights they also offer. Their food is more on par with what you might get at the Oregon Culinary Institute probably down the street than many of the other more homey casual grills and other eateries with beer that are more typical in the Goose Hollow area- aka Leaky Roof is more gastropub than just a pub by the socccer stadium. Service is prompt and very friendly (the waitress suggested the happy hour portion of the hummus instead of the full knowing the sizes of the dishes we were ordering), and I would call this a neighborhood hidden gem.

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February 14, 2011: Valentine’s Day

Last year, we celebrated with champagne fondue and tiramisu fondue (although technically it is sparkling wine, not champagne). This year we decided to keep the bubbles and hearts theme. For the bubbles, I picked out one from the very dependable Iron Horse Vineyards, though I'm also a fan of Domaine Chandon and Schramsberg. This year it was a 2006 Iron Horse Vineyards Classic Vintage Brut, a brut blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The result is a lot of yeasty bubbles but a very traditional taste that makes it as classic as they label and can go with anything and anytime, although its traditional taste also doesn't make it necessarily stand out as particularly memorable. But bubbles are always fun- especially when within a week I get to enjoy bubbles twice (there was a Bubbles theme to a monthly women's wine locker get-together 4 days before that I had attended). Although many people seem to associate having champagne or sparkling wine with special occasions, I think it should be enjoyed whenever you want some cheer. Something about bubbles is always uplifting in mood, so why hoard it for rare occasions when just popping the cork already starts something fun and special?

Brie my valentine!

The cheese is a P'tit Basque that is a semi-soft French sheep milk cheese that is produced in the Pyrenees Mountains that form the border with Spain and is basically Basque people. The cheese is aged for seventy days and has a mild nutty flavor similar to a Spanish Manchego but with a little bit more olive oil on the skin texture and smoother. The brie is a St Andres triple cream brie that is a basically like butter. The crusty bread loaf you see if from Di Prima Dolci.

You want a piz za me?

We made this using rosemary pizza dough, portobello mushroom marinara, a mix of Tillamook's mozzarella parmesan and smoked provolone with veggie pepperoni and italian sausage, shown here before and after the heat. I liked the Italian sausage's peppery taste but thought the veggie pepperoni was a poor substitute, while he felt the exact opposite. Clearly this pizza, besides the heart shape, is more his taste then mine. He kept wondering when I was going to stop sprinkling on so much cheese so I made myself stop… but he's Jack Spratt after all and also likes to dip his pizza in more marinara. A generous dusting of more parmesan and red pepper always helps me, but I refrained from adding garlic oil or truffle oil since I already had included the cheese plate earlier… I can eat lean!

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