Ile De France Fol Epi Cheese

About six months ago I learned that one of my great-grandfathers was a cheese maker. I was thrilled at this information for obvious reasons, the least of which is my love of cheese. I've tried so many types of cheese, some memorable and others not so, but I rarely find a cheese that I dislike. Ile De France produces many of my favorite French cheeses and I'm always happy to try new ones.

French cheeses are so different in nature than others and I find that each has a quality to it that pairs well with certain foods; sort of like I fine wine. Fol Epi is a cheese with a distinctive flavor likened to Emmental. Nutty and smooth, it doesn't have quite the bite that a Swiss would have and is milder in flavor, but equally delicious.

My favorite grilling cheese is of the Swiss variety, so I knew exactly what would become of this lovely sampling. The sandwich was so good, and the flavor of the cheese so mild, that my 3 year-old daughter couldn't get enough ... thankfully the other kids were out for the day.

The Fol Epi Grilled Sandwich

Serves 1

Printable Recipe

2 teaspoons grainy brown mustard

2 teaspoons honey

1 Naan bread

4 ounces smoked turkey breast slices

1 ounce sliced Ile De France Fol Epi cheese

red pepper slices

tomato slices

leaf lettuce

1. Slice Naan in half crosswise. Spread both halves with mustard and honey on one side only.

2. Layer one side with turkey, red pepper and cheese. Top with other half.

3. Cook in a non-stick grill pan, flipping once, until cheese is melted - about 3 -4 minutes.

4. Carefully remove one half and top with tomatoes and lettuce - replace top and serve.

The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook

Mireille Guilliano, businesswoman extraordinaire and author took time out of her busy schedule recently to speak with me. Yes, me. I behaved myself rather well and didn't fall apart despite the fact that I was beyond nervous to speak to such an icon. I think I blathered on a bit too much about how I'd love to live in Provence, but she was gracious enough to listen to me.

I had read her first book, French Women Don't Get Fat, several years ago and, forgive the pun, absolutely devoured it. I, like so many American women, was searching for the answer to my expanding waistline and the best way to manage it. I thought then, and still think now, that Mireille hit the proverbial nail on the head with her book.

She espoused a more austere form of eating that had more to do with enjoying what one eats than how much one eats. There was no calorie counting or strict rules, just a common sense approach that was a sort of forehead slapping moment once I'd read it. Rather than the whole chicken, why not just a breast - and slowly consumed at that?

We are so busy and unfocused in America that eating has gone from pleasurable and deliberate to haphazard and as fast as we can get it. Mireille gently but effectively redirected us and has now expanded on her first book with a perfectly sensible and wonderfully delicious cookbook.

We chatted about college and the 'freshman 15', how food choices away from home are often difficult to make wisely (she knew this all too well from her own college days) and how getting to know your food can help to make better choices.

Her advice to parents wanting to make a family-wide change is to take your children to the market and helping them to connect with their food and where it comes from. Letting them help prepare is also a great way to help them want to eat better.

Over at Half Hour Meals we like to ask our interviewees which ingredients they can't live without. Mireille shared hers with me:

Dairy - especially cheese. Mireille has cheese every day.
Eggs - for their versatility and thrift. They're also quick to prepare for unexpected company.
Fresh fruits and vegetables.
Bread
Chocolate
Lemon
Vinegar
Olive oil

There are 150 recipes in the The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook - several from her other books because they were requested so often - and each one looks divine.

I'm completely smitten with her Miracle Breakfast Cream and I prepared the Caramelized Chicken with Vegetable “Pancake” and it was one of the best chicken dishes I've ever eaten and so quick and easy to prepare that it's become a regular dish here. In fact, you can watch Mireille prepare it here: http://mireilleguiliano.com/content/mireille-cooks-on-nbcs-today-show

Caramelized Chicken with Vegetable “Pancake”
• S e r v e s 4 •

For the Vegetable Pancake

1 carrot, washed and grated
2 medium potatoes, peeled
and grated
1 small zucchini, washed
and grated
1 garlic clove, peeled and
minced
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground
pepper

1. Place the grated carrot, potatoes, and zucchini
in the center of a large, clean kitchen towel. Wrap
tightly and squeeze as much liquid as possible
from the vegetables. Unroll and place the grated
vegetables in a large bowl. Add the garlic, thyme,
and 1 tablespoon olive oil and mix well.

2. In a large, nonstick sauté pan, heat the remaining
2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat.
Add the vegetable mixture to the pan, pressing
down so the pancake is about 1/2 inch thick and
cook until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Carefully
flip the pancake over (you can invert onto a
plate first and slide back into the pan if you are
nervous about the pancake falling apart) and continue
cooking until the other side is crisp and
golden and the vegetables are cooked, another 8 to
10 minutes. Remove from the pan and keep warm.
Season to taste.


For the caramelized Chicken

1 lemon, rinsed, dried, and
quartered
12 small green olives, pitted
and cut in half
1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper
flakes
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 (6- to 8-ounce) skinless,
boneless chicken breasts
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. In a large bowl, combine the lemon, olives, red
pepper flakes, honey, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon
olive oil. Add the chicken breasts, season to
taste, and stir to coat.

2. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a
large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the
chicken-lemon-olive mixture and sauté until the
chicken is cooked through and slightly caramelized,
about 8 minutes per side. Serve the chicken
with lemon and olives and accompanied by a
wedge of the vegetable pancake.

I so appreciate Mireille speaking with me and enlightening me about her books and her way of life - I love this cookbook and highly recommend it - there are no overly fussy recipes, just quick, delicious food that will satisfy more than your tummy.

Book provided by and interview arranged through Simon and Schuster.

Minnie Rose Lovgreen's Recipe for Raising Chickens: The Main Thing is to Keep Them Happy

From the time I first read any one of the Little House on the Prairie books I've wanted to live on a small farm and raise chickens (and goats and bees). As fate would have it, I never left the city my family moved to when I was 4 and the only glimpses of farm life I had as a child were the summers I spent in Indiana and Michigan.

Recently when I picked up raw milk at a farm nearby I saw a very large fenced yard filled with chickens. They were scratching at the dirt and clucking at one another. Once in a while one would take off running and stop just as abruptly as she'd started. It reminded me of how much I wanted to raise my own birds.

When my copy of Minnie Rose Lovgreen's Recipe for Raising Chickens came in the mail, I promptly sat down and read it from cover to cover. It turned out to be one of the most entertaining how-to books I've ever read. I giggled many times at the thought of Minnie saying these things to Nancy Rekow, who wrote them down and created this book to share Minnie's invaluable advice with everyone.

Straight-forward and to the point, but with a very sweet and witty tone, Minnie teaches how to raise chickens from which are best for laying to what they should be fed and how to treat the chicks when they find their way out of their egg homes.

This book takes the reader back to a simpler time when antibiotics were not used and chickens were fed what they wanted and raised in a gentle and wholesome way. It renewed in me the desire to raise my own brood of hens!

Even if chicken raising isn't something you've thought about doing, you just might feel differently after reading this. Pick up a copy and share it with your children, too - the simple line drawings are quaint and dear and the entire book was written by hand - no fancy modern typeface here!

Minnie Rose Lovgreen's Recipe for Raising Chickens, Edited by Nancy Rekow & Chaya Siegelbaum, Illustrated by Elizabeth Hutchison Zwick and published by NW Trillium Press is available in bookstores nationwide and online.

Book provided by NW Trillium Press.

Must-Have Summer Cookbooks

If you aren't aware by now that tomatoes are about my absolute favorite food on the planet (and probably off the planet, too) then you don't read this blog often enough. Let's just say, a day without tomatoes is a day without air. I have two cookbooks on-hand that I've been reading through for the past month or so and they have become books that I know I'll be using often.

The first is Tomatoes, Garlic, Basil written by fellow Pennsylvanian, Doug Oster and published by St. Lynn's Press, Pittsburgh. Come on, with a title like that, what's not to love? There's no way I'd walk by this one and not pick it up. These three ingredients are so key in many, many recipes and cuisines and this book delves into all three, but not just in recipes, in terms of growing and caring for all three, as well.

Planting, growing, harvesting and storing are covered for all three plants and the recipes run the gamut from old family favorites like Savory Tomato Sauce with Bacon (there's a must-read story behind that one!) to simple and quickly prepared dishes like the Simple Perfect Tomato Sandwich.

This book is also filled with personal stories and anecdotes that make it really worth the read. Whether you're looking for a recipe or a tip for keeping pests away from your tomatoes, you'll want to get your hands on this book.

---

The second is simply titled Tomato by Lawrence Davis-Hollander published by Storey. Yep, there's a cookbook I wouldn't pass up in a million years. Think tomatoes are all sauce, salad and salsa? Wrong ... and deliciously so. There are 150 recipes featuring ones from Daniel Boulud, Alice Waters, Rick Bayless and many more world-renowned chefs.

The recipes begin with Sauces & Salsas and end with Desserts - Green Tomato Chocolate Cake, anyone? There are special chapters on Cooking with Heirloom Tomatoes and Preserving the Harvest and if you'd like to know of a Tomato Festival in your neck of the woods, there's a spot for that, too. There are fun tomato facts dotted throughout the book, as well that make it flat out fun to read.

I'm not sure which recipe I want to try first, but I do know that this book will get lots of play in my kitchen. There are recipes in here that I never would have thought of despite my fierce love for tomatoes. Check it out today and be prepared for the harvest this summer!

Jersey Diner Coffee Cake

Jersey Diner Coffee Cake

I'm not sure where the title of this recipe came from, but if you've ever had an Entenmann's Ultimate Crumb Cake, this is nearly identical to it. Dense crumbs top a moist, buttery cake and the result is pure joy.

This uses a boxed cake mix and margarine - both taboo these days, it seems - but we so enjoy this cake that I make it with both anyway. There's no reason to eat a whole cake in one sitting, and if you stick to one piece (I dare you!), then you're not ruining your health completely.

I know I found this online somewhere about 11 years ago, but I didn't save that information and I'm clueless as to the author. There are different versions of this floating around, though, so I don't feel as if I'm stepping on any toes. Whoever you are, here's to your delicious creation.

Look at all that butter, cinnamon, sugar and vanilla.

Perfectly crumbed cake.

Jersey Diner Coffee Cake
Makes one 11x15 cake
Printable Recipe

1 pkg Duncan Hines Butter Cake mix (or any other brand)
4 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Blend together until lumps disappear - do not over mix.
Bake in a greased 11x15 jellyroll pan for 20-25 minutes.

Crumb Topping:

4 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (I used Floridian Gourmet [see photograph] which is sadly out of business now, but his newest endeavor is HERE - this guy knows his stuff!) 
2 sticks of margarine
1 stick of butter

Melt butters and let cool slightly. Add vanilla.
Mix flour, cinnamon, sugars then add the liquid mixture.
Crumble with hands and place on warm cake. Bake again for 20 min at 350 degrees F.
Let cool and dust with powdered sugar.