A Half Cup

Hi gang,

So if you recall, a few weeks ago, Lori (my friend and boss) sent over a great recipe for this goat cheese strata thingy (it’s not as complicated as it sounds).

Well, fast forward to a little over a week ago: I made it for our wine tasting holiday party here at the office, and wanted to share my experience with you!

First, let me remind you of the recipe:

Cut very top off head of garlic, drizzle with olive oil and wrap in foil, bake in oven at 400 for one hour until soft.

Ingredients:
One half pound cream cheese @ room temp,
One half pound goat cheese @ room temp
Salt and pepper
One half cup sundried tomato pesto,
One third cup basil pesto

How to make:
1. Mix the cheeses together well, divide evenly into three small bowls.
2. In first, squeeze the roasted garlic and mix well with the cheese blend adding salt and pepper to taste.
3. In the second bowl, add the sun dried tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste.
4. In the third, mix the basil pesto and add salt (*careful not to overdo if your pesto already is well salted) pepper.
5. In a 3 cup ramekin or bowl, line with dampened cheese cloth. Spoon basil mix onto bottom and smooth with spatula.
6. Next, put the roasted garlic on top of the basil layer and smooth with a spatula, followed by the tomato layer.
7. Fold excess cloth over the strata. Refrigerate at least one hour…better at 2 or 3 hours.
8. To serve, unfold the cloth and invert onto platter, carefully peel cloth off the cheese….serve with crackers, bread, bagels, pita, or veggies.
***makes three cups

Now, it says you can do this in a ramekin or bowl…I’m dumb, saw only the word ramekin, and thought, “I don’t have one, so I’ll improvise and use a tart pan! YAY!”

(first layer with pesto)

Dumb. So dumb. Don’t do this, okay?

(second layer that’s supposed to have roasted garlic in it, but I forgot it at the store and was too lazy to go back, so it’s just the two cheese mixture)

Here’s what happened, it turned out great, don’t get me wrong, but it made the layers incredibly thin and hard to spread. So I had to heat up each mixture to spread it over the top of the previous layer, and be VERY CAREFUL. It went fine in the end, and it was tasty, but I have to tell you, I could have really screwed it up easily.

(final, third layer with sundried tomatoes. This was supposed to be sundried tomato pesto, but I could not find that, and I bought my ingredients at Costco, so I just made do!)

So, my advice is to make this in a bowl, like Dina said, not do what I did, and completely ignore the directions. Right. Check. Done and done.

Also, because I’m a spaz, I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but really it just looks like the first picture, because the layers are so thin that you only see the pesto layer when it’s turned out.

Tags: cream cheese, Dinner Date, entertaineasy, goat cheese, pesto, sundried tomatoes