Goat Cheese

Last night I went out to dinner with my friends Laura and Michelle and we had goat cheese for appetizers and goat cheese in the main course.  We were sharing everything, and I expressed my insecurity about ordering too much goat cheese, when Michelle, who is a very wise friend, said, "there can never be too much goat cheese."

I think this is one of the great truths of the universe.  Goat cheese rules.  So, this afternoon I ran myself over to the farmer's market and bought a bunch of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (because my sad few on my sad vine aren't red yet) and a fat hunk of goat cheese.  I chopped those tomatoes and threw them in a bowl with a bit of sea salt and let their juices leach out and settle. Then I cooked up a bag of ravioli I had knocking around my freezer, along with the last bit of a box of pasta,  sprinkled it with olive oil.  Ran outside to cut some basil, which is doing very well, thank you very much, and threw it all together with goat cheese while the ravioli was still warm.  Oh yeah, I also tossed in a few sprigs of parsley and a several grindings of pepper.

Perfection.  Because we all know, there can never be too much goat cheese.

An Update on Yesterday's Post

Yesterday I thought I'd roast the eggplant and make hummus and bread but that was before I moved around the empty bottles of salad dressing in my refrigerator and discovered I had a bottle of capers.  Capers are capable of making anything taste good.  Then I saw, standing there, shining,  from the top shelf of the fridge, like Glen Close in the Natural, a half bottle of Rao's Marinara Sauce.  Not even moldy!  And as if that weren't enough, I also found a very small can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes (which are the best canned tomatoes in the world) hiding behind the chickpeas.  And then, because the pantry gods were clearly smiling down on me from their lofty home in Bedford NY, I realized I had a box of couscous.

Well, the eggplant was already roasted, so I just scraped all the good eggplant-y stuff out from the skin (which no one in my family likes because the skin can be a bit bitter) threw it in a hot pan with olive oil, crushed garlic and a couple of tablespoons of capers, the chickpeas, the Rao's and the can of  tomatoes.  Let it simmer for about 15 min.  OH -- yeah, I also spilled some of Shiraz I was drinking into the whole thing because it looked dry.  Then I let it simmer for 15 minutes.  Served it all over the couscous.  (Well, Smith's and my portions, anyway.  Even though I'm not in the habit of doing this, I cooked up more tortellini for Mads and Em because they asked me nicely)

It was delicious, although my daughters picked the chickpeas out of theirs and fed them to the dogs.