goat's milk cheese for dinner: finally, a sign of spring!

this spring has been terrible. it's been the coldest spring in seattle on record, and as a result, spring crops are painfully slow coming in from local farms. we've been cooking soups and stews from ingredients in the freezer, waiting, waiting, for asparagus, spring peas, fennel--anything to make it seem like seattle spring really is different from seattle winter. eventually, i ran out of meats in the freezer, so on a relatively dry saturday we headed out to the u district farmers market for some ground beef so we could continue on with our maddeningly snores-ville diet of chili.

but guess what? goat's milk has its highest fat content in spring, during kidding season, and that makes for some pretty decadent fresh cheese. so when we saw the port madison goat farm and dairy booth, we thought, oh yes--cheese plate dinner.

we brought home two amazing cheeses from port madison--a fresh chevre and their short-season spring cheese. the chevre was bright white, incredibly creamy, and had a barely-there texture. the flavor was wonderful, and relatively mild. the spring cheese is a goat's milk cheese that is aged two months, with a great springy texture (its name seems to describe it in two ways) and a fantastic mild goat flavor. the spring cheese can only be made during the first couple of months of the milking season, so spring and early summer are the times to look for this one.

also on our plate were honey hazelnut crackers from beecher's in pike place market, stewed dried apricots from pipitone farm, hazelnuts from holmquist (because they are THE BEST), and vanilla rhubarb preserves. by combining cracker, cheese, and fruit, we quickly made a welcomed observation--each bite tasted like cheesecake!

super simple stewed dried apricots below, from deborah madison's book, seasonal fruit desserts. this is a truly stunning book, and anyone into fruit or dessert should have this on their shelves.

dried apricots stewed with vanilla and honey
adapted from compote of dried fruit, seasonal fruit desserts by deborah madison

3/4 cup honey
1/2 vanilla bean, or substitute high-quality vanilla extract
2 cups dried apricots, or mix of dried fruits
3 cups water

combine water and honey in saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring. scrape vanilla bean seeds into pan and add pod, or add vanilla extract. add fruit, reduce heat to low, and cook until apricots are soft, about 10-15 minutes. (could be longer if using mixed fruit.)

when fruit is cooked, remove from the pan with a spoon, leaving the syrup in the pan. simmer syrup for a few minutes to thicken, then pour over fruit.

potato gratin with summer savory

right after we moved into our place in seattle i took a careful tour of the yard, looking for any perennial herbs left behind by previous residents. i found only 7 small plants growing along the front of the house that looked like a less woody rosemary, but the taste indicated they were definitely not rosemary. the flavor was a little like thyme, but with the bitterness and pungency of oregano. i snipped a piece to take with me to the seattle tilth edible plant sale a few weeks later, and compared my sample to their herb starts. that's how i discovered we had 7 small summer savory plants in our yard.

once i'd learned what it was, i had a new critical question-- what the heck do you do with it? all of the online information i could find talked about its use in flavoring beans. it wasn't seeming like a terribly versatile herb, and i had 7 of them. (now we're down to 3, since i ripped out 4 to make the tomato bed.)

a couple of months ago i bought a new cookbook, the herbal kitchen by jerry traunfeld. jerry was executive chef at the way celebrated restaurant/inn, the herbfarm in woodinville, washington, before opening his new restaurant here in seattle, poppy. (maybe you saw him on top chef masters this past season! he didn't make it to the end, but we remain darn proud, just the same.) the bottom line is, jerry is a chef known for his knowledge of herbs, and his cookbook offered a great recipe-- a summer savory potato gratin. we're entering a potato drought for several weeks until the new season crops are ready at olsen farms, and the gratin was a perfect use for my final 2 pounds of yukon golds until later in the summer.

summer savory potato gratin

adapted from the herbal kitchen by jerry traunfeld

2 lbs organic waxy or russet potatoes, like yukon golds or rio grande

1+ Tbsp butter cut into dices, plus some softened for preparing the pan

1/4 cup chopped shallot

1/4 cup chopped summer savory (substitutions: 2 Tbps chopped winter savory or chopped thyme)

1 cup (or more) grated good quality gruyere cheese

3/4 cup milk (we used organic 2%)

kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

heat oven to 400 degrees. peel potatoes and slice them as close to 1/16" as you can. (remember when i said you have to get a mandoline if you don't have one? i'm serious. go get one now. you can slice 2 lbs of potatoes in, like, 4 minutes.)

butter a gratin dish (glass or ceramic) and arrange 1/3 of the potato slices around the bottom. top with 1/2 shallots, 1/3 savory, and 1/3 cheese. sprinkle with salt and pepper. repeat twice more, topping with savory and cheese. (season each layer with salt and pepper!) dot top with the diced butter and pour milk over top.

bake 40-45 minutes until browned and bubbly.

sources:

yukon gold potatoes-- olsen farms

shallots-- pipitone farm