Cougar Gold

The time has come for me to wrench my eyes away from endless games of Bejeweled and focus on a productive pastime. As of today, this blog is up and running again.

With so many subjects dear to me, I had trouble, at first, pinpointing my focus. Although food blogs are as common as dog hairs on my rug, I really want to write about food and share recipes that I develop in my kitchen in the spontaneous way that I do when I have a meal to prepare with limited time and ingredients. I hope that my readers will enjoy sharing meals with my family in this way.

My dear and generous friend Dana and her husband Dan came for dinner and poker the other day, bringing with them wine, and a whole can of Cougar Gold cheese. Cougar Gold is made locally on the Washington State University campus in limited quantities. The production quota is bought out quickly each year. It is a pale yellow cheddar-type cheese with a buttery, sharp flavor and a crumbly texture. It melts beautifully. It is sealed into flat, round cans that weigh about 2 pounds each, so a whole wheel is an extravagant luxury.

We savored the cheese that night with plain crackers, and I've had it on toast, with apples and pears and with pasta. My two teenage children who live at home declared it, "too sharp," preferring the blander, smoother, slightly bitter flavor of orange Tillamook medium cheddar. They are always suspicious of any cheese that isn't orange, unless it's mozzarella.

The best combination that I've discovered so far is Cougar Gold and Squash Soup. I improvised this soup for dinner a couple of weeks ago. My husband and I had it with Garlic Crostini and Domaine de Couron Cotes du Rhone Villages 2005. It was just the two of us. I was a great dinner.


Squash and White Bean Soup

2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp olive oil melted together in a soup pot
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 shallots
3 cloves garlic
A 3 - 4 pound squash, cut in half, seeds removed and baked until soft
3 15 ounce cans of white beans, drained and rinsed or the equivalent in homemade white beans
7 ounces whole tomatoes, with juice
1" cube fresh ginger, grated
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
black pepper and salt to taste
1 - 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar or to taste.
Water or broth - about 4 cups
Parsley for garnish

Saute the onion and shallots in the butter and oil until soft and slightly browned. Add the garlic and saute a few more minutes until the garlic is soft and fragrant. Add the ginger and paprika and saute another minute.

Add the tomatoes and their juice. Let the juice reduce by about half. Add the beans and squash pulp, the vinegar (add part, taste and add more as necessary. It should impart depth of flavor, not sourness). Puree it all in the pot with a hand-held immersible blender. Add enough water or broth to make a thick soup - to your preference. Taste and add nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. Simmer on low for 15-20 minutes until all flavors are blended.
Serve with grated Cougar Gold Cheese and Garlic Crostini

Garlic Crostini

Saute French or Sourdough bread fingers in olive oil and butter until brown and crispy on both sides. Rub each with a clove of garlic. Salt lightly and serve with soup.