I got this gorgeous cheese board and cheese knives as a birthday gift from our neighbor friends, Matt & Laura. I finally had a chance to use it when I invited some friends over for dinner last night. From my research and experience with cheese platters, I had too many ideas and choices going through my cheese-loving brain. My friend, Breanne, was bringing appetizers so I didn't wanna go overboard with the cheese plate. So after much thought and consideration, the following made it to the platter:
Brie - mild & creamy
Pecorino Romano - salty & hard
Apricot Jam (recipe in a separate post)
Red grapes
Almonds
Walnuts
72% Dark Chocolate
Brioche toast
Plain crackers
I prepped the platter about 30 minutes prior the guests' arrival so that the cheese wasn't too cold. The one thing I forgot to do was place little signs with the cheeses' names on it. Oh well, there's always a next time.
The menu for our Italian themed dinner:
Cheese platter.
Breanne, my co-worker and friend, and her fiance, Scott, brought appetizers: Homemade Bruschetta, toasted bread with Mozzarella+Pesto+Sundried tomatoes, and really good Balsamic Vinegar with EVOO.
I made pasta sauce from scratch and served it with spaghetti and shredded Parmigiano Reggiano. Hubby and I had an impromptu date-night at Delfina in SF several weeks ago. After doing my routine check on Yelp to find the most popular dish, I saw that everyone kept raving about their spaghetti. We scanned other people's foods around us after we got seated at our table, and saw that most of them were eating, what looked like, plain old spaghetti. We ended up ordering it as well and I kid you not, it was not your plain spaghetti. The sauce was simple yet extremely delicious and it just had a perfect balance of flavors. Breanne actually gave me the recipe for the pasta sauce from a cookbook she has and I like to think that it was pretty close to the original from Delfina. ;)
Ross and Ben, our friends, made Tiramisu from scratch!! It was probably THE BEST Tiramisu ever! It was just perfect. I had a serving and half!
