panko crusted eggplant stacks with red wax gouda

Today I'm showcasing Red Wax Gouda. I'm a shameless cheese stalker at Wegman's Cheese Department and I think they offered me samples of three distinct types of Gouda just to get me to eat something and leave the poor cheeses alone. I settled on the Red Wax Gouda because I loved the mild semi-soft creamy taste of it. I got a nice sized wedge of it for $2.80.



Gouda is an excellent choice if you like semi-soft mild cheese. Not soft enough to spread with a knife but soft enough to cut in to chunks and it melts nicely if you're using it for cooking. In fact, I think that this is a candidate for one outstanding macaroni and cheese dish. But today I decided to make Panko Crusted Eggplant Stacks with Red Wax Gouda for lunch. Oh. My. God. It's so simple, really.

Start off with a nice eggplant and cut it in to some nice semi-thick slices. Coat the slices with an egg wash, dip them in to some panko crumbs and saute them in olive oil on medium high heat until they are brown and crispy. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400.

In the meantime, cut a fresh tomato in to thick slices. Cut your gouda in to some thick slices as well. Line a cookie sheet with foil and let the stacking begin. Eggplant-tomato slice-gouda slice-eggplant, etc...

Today I got a little adventurous. I made two eggplant stacks. On one stack I put some olive tapenade in between the layers and on the other stack I put some prepared pesto in between the layers for some extra kick. You can find both of these delicious products at Trader Joe's.

Here is the stack with the olive tapenade:

Here is the stack with the pesto:

Place the stacks on the foil lined cookie sheet in to the oven and bake at 400 until the cheese melts. About 10 minutes. While the stacks were baking in the oven, I took a handful of wild baby arugula and tossed it with a handful of toasted walnuts and a splash of raspberry walnut vinaigrette. Amazing Grace. Seriously.

Brazilian Cheese Bread

I'm not kidding you when I tell you that this is the easiest recipe I've ever followed. If you have a blender and a muffin tin, you can look like a culinary rock star here. I think these will make a weekly appearance at our house and I would choose them over the Cheddar Cheese Puffs that I made on Christmas.

I seem to be on a cheese bread kick lately. Brazilian Cheese Bread is simply addictive and absolutely delicious. You can play around with different cheese to produce different tastes. I chose to use Parmesan cheese and I added a few turns of fresh cracked black pepper. When these delectable little beauties are baked, the result is a light and airy texture with a nice chewy texture in the bottom of the bread. The recipe calls for tapioca flour which can easily be found at a health food store or Whole Foods store. Once you have secured the tapioca flour, the rest is easy. The best part is that you could whip up the batter and put them in the oven about 20 minutes before serving dinner and you have yourself nice hot cheese bread to serve up. It looks like you spent so much longer but all it involved was a blender and a greased muffin tin. BONUS: tapioca flour is gluten-free for those who eliminate gluten from their diet.

Ingredients

* 1 egg (room temperature)
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 2/3 cup milk
* Scant 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour
* 1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese, your preference.
* 1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease a mini-muffin tin. Put all of the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth. You may need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the blender so that everything gets blended well. At this point you can store the batter in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until all puffy and just lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes.

Eat while warm or save to reheat later.

Enough batter for 16 mini muffin sized cheese breads.

Note that Brazilian cheese bread is very chewy, a lot like Japanese mochi.