Wanted (Or Waiter, There's Some Soup in My Flies)

Here is why I love Winter - and yes, it's a stretch: Soup.

As you've read: I've made chili with iffy results. It tasted good, but not what I was expecting. The spicy tomato soup I've cooked for dinner worked well a few times. There was that broccoli-cheddar soup that didn't really work at all. My first attempt at chicken tortilla soup was like the chili - tasted fine, but not exactly what I was envisioning. Such is the life of a "chef".

Trial and error.

Both 710 and I are big fans of Max & Erma's Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Now, I know most of you have never been, or even heard of, Max & Erma's. They are / were a Columbus based restaurant "chain" where 710 and I had several dates and meals starting back in the mid '80s. It is also where Jon and I heard some guy compare his fish dinner to 'snatch' he had recently sampled somewhere else.....to the girl at his table who queried him with "whose?". Loverly!

Max & Erma's tried to expand to at least north eastern Ohio and somewhat failed. They moved too fast and half the places they opened have been closed. I think Pittsburgh has one - or did 5-6 years ago. I think the original in German Village is still open.

Anyhoo....they make a chicken tortilla soup that I love - and especially in the colder months.

During our current cold snap, I decided I would make an attempt at replicating it - ala Sandra Lee (that semi-homemade slut), though there seems something wrong with making soup out of other soups, but that's what I did.

There are a ton of recipes out there for M&E soup, and of course, not one of them are the same. So to complicate matters, I took bits and pieces from each one and came up with a decent concoction, though not quite hitting the exact mark.

It still worked and both 710 and myself liked it.  I just forgot to take my traditional pics along the way. Sorry.

It's easy "prep", just longer cooking time:

1 can - cream of mushroom (reduced fat)
1 can - cream of chicken (reduced fat)
1 can - cream of celery
1 can - cheese soup
1 can - rotel tomatoes
1 cup - picante salsa
16 oz low sodium chicken broth
4 cloves minced garlic
1 medium chopped onion
4 oz minced green chilis
1 tsp chili powder
1 lb shredded chicken
salt and pepper (to taste)
tortilla strips (topping)
monterey jack cheese (topping)

Dump everything but the chicken into a dutch oven or heavy pot and bring to a boil, stirring more than occassionally so things don't burn on the bottom. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour.

Add chicken (you can use a rotissarie chicken, if you'd like) and simmer for another 30-40 minutes.

Dish up. Top with cheese and tortilla strips.

Obviously, if you're so inclined, you could do a little more work yourself with cooking chicken, shredding cheese, making your own chicken stock, and using real mushrooms, celery etc - but that's not happening for me during a weeknight. I'm also not cutting corn tortillas and frying them either.

Things I'd do differently?  Really just one. While the Rotel and green chilies are fine, you'd probably get away with diced tomatoes and some seasoning, but I would definitely add jalapeño.

The soup didn't have enough "heat" for me, though it is very hearty and can really be used for a meal.

This made enough soup for two dinners (for two people) and I had 2-3 servings for lunch during the week. It was heavy on the chicken (more than M&E puts in), but I was going to use up all the cooked chicken, damn it.

I'll make this again for sure.



Song by: the Style Council

Soap, Soup and Salvation

The low and high yesterday was 22 degrees. I guess there is something to be said for constants.

So last night was soup and toasted cheese night. Sounds good for a frosty night, doesn't it?

A few weeks ago I came across a blog, Bo's Bowl, that had what sounded like a really good tomato soup recipe. I know it doesn't sound like a big thing to you, but as much as I love tomatoes, I dislike two things: tomato juice and tomato soup. Crazy, huh?

I like the idea of tomato soup, but have never been able to enjoy it where it didn't taste like I was eating runny marinara sauce. I've found the way to eat it - thanks Bo, whomever you are.

You can go this above link to read or actually make the recipe yourself - you probably won't be sorry. Overall, except for the cup of cream, it's a pretty healthy food choice - I'm not sure how it would work with half-and-half, but that might help with a caloric intake.

The title image is the soup without the cream, below is it with it added.

The prep time is like 15 minutes. The cook time is only 20 or so. The puree/blend time is the longer process, but not long.

If you read Bo's instructions, he says if you don't have an immersion blender (and I don't) that a regular blender is just fine, just not to fill it more than 1/3 of the way up, as hot liquid expands when blending.

Heed this warning. I beg of you.

I put just a smidge over a one-third in there and Ka-BOOM. Hot soup everywhere. Out of the blender, over my hands, across the island and all over the floor. Lesson learned.

So to be conservative, I just blended two ladles full at a time, so it took longer, but no more soup explosions.

If I had to do anything differently, I also played safe the jalapeno pepper. The recipe calls to leave in the seeds for greater heat. I left some seeds in, but not many. And the soup had some spice to it, but more seeds would have made it better - and hotter. I guess you have to figure what you can tolerate in the heat index.

I also did minimal pureeing. I didn't want the soup too smooth. I like it with the more rustic consistency. I mean it wasn't chunky or anything, but it wasn't Campbell's either.

And it went well with some good Italian bred and then slicing some good Swiss cheese and grilling that up.

I suggest heartier croutons too. I just used some that we had for salads and they went way mushy almost upon hitting the liquid. They didn't stand-up they way one would like, but live and learn.


Oh and the recipe doesn't say how many servings it makes, but I'm thinking we could have had a party for six folks to serve this much soup. We have a bit to use up over the next few days or so.

Bo has some decent recipes on his site, and I can see myself going back there for more. I can see myself maybe even blogrolling him, mostly for my own convenience when looking for something new to make.

So one of those goals for 2011 that was in my meme a few days ago, about cooking more - I'm on the road to doing that.


Song by: Lone Justice

Soup For One

At some point last month, I alluded to doing a new recipe.  It was soup.  It's Winter and I like soup. For me soup is comfort food. Over the last two years, I've been experimenting more and more with it - some for good some for great. I don't think I've made a bad soup yet. 

Trust me, I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm just saying things turn out ok, even if they weren't as expected. 

This time, I made chicken tortilla soup.  

There are dozens and dozens of recipes out there - some broth based, some more cheese based. Truth be told, I love Max & Erma's tortilla soup, but it is a lot of cheese, cut with chicken stock. I don't think it is low in calories, which is why the few times a year I get it, I get a cup and now a bowl.  Make no mistake, whenever I go there, I always get the soup - regardless of time of year. 

I opted to go with a broth based version. 

No one recipe stood out, so I just made it on the fly, taking things from different versions, kind of making it my own. 

Normally, my cooking posts will show you all the ingredients - and would have had I actually remembered to take a photo.  Ooops.  No worries, I will run through it here. 

Saute one medium onion and two jalapeno peppers.  Most call for one, I used two and for me, there still wasn't enough heat. I'd have done three, or left some of the seeds to provide more power.  I also purchased an Anaheim pepper, which is mild, but forgot to include it. Duh. 

Next add garlic (I used 4-5 cloves) one 14 oz can of diced tomatoes and some cumin. I eye-balled the cumin. 

48 ounces of chicken stock, bring to a boil and then slip in three skinless, boneless chicken breasts. Some recipes had folks use a rotisserie chicken you can pick up at the deli.  Some had you seasoning and roasting a chicken. I'm not a fan of boiled poultry per se, but you know, it cooks in the broth for 25 minutes and adds flavour to the soup. 

Take two forks and shred the chicken (after it's cooled enough to handle it)

Just add the shredded chicken back to the soup.  Simmer until you're ready to serve. 

Dish up. I was prepared to cut and fry my own tortillas, but we had some strips and I was lazy but it worked. I also chopped some green onions and added on top with some Monterrey Jack cheese. 

Overall it was good. The soup refrigerated well (serves 4-6) but it did lack spicy heat for me. Next time I will fool with that, be it with the peppers or additional spice. I'm not sure yet.  But it's easy and done in all one pot, and that's really what it's all about. Make it and make it easy. 

Song by:  Chic

On the Greener Side

I promised at least one cooking post this week and this might be it - we'll see.

I had planned to make soup on Sunday and then it turned out to be a great, warm day. It didn't seem like soup weather.

Of course, that broccoli and spinach I bought at the West Side Market wouldn't last forever, so soup was to be made sooner than later.

America's Test Kitchen did a segment weeks back on Broccoli Cheese soup (BCS from now on, I'm not typing that out over and over again). I like this kind of soup. To be fair, they warned viewers that true BCS isn't orange like you see at places like Panera (though it is really good there!), but green.  And green it is.

One uses the broccoli florets and the stems. But the green colour comes more from the spinach.

Since you use unsalted butter and low-sodium chicken broth, and there are two different kinds of cheese, I took it easy on adding salt. But after it was all done, I did need to put some in for flavour. ...still it was missing something. I can't put my finger on it.

The recipe also calls to use a blender. America's Test Kitchen used one and it was a smooth soup. That's great, but I do like some texture, and if you remember, sometimes the blender and I are not compatible. I used an immersion blender.

I would probably serve to guests. It is healthy (no cream), clean-up takes longer than prep. You can cook it and blend it all in one pot. It makes 6-8 servings, so we'll have it for a little while, but I suppose I'll be eating it for lunch this week.

It doesn't photograph very well. And the green isn't horribly appetizing (remember when they tried green ketsup?)  and it looks like pea soup. But the rustic bread was good, and hearty enough to dip into the soup. It all definitely tastes better than it looks.



Song by:  Michelle Shocked

Cooking with Blobby

When 710 sent me this recipe, I should have made it immediately, as Spicy Pork Noodle Soup screams 'cold weather' and earlier last week it had dropped from 78 to 31. We wet back to the 70s, so it doesn't seem like soup weather............but I had already acquired the ingredients. 

Luckily (?) temps are on their way down to the 20s - again. It even snowed a bit yesterday morning. So Spicy Pork Noodle Soup it was. 

It looked easy enough and it seemed different enough that it could be very good. 

I guess we're about to find out, no? 

Ingredients 

Yield: 4 servings 

12 ounces thin dry noodles (such as ramen or soba) 

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil 

½ pound ground pork 

 Salt and freshly ground black pepper 

4 garlic cloves, minced 

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger 

1 bird’s-eye chile (optional), sliced 

1 teaspoon ground turmeric 

1 teaspoon ground cumin 

4 cups chicken stock 

6 ounces snow peas, thinly sliced on the diagonal (see Tip for other seasonal options) 

3 scallions, thinly sliced 

Preparation 

Step 1 Prepare the noodles: Boil the noodles in a pot or saucepan according to package instructions. Rinse under cold water to halt the cooking. 

Step 2 Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high. Add the pork and spread it into an even layer, then cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until well browned underneath. Season the pork with salt and pepper while it browns. Break up the pork into small pieces with a wooden spoon. 

Step 3 Add the garlic, ginger, chile (if using), turmeric and cumin, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until fragrant. 

Ooops. I forgot to put in the chile at this point. No worries. 

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Step 4 Just before serving, slide the snow peas into the hot broth. 

Step 5 Divide the noodles among bowls and ladle the soup over top. Garnish with scallions. 

Tip This evergreen soup was created with springtime snow peas in mind, but is great for any season (or craving!): A mix of fresh corn kernels and chopped tomatoes would be delicious in the summer, as would thinly sliced winter greens like kale during the winter.

A few take aways:  I would use less oil next time. Like half of what it called for. It's a lot. And I did cut the ginger by about half. To me - a little goes a LONG way and I like ginger, but I don't love it. It was the the right call. 

I'd also cut the noodle total in half. 12 oz is a lot of ramen. Far more than the 4 cups of stock used. I will have ramen for days and days. 

As you saw I did use peppers. But for the life of me - almost every recipe I see has a certain name of a chile, and no store carries any chile by that name. And since I'm not fluent in Scoville heat levels, whatever I bought was a crap shoot. And I used two instead of one. It brought the heat, but nothing over the top. 

You can see, it's a pretty dish. In the title pic you can see a lime too. Asian cooking almost screams 'lime' and I should have used it, but I forgot. It would have brought a brightness to it. 

I also might have added more stock. The liquid / noodle ratio was off - not so much for dinner itself, but for leftovers. As for the pork, you may as well used ground turkey or chicken. The flavours are never really coming from the protein in this dish. 

710 really liked it. Said he wasn't sure what to expect when he sent it to me, but it wasn't what the final product was. I liked it. I didn't love. But I think there might be too much ginger. And even a little too much cumin. 

Still it was good and very different. I'm all for that. As we are moving into the warmer months, I doubt I'd come back to this until later in the Autumn, but I'd try it again. 

Cooking with Blobby

Once again, the weather has turned cold. In a 24 hour period, temps dropped by 40°F . 

I know I said I was over Winter a while ago, but I can't stress it enough now. And we are expecting snow and wintery mix on Saturday. So...........yay!

Dog walks are freezing. I can't imagine the throngs of folks who showed up to a St. Paddy's parade yesterday. You'd never catch me there (though hold that thought). 

Yet, as I was walking the dog - and freezing - I thought, soup sounds like a good idea. 

My friend George made a potato / green onion soup months back which was just wonderful. While I could have - and should have? - asked him for the recipe, I figure I could do this on my own, right? 

Well.............let's see how true that was. 

Ingredients 

2 tablespoons (30g) Unsalted Butter

½ cup (70g) Yellow Onions, small dice (¼ inch) 

¼ cup (35g) Celery, small dice (¼ inch) 

3 each Garlic Cloves, thinly sliced 

¼ cup (34g) All Purpose Flour 

2 quarts (~2 liters) Vegetable Stock 

1 lb. (454g) Yellow Potatoes, large dice (1 inch) 

1 teaspoon (3g) Kosher Salt 

1 teaspoon Pepper

½ cup Heavy Cream 

½ cup Sour Cream 

2 cups (160g) Shredded Cheddar Cheese 

1 cup (100g) Green Onions (sliced) 

Nutmeg (just a sprinkle) 

Dried Thyme (just a sprinkle)

Parmasean Rind

It seems like a lot of ingredients, but if you do the dicing first, it comes together very very quickly. 

Preparation 

1. To prepare the soup, in a large heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat, and begin to sauté the onions. While stirring often, cook the onions for 2-3 minutes until they are translucent but no color. 

2. Add the celery, and garlic, continue to cook the vegetables for an additional 2-3 minutes all while trying to avoid any color. 

3. Add the flour and stir while cooking for about 1-2 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. 

4. While stirring gradually pour in the vegetable stock, the flour should be incorporated into the stock and will begin to thicken slightly. 

5. Add the potatoes, salt, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, and heavy cream. Cook the soup, stirring occasionally at a simmer until the potatoes are tender (approximately 15-20 minutes). 

6. Remove from the heat and stir in the sour cream, cheddar cheese, and green onions.

7. Allow cooling just slightly before serving. Enjoy!

First off, it was really good. Filling but not heavy. We paired it with toasted cheese sandwiches, since while I was making it was were living inside of a snow globe. It just all felt like comfort food. 

I always am very careful about salt, and while I added it slowly over time, the full teaspoon was needed. 

The cheese was a nice touch, but.......it made it all very stringy. More so than I thought it would. I might cut that in half next time. 

But it probably would give 5-6 servings. We have leftovers, which is good, as the weather is supposed to be spotty at best for another week. 

Cooking with Blobby

Technically, this is Cooking with Betsy. 

My cousin Betsy, who has probably never made a bad meal in her life, has an IG page where she uses the hashtag #foodporn.  I'm going out on a limb that is probably the only time she's used the word "porn".  But she posts recipes there. 

My cooking, I steal from other sites. I'm guessing Betsy does a lot of it from scratch.....or scratch-lite. Do I think she's making her own tortellini?  I do not. 

So she posted a recipe for  Chicken Tortellini Soup, and I was immediately drawn to it. 

Yeah, it's soup, but with chicken and cheese tortellini, it's the main course. And oh so frickin' good.  It's Betsy - so I can't really drop all the f-bombs I usually do. 

Yeah, there are a number of ingredients, but it's not horribly labour intensive at all. And it's basically all in one dutch oven. 

Ingredients: 

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 diced onion

4 garlic cloves diced

1 Tablespoons tomato paste

14oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups roasted chicken breast cut into bite size pieces (season when roasting to layer in flavor. You can also cut up a rotisserie chicken to save time)

1 Parmesan rind

4-5 c chicken stock

3/4 c heavy cream

3c spinach

10 oz refrigerated cheese tortellini

Parmesan cheese & crushed red pepper

Directions: 

Heat oil in a large pot over medium low heat and add onions , garlic, pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté until tender about 5 min. 

Stir in tomato paste and cook for a few minutes. Add tomatoes, chicken, parm rind and 4 c broth. Bring to boil then simmer for 30 min. 

I had chicken thighs on hand, so that is what I used. I cooked them in the air fryer first and cut them up before putting them in the pot.  And I can't believe I had a parm rind to throw in too!  

Then add in cream, spinach, tortellini and cook until spinach wilts and pasta plumps up about 5 min. 

Add more stock if needed. Taste here, I added more salt and lots of freshly ground pepper and red pepper flakes. 

I had added some red pepper flakes in the simmer process (two pics above) and again here. There were no amounts given, and well........when it somes to red pepper flakes I always err on the side of "more!". 

It "plated" up nicely. We used spoons. Had rustic bread with it for dipping and cleaning up the bowl. I know it was a soup, but it didn't feel like one.  Hearty and light at the same time. 

It made five big servings.  My sister-in-law tried some and put it over rice. This worked for her as the rice helped with how much red pepper I put in. She's not a huge fan of that kind of spice, but she loved it too. 

This one is a winner that I'll keep making. 

Cooking with Blobby

Food. I'm all about the food lately, it seems. 

With me being incapacitated, I've had some time to stray off our normal rotations of dinner. This is good for me, and good for us. There is a certain comfort in the good old stand-bys, but it is also good to not tire of them. 

And it's great to attempt new things, even if they don't alway work out. 

This one, in both of our estimations, worked out. 

I have a few things to work out on this, but I'll address those as we go. I can totally see doing this again - but better. 

It is all fairly simple. I didn't have to go out and buy any ingredients we didn't have. As things come together and cook, clean-up happens along the way, so it's pretty much done except for your final pan and whatever you use to plate your fud. 

Full disclosure: I forgot to put the spinach in the above picture.  Sorry. 

Ingredients

6 Chicken Thighs (boneless/skinless) 

1 French Onion Soup Mix 

3T Olive Oil 

2 Onions, chopped (or 1 large one - like I used)

1.5 cups Long Grain Rice 

2 cups Chicken stock 

3 tbsp sour cream (could use heavy cream or cream cheese) 

1 large handful of spinach leaves 

I forgot to take an image of my onions. But I'm sure you get the idea. 

In a large frying pan, sauté onions with some butter/oil and some salt. Once cooked through (about 7 minutes), remove from pan and set aside. 

Coat your chicken with French onion soup mix.  Next time I'd use a larger bowl to do this. In this shallow bowl things did not evenly distribute. 

Heat 3tbsp of oil in the same large frying pan and sear chicken on both sides (about 2 minutes each side) until nice and golden. Remove from pan. 

There was probably enough oil / butter from the onions. Next time I would not add more oil (or at least not a much) for the chicken. I think the amount I ended up with kept the chicken searing as well as it should. It all turned out ok and all, but you know.......searing will help with the flavour. 

In the same pan, add the rice and cook for 1 minute, stirring. 

Then add the stock, sour cream and salt some and bring to a simmer (3-4 minutes). 

The sour cream will eventually mix better, but at first it looks a bit curdled. Stir or whisk if you please. 

Add the onions and chicken back into the pan; place some spinach into the pan and then cover and continue to simmer for 20-25 minutes

You don't have to stir a thing, not really. The rice is below the spinach and chicken, just make sure to get what you want. 

These thighs were huge - almost breast sized. Joyce DeWitt breasts, not Suzanne Sommers ones. 

The chicken was done well. Temps higher than it should have been,  but still moist. The rice, save one bikte, was cooked well. The one, slightly undercooked. 

The onion soup mix was fine. There was one bit that was a little overpowering. I believe that stemmed from the smaller bowl in which it was mixed. I don't think things were distributed as evenly as it could have been. 

It's a nice warm dish - we had our first really cool fall evening, so it was nicely timed. 

Know Your Onion

Yes, it's 9/11, and I have not forgotten, but I won't be bullied into doing an annual post about that day.

We can talk about something more tragic - my cooking.

Last Sunday, 710 and I attended a bar-b-que at one of our neighbors house. They requested we bring chips and dip.

Chips and dip for 10 people?  That sounded, well.........boring. But I'm a good party guest and do as I'm told.  I mean, I wasn't exactly roped into what kind of dip or chips to bring. Many would bring store-bought dip and Ruffles.

Oh, I considered making salsa, but I had done that before, so I did go back to the thought of regular dip, as we were only asked about 20 hours before the party. However, in good conscious, I couldn't buy Dairyman's dip, but I wasn't making chips either.

So I compromised, I bought potato chips, but some nice kettle ones - Shears with 40% less fat (though less than what, I don't exactly know)  - yet I was going to "make" the dip.

Trust me, it wasn't a stretch. No limbs were gone out on.  As you can see, four ingredients. Total prep time was about 7 minutes.  Tops.

16oz of sour cream
4oz of crumbled blue cheese
4 tablespoons (or one package of) dry onion soup mix
chopped chives (optional)
1 tablespoon of milk (optional)

You know how this goes:  sour cream goes into a bowl, then the soup mix - stir it in until it is well mixed.  Then add the blue cheese and mix again. Chill for an hour or two so the flavours set.

If the dip thickens, you can add milk and stir in to thin it out a bit, but a good stirring will do the same thing.

I did chop some chives, mostly for presentation.....because, I am after all......me!

I thought this much dip would be enough for 10 folks, but it turns out only a few ate it. I would have been fine cutting the recipe in half.

Unfortunately for me, we have a bunch of chips and dip now hanging around the house - exactly what I don't need.

However, it is quick and easy and looks homemade, so if you're going to a shin-dig, you can pretend like you "made" it yourself and put some effort into the whole thing.



Song by:  the Shins

I'm an Adult Now

Winter nights are for comfort food.

Sure, I still make pasta dishes, or chicken and peppers on some nights, but that is because they're easy to prep and quick to cook. And it doesn't take a lot of thought. And I can be lazy.

But sometimes you just want something to have a comfort factor to it too.

Mac & Cheese fit that bill. Meatloaf. Stuff like that. The standards.

Then there is grilled cheese and soup.

Last week - though not noted here - I made a grilled cheese a different way. In that, you don't butter the bread, but melt the butter in the pan and put the bread in there. And you use shredded cheese. BUT - once you flip the sandwich, you add / press cheese into the top of the bread......then eventually flip again, so the cheese makes a crust on the bread. Do the same to the other side. It isn't bad at all.

But America's Test Kitchen (or was it Cook's Country?) last year did a show on Grown Up Grilled Cheese. It was actually a taste test of standard grilled cheese and the grown up version. Everyone (at least with clever editing) preferred the latter. So......why not.

I started off making a chicken soup with vegetables and pasta. That was easy enough. The grilled cheese was too.....in a way. The clean up was way worse than anything else.

For four sandwiches:

8 slices - hearty white bread
7oz - aged cheddar cheese (room temp)
2oz - Brie (rind removed)
2T - dry white wine (or vermouth)
4t - minced shallot
3T - room temp unsalted butter
1t - Dijon mustard

Cube the cheddar cheese into 20-24 pieces. I also quartered the Brie. Add the wine as well. Process for 20-30 seconds. 

I know. A food processor to make grilled fucking cheese. This is why clean-up for this dish is a little out of proportion for what you're actually making. 

It really makes a cheese paste, basically. Add the shallots, and pulse for 4-5 times.  

If you don't have a clean-up crew at the ready, like I do - I suggest getting one. They're happy to lick anything clean. 

 In a separate bowl - mix butter and mustard together. 

Spread the butter / mustard mixture on the outside of each piece  

On the inside - put the cheese / shallot / wine mixture. It spreads heavily. You can be generous with this mixture as well. 

Here is the big difference between regular grilled cheese and adult - patience. 

In a preheated non-stick skillet reduce the heat to medium-low and cook each side for 8-9 minutes. Yes. 16-18 minute cook time for frickin' grilled cheese. 

Then you have to let it stand two additional minutes. This is important as it helps the cheese set-up a little bit. I forgot on the first sandwich and cut in too soon. 

Still - it is kind of worth the wait (though I could have had two and not just one and a half). 

The combo for the two cheeses and mustard are great. I really think the wine brightens everything up in the flavour category too. And while it's only two tablespoons, I now have an open bottle of wine that must be consumed. So it is a win-win. 

Song by: the Pursuit of Happiness