Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Season Premier! The Cheese Episode.

Well now, how about that?

Another NFL offseason and another season of Sunday Gravy all lined up like an 8-ball of blow across a hookers ass.

Welcome the fuck back everyone! How was your NFL season? Disappointing as fuck like mine? That’s what I thought.

Congrats to the Rams, AKA the local football team that nobody roots for. It was a decent game and I thought the halftime show was fucking outstanding.

Now? Yes sir and yes ma’am we are in for the long goddamn interminable offseason.

Figured out what to watch on TV on your available weekends yet?

Me neither.

This offseason shit is hard and after just one week every damn one of us is ass-deep in the twitchings and scratchings of football withdrawal. Shit’s rough, man! They don’t even give us a methadone alternative to help calm the jangling nerve endings.

Going to be very honest with you. I haven’t watched a second of the Winter Olympics coverage this year and I’m an outright Olympics freak. Love ’em. But I also have an even greater grave concern over human rights violations and what China is currently doing to the Uyghur people isn’t just criminal it’s fucking evil. It’s a planned genocide on a massive scale and there is no other way to describe it. I simply could not turn a blind eye and watch the Olympics while pretending everything is just peachy-fucking-keen in the host country.

I’ll watch the next Olympics and the ones after that for sure. I value what’s left of my soul too much to condone this one though.

/Rant over.

As one of the original members of the “DFO Cares Offseason Support Group” I am here to fill in that glaring void of a football-less existence by bringing a weekly Sunday feature that shares with you one of everyone’s favorite things: Food!

With copious swearing thrown in for good measure.

You regulars should know that this is technically Season 8 of Sunday Gravy.

Season. Motherfucking. EIGHT!

That’s a goddamn shit-ton of recipes.

During this past offseason I still spent basically every weekend in the kitchen. Safe zone and all that. And I found myself doing a lot of freestyle cooking. Using no recipes, flying solo, performing without a net or whatever metaphor you want to use.

The freestyle shit is surprisingly fun to do and it speeds up the cooking process when you don’t have to keep stopping to refer back to a recipe.

It also shows the importance of that one thing which can never be faked.

Repetition.

Fucking-A. Like anything else the more reps you put in the better the end results will be.

Which brings us to today.

I’m bringing the reps. Flying on instruments. No recipes but my own.

I want to give a momentous shoutout to friend, commentist and reader of the blog “2Pack.” Our resident Italian resident, good sport and generous gift giving person.

During one of the Saturday open threads he responded to a comment I made and simply asked me to send him an email. 

I sent him an email and he mentioned he wanted to send a gift. As a regular Sunday Gravy reader he had something that he thought I might like and would be able to use.

A few weeks after exchanging emails I had a package delivered to my front door.

Holy crap kids did I ever get a gift.

A veritable motherlode of real authentic and locally produced Italian cheeses and various accoutrements. Holy fuck! I never expected anything remotely close to this level of generosity.

When I received the package I notified 2Pack and he sent along a couple of corresponding photos that were taken during the cheese procurement process.

Here we have the cheese shop from the outside.

The bag I received the cheese in said family owned since 1784. THAT is a fucking cheese shop.

Let’s take a peek inside.

Mother of God!

Here is our friend’s favorite cheese monger.

As awesome as it sounds to live near a cheese shop such as this one I’m not entirely sure I would survive it. Cheese is my goddamn kryptonite and I adore every style and variety to a disturbing degree.

The care package also contained a selection of preserves. These were most definitely NOT jellies.

From left to right in case it’s tough to read we have marmalade, strawberry and fig. Each one as delightful as the others.

The first cheese we have is “Verena Mezzano” which is an asiago cheese aged between 3-8 months. It has a darker color than the fresh asiago and a bit of funk the closer you get to the rind. I tasted a light background taste of olives. It had a tiny bit of brine in addition to the salt at the forefront.

Next we have.

“Fresh” asiago, meaning aged less than 2 to 3 months. Smooth, salty and buttery the first thing you get is milk.

My goodness folks. This is delicious. I have just the idea for an application of it as well. Please note the “DOP” designation.

Which according to this website means: “DOP is a strict labeling of food in Italy to preserve and protect regionally produced foods from less superior versions. Select foods from Italy are regulated by the government and organizational bodies to ensure:

They meet the highest of standards,

They are produced within very certain regions that result in characteristics to ensure a consistent quality,

The ingredients and products come from a specific location and/or family that has been ‘designated’ by the government to produce such foods,

Every element of the product is quality tested and tracked with serial numbers to understand the exact origins, processing, and approval body of the product.”

AKA: the real and real good shit.

Our last slab of cheese is none other than:

Parmiggiano Reggiano, also carrying the DOP designation. This slab was fucking huge.

When faced with the eternal question; What will I do with all of this cheese? Well shit I can do a ton of things with cheese but the very first idea? The first answer that comes to my mind is…

I’mma make a goddamn quiche!

Sure, sure we’ve done quiche before. Back in season 1! recipe in the link.

Let’s go ahead and give you a little refresher course though.

Step one.

We’re making a homemade pastry dough.

Inspired by the good folks at Allrecipes.com.

Butter pastry dough!

2 cups all-purpose flour, divided

½ cup butter, cut into 12 cubes, frozen

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons ice water

Add the first cup of flour to your food processor and add in the sliced frozen butter as pictured above.

Next add the remaining flour, the sugar and the salt.

Give ‘er a few good pulses to combine.

Next drizzle in the very cold water and pulse again a few times. The dough will look a bit dry and you may feel compelled to add in more water but don’t. Trust me.

See it forms together just fine.

Now wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap.

Slap this fucker in the refrigerator for a few hours. Make ahead tip! Do this the day before and refrigerate overnight.

When you’re ready to make the quiche take the dough out of the fridge and shape it into a crust.

We’re going to “blind bake” the crust for this.

Pre-heat the oven to 375 and bake for about 10 minutes until it looks a bit like this.

Now, let’s get to work on the filling.

Quiche Lorraine yes?

That can only mean…

Goddamn right! Bacon time. That’s some nice thick-ass hickory smoked shit right there.

Get that shit in a pan. Stat!

Cook it until crispy.

Since we’re doing quiche Lorraine another component is the onion.

Start with a fine dice.

Then saute it in about a tablespoon of the leftover bacon fat. Shit yes we did.

Time to build.

Add the bacon to the pastry shell along with the onion. Now we start adding the cheese.

How much cheese is that? I don’t know. A lot? 

This is the fresh asiago. I wanted to showcase the milky taste and texture. Now grate on some of the parmiggiano reggiano.

Here’s another handy quiche making tip for all of you.

That’s a 3 cup capacity measuring cup. I love this fucking thing. Make my morning smoothies in it. What you do here is crack in your eggs, add in the cream and salt, pepper, nutmeg then just mix that shit right in the cup! Thus allowing you to simply pour the desired amount right into the pastry shell! No ladling, drippage or spillage and you can add the exact amount of custard required.

How fucking cool is that!

Additional tip: The ratio of egg to cream is 1/2 cup cream per egg. The recipe calls for 2 cups of cream and 4 eggs and it’s ALWAYS too much filling and you either slosh that shit on your kitchen floor or dump the excess down the drain and FUCK THAT!

Today was scaled down to 3 eggs and 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream.

Now just pour the contents of that cup right on the quiche.

I like to add some fresh ground black pepper and a sprinkle of cayenne or nutmeg right on top.

The quiche will go into that pre-heated 375 degree oven for anywhere between 30-45 minutes. Check at 30 minutes and cook until the custard is set.

Like this here.

Cool on a wire rack so your don’t burn the ever-loving shit out of the roof of your mouth while eating.

Remember molten cheese action here.

Cut yourself a wedge of quiche.

I like mine with a nice glass of pinot grigio.

Let’s get a good close-up for an immersive study in cheesiness.

That’s a cheesy motherfucker! Pay close attention to the “Stonehenge” fluted edges of the crust. That’s the tell-tale sign of homemade-ness right there. The whole “milky” brightness of the Asiago is on full display here. It is a rocking quiche cheese and any/all quiche fans take note. The melt, the texture and the subtly grassy notes are fantastic.

Let’s see what else we can make.

Yet another idea for cheese usage would be this. 

Feel free to refresh your memory with our flatbread recipe. 

My flatbread game is stupid strong.

Oh yes. That’s a homemade bacon and egg flatbread. Look at that fucking egg, man! It’s perfect! I again used the parmiggiano reggiano but the featured player was the Verena Mezzano. I grated close to the rind to give a little funkiness to the proceedings. The aged asiago paired with the salt of the parm along with the hickory smoked bacon goodness?

You want that. You need that. Goddammit you DESERVE that!

Finally most recently I used some of the remaining parmiggiano reggiano for this item that was served on Superb Owl Sunday.

Oh fucking hell yes it is. Homemade lasagne. Please note the fresh bread served alongside. Handmade pasta sheets for the lasagne? Bet your proper ASS they were. Here’s a recipe link that will give most of the gory details.

The best part is I still have some parmiggiano reggiano left!

As the cheesy experiments continue I may drop the results in a random Sunday Gravy if the results are solid.

I can’t thank 2Pack enough for his way beyond generous gift. I am humbled and incredibly thankful for your generosity. What an incredibly cool thing to do. Trust me I am flattered.

Give a person enough quality cheese and the world is their… Cheeseball? Cheese-i-verse? Cheese-ter? I’m at a loss.

Ready for another year of adventure in the culinary underworld? Hope so. Because I’ve got a lot of fun fucking things heading your way.

Thanks as always for being there “Gravy Heads.” Y’all are the best.

Just think? We’re just getting started up in here.

Be well everyone.

Stay safe and we’ll see you next week.

PEACE!