4 Quick Goat Cheese Appetizer Recipes

We like to use fresh goat cheese  for theses appetizers  (plain or herbed goat cheese) but you can substitute feta cheese if you prefer.

Fresh Goat Cheese  at Amazon

Prep time: 10 to15 minutes

1) Parboil red potatoes. Scoop out a section of the potato, dice this piece, then mix it with a bit of goat cheese and diced prosciutto, place this mixture back into the potato and bake for 8 - 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

#2) Spread goat cheese on cucumber slices, then place on small shards of romaine lettuce, top with fresh dill or tarragon.

#3) Spread goat cheese on mini toasts or flat bread and top with fig jam or membrillo (quince paste).

$4) Bake goat cheese in pastry puffs, when heated top them off with fruit preserves.

Fresh goat cheese is available in most supermarkets or you can purchase online at Amazon

Tips To Keep Mold Off Your Food

Tips To Keep Mold Off Your Food

By: Jim Corkern

What is the most important major appliance in your house? Most people would probably say their refrigerator and I would probably agree, but do we really keep them clean as often as we should..?
The fact is that refrigerators are not kept as clean by busy families as they should be in order to keep a healthy household. Leftovers are put in the fridge and often get left there for days or something even weeks at a time before finally being thrown away after they have gotten spoiled.
Liquids get spilled, frozen foods are left to thaw on the shelves, and just general mess gets left everywhere. A refrigerator might be cleaned out once every 4 or 5 months by a busy family, but if you keep a watch on the items in your refrigerator and the messes plaguing its shelves, you will not have to do this very often.
Look around in your refrigerator and figure out what is outdated and spoiled. If you keep jelly or jam, you probably know that these get molded after a while, either on the top of the food itself or on the inside of the lids.
These soft items and other things like yogurt, sour cream, soft cheeses, individually sliced cheeses, and just generally anything with a high moisture content need to be thrown away. The entirety of the food will probably be completely contaminated with mold even though it might only appear to be on the surface of the food.
If you bring fruit or vegetables home from the grocery store and just chuck the plastic bags they're inside into your produce drawer like that, you'll probably end up with some moldy and rotted fruit not too long after. What happens in this situation is that condensation builds up inside the bag and mold starts to grow on anything inside it.
Just take the fruits and vegetables out of the bags and make sure that none of the fruit already have mold growing on them. If they do, throw them out and wash anything that was in close proximity to it.
If you see any eggs that are cracked in the carton, these need to be thrown away, too. Bacteria growing on the outside of the egg will get inside and contaminate it.
If mold starts growing on a block of cheese, what you should do is take a knife and cut around and under the moldy spot on the block and remove it. Don't touch the knife to other parts of the cheese to avoid cross-contamination.

Author Resource:-> Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
mold/'>http://www.moldrestorationusa.com">Mold Remediation and
water/'>http://www.rugmasterclean.com">water damage restoration> companies across the united states.

Article From Article Source

Bush, Obama and Roquefort Cheese

I normally try not to inject politics into my daily business, but this story affects my business so I will lay out a rant.

Last week ex-President Bush raised the import tariff on Roquefort cheese by 300%, that is on top of the already onerous 100% tariff that is on it already. The official spin is that this is in retaliation for the European Union not allowing the importation of US beef due to reported mad cow outbreaks and some of its members stands on the Iraqi War. What ever the reason is for this lunacy it seems odd to me (call me crazy) that only one French cheese would be singled out.

Roquefort is an AOC (Appellation D'Origne) cheese meaning that it must be in compliance with all the legal regulations concerning where and how a cheese is made. This designation is strictly enforced. What this all means is that real French Roquefort cheese can only be produced in the area around the small town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon and the caves of Cambalou.

The US market consumes a majority of the Roquefort that is produced and this in turn helps to employ the local population in various stages of cheese production. The increase in the import tariff will devastate this regional economy because the price to the American consumer will go through the roof. Estimates state the price in US dollars could approach $100 per pound. Who will be willing to plunk down their dollars for Roquefort when other blue cheeses are available.

You as a consumer may say who cares about Roquefort or the French but please consider the workers who produce this wonderful cheese their livelihoods depend on it. This is a global economy, for better or worse, and the actions of one country can have profound consequences on many other people, countries and economies.

President Obama has the ability to rescind this new tariff and should be encouraged to do so for economic reasons and moral reasons. No one should have to suffer because of ill will, retribution
or reckless planning. In these rough economic times President Obama has many larger and more profound problems to deal with in the days and months ahead but revoking this tariff could be his first show of good will and it could be accomplished with a mere stroke of his pen. Here's hoping that common sense will prevail.