Miss Yunks loves playing hostess and cooking for others. Shes puts a lot of love into her kitchen creations and likes to share and spread that foodie love.
I invited my two college friends A + B over for dinner. We planned to eat eggplant parm and cheese fries, the obvious combination. After I raved about this #1 Cheese Sauce that I’ve been obsessed with lately and have made more times than I care to share, A + B wanted to try it! I also prepared another cheese appetizer. I had the goat cheese I purchased after the Whole Foods event and decided a goat cheese surprise would be a good start to the night. I attempted to make the goat cheese disks, but when I sliced the log the goat cheese fell apart. So, instead I made little goat cheese balls.
I hand-rolled goat cheese balls, rolled the balls in olive oil, and then in Panko breadcrumbs. I baked the balls for about 10 minutes at 350, checking a few times to make sure they didn’t melt or burn. The breadcrumbs toasted up nicely and the ball shaped worked well for this easy appetizer.
While the girls munched on the goat cheese balls and the cheese fries, I made the eggplant parm. Except it’s really not eggplant parm if there’s no Parmesean involved, is it? Yet, I don’t think restaurants use Parmesean cheese either. It always seems like mozzarella. Anyways, this dish didn’t have any parm, just mozzarella. But that’s the way I like it. I made this easy tomato sauce the day before. A recipe with three ingredients is good in my kitchen, and this simple tomato sauce is delicious! With just tomatoes, butter, and an onion, it’s really not surprising that it tastes so good! I spread some sauce on the bottom of my dish, topped it with eggplant, cheese, more sauce, repeat. I took a different approach to the eggplant preparation than I have in the past. I skipped the frying step. I took my sliced eggplant, dipped it in beaten egg, coated it in Panko breadcrumbs, and then that’s it – into the pan it goes. Turns out frying is not necessary. The breadcrumbs actually got crispier in the oven without the frying step.
The layered eggplant is almost like a lasagna, where eggplant takes the place of the noodle.
A simple side dish of pasta tossed in butter completed the meal.
After dinner, we were all pretty full. But, A + B brought a treat over for dessert: Trader Joe’s Gingerbread Man Kit. Decorating gingerbread cookies is a fun and memorable holiday activity. I took an art class when I was little and each December the teacher would bake gingerbread men and women and bring in lots of frosting for us to decorate our cookies. I always decorated my blonde ginger lady with lots and lots frosting because I didn’t like the cookie, but I always loved frosting. This Trader Joe’s kit came with everything we needed to decorate the giant cookie. We had icing, sprinkles, and milk chocolate candies. (read: fake m&ms) We took turns decorating our gingerbread-gal and stuck with the theme What We Wore Circa 2005: smack in the middle of our college years.
Our Ginger Gal is wearing: boots with fur, a very short frayed denim mini skirt, a polo with our sorority name (yeah we really have shirts like this), side bangs (we all had side bangs at some point!), a headband, and one blue eye and one brown, you know, to represent our diversity.
That’s pretty much what we all looked like in 2005. And then, we attacked Ginger, just like sorority girls do. Just kidding!
The cookie was actually disgusting. I’ve never had a gingerbread cookie that I did like, but this one in particular was bad. The cookie was thick, soft, and it was hard to swallow that bite of her boot. But, she was very fun to decorate!
Good friends, good food, and good memories. Forget the hokey pokey, this is what it’s all about.
*This just in – A-Tooch says: it’s called Parrmagiana because it’s from the Parma region in Italy! Who knew that?
10 Comments
I love the boots wit’ da fur on the gingerbread!
hahahaha…”and then we attacked her!” yum, thanks for hosting!!!
we should have ended the night with a candle lighting ceremony. and some snaps.
ps – miss yunks, you are a phenomonal hostess and chef!
I think your love for cheese rivals mine! I’m heading to a party tonight and making puff pastry baked brie for it! Also, I first heard about this easy tomato sauce via @JustinCanCook and it is on my list of things to try!
hahaaa cute gphib gingerbread!
I love that you made the WF goat cheese recipe!! It was so good.
Were you at cheese table when the guy told us we all needed to get cheese wires? You need either a cheese wire or unwaxed dental floss to cut the goat cheese logs into rounds. I think the little goat cheese balls look adorable anyways.
And I like your this just in because I was pretty sure the name wasn’t because of the cheese.
I did hear him say we need a cheese wire or unwaxed floss but I didn’t have either so I improvised! I think I like the mini bites better!
nice job recreating the discs, that was my favorite part of the whole foods event!
ahahaha I love the gingerbread lady… this looks like such a fun girls night – the perfect way to spend Valentine’s Day for sure!
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[…] so I found another excuse to use more goat cheese and made more of my goat cheese balls seen here. I bought two sweet potatoes and used one in the salad and one to make […]