"feta" news and stories

This time of the year, with temperatures routinely in the nineties, no fruit is more refreshing than watermelon. Those seeking a break from the heat can enjoy the cool taste of chilled watermelon salad with feta cheese. To find out the best way to combine the sweet and salty components, we turned to Chef Glenn Harris from restaurant Jane in New York City. He shared the recipe for one of his signature dishes that's on the menu at Jane until mid-September – "Watermelon & Yellow Tomato Tartare with Baby Arugula and Catapano Goat Cheese Vinaigrette." (Catapano is a soft and creamy, feta-like cheese made with goat's milk from Catapano Dairy Farm in Peconic, N.Y., near Long Island's North Fork.)

Being part-Polish I should love borscht. The beety flavor, the gorgeous red hue. It's one of the big staples along with my beloved pierogies and galumpkis. But I just couldn't get into it. I began to feel bad about this distaste when my great aunt came to visit from Poland and cooked for us. Years later, I still fear the soup, but since I've been on a huge kick to remove as many foods on my no-eat list, I figured beets were a good area to tackle next. That, and I got some beautiful ones in my last organic food delivery.

I searched the web and settled on Roasted Beet Salad with Beet Greens, courtesy of Epicurious. In the comments, a few people swore that beet haters loved this, so I had to try. It's simple, almost fool-proof. I got antsy and nuked my beets half-way through (it was getting really late at night), and I am happy to say -- they were delicious. The vinaigrette cuts some of the beet flavor, and is paired wonderfully with the garlic, capers, feta, and beet greens. When you do get some of the strong, beet flavor, it's much easier to take, get used to, and like. In fact, I'm hooked on salad now. It hasn't even been a week, and I've already picked up more beets. For other beety options, try this beet and goat cheese salad, or this carrot and beet salad.

Step two: Borscht.

When I get excited about large amounts of delicious-looking fresh produce for too-cheap-to-refuse prices, I go overboard. Way overboard. My eyes light up, reason goes out the window, and I pick up everything tasty that I lay my eyes on. Sometimes I'm pretty good at coming up with immediate possibilities for the produce, so that I don't have so much that it'll go bad before I get to it. Tomatoes are mentally whipped up into salsa. Potatoes become a nice and creamy potato salad. But sometimes I buy with no clue, just driven by a veggie consumerist hunger.

That's what happened when I picked up a big basket of squash and zucchini over the weekend. I had no idea what I'd do with it, but I had to have them since they were only a few bucks. For once, I'm so glad that I did because I created my first moan-worthy meal in a while. Check it out after the jump.

On a whim I threw a little salad together tonight that turned out to be one of the best things I've made lately. it was almost all ingredients I picked up yesterday at a local Farmers' Market. It was half a pint of orange cherry tomatoes sliced in half, three blondie cucumbers (like Kirbys, only yellow instead of green) peeled and chunked, four ounces of cubed feta and ten shredded lemon verbena leaves. I drizzled a little olive oil on top of it and gave it a good shower of ground pepper.

The lemon verbena tastes like both green freshness and lemon zest. It's not an herb that you find in every market, but if you can get your hands on it, it is well worth the price and search.

Jamie, the cheese lover behind the blog Curdnerds.com, posted an interesting food question today: "What is your favorite cheese to cook with?"

I've been pondering that thought for the better part of the last hour and I think I have to say that when it comes to cooking, I'm a big fan of the goat and sheep cheeses. Feta, Chevre, Basque Shepherd cheese or Pecorino Romano are all good ones in my book.