Dinner with Lovely Sarah

My good friend and neighbor, Sarah, came over for dinner the other night.  We were both roommate-less for the moment - so we had dinner.  I have to put in a disclaimer up here...  I was much more concerned with enjoying the company and food than with taking pictures.  So I only took a small handful and they didn't come out all that great.

Case in point, I didn't even take a picture of my guest!!  Thus, this is a picture from Facebook.  Although, she often stores stuff in her cheeks like a chipmunk so this is pretty close to how I picture her in my mind.

I feel blessed to have a neighbor who loves cheese and wine as much as I do.  I had to stop by Whole Foods on my way home for the Gruyere cheese - but picked up as couple other kinds as well.  Total we had a little bit of Parmesan, Piave, Gruyere and Taleggio.  (I had some Taleggio for my birthday at the Tasting Room last year.  It's an amazing soft cheese, if you ever see it out - I definitely recommend it!)

I had got some leeks from Peapod - but I've never cooked with them before.  I knew I could make a soup or something with them, but since it was a first experience, I wanted try something where I could really get to taste a leek in all it's glory.  So I made these Baked Leeks with Bacon and Gruyere.  My steam basket wasn't wide enough to fit the whole leek - so the end was a bit rough, or maybe I should have cut off some more of the green.  

After steaming them, we baked them with an egg, chicken stock and Gruyere cheese mixture. 

We definitely used more than one ounce of cheese.  (I did mention we love cheese, right?!)  The end result was absolutely amazing!  They weren't onion-y but instead almost sweet and extremely tender.  I'm so glad I decided to try them as a stand alone piece instead of a soup. 

I served them up along side some pan fried chicken (with lemon juice and oregano) and (a boxed - so not very good) Italian Risotto.

The not so good boxed Risotto combined with my friend, Melissa's, delicious blog has got me craving some really good Risotto.  So watch for that soon!

(Since I copied the leek recipe to almost a T, I'm not going to recreate here.  But go get it - incase you missed it, go get this amazing Baked Leeks with Bacon and Gruyere Recipe.)

LT