Thursday, November 30, 2006

Weekend Cookbook Challenge #11 - Party Food

Since we're all heading into the holiday season, Party Food seemed a good choice for this challenge. It seems like all we do now is go to parties, lunches and dinners and eat wayyyy too much food. Not that that's a bad thing.

We had some of our neighbor's over for dinner so I decided to throw caution to the wind and make a new appetizer that I could blog about for WCC. I normally don't like to cook something new when we have company, but I figured it would be OK as the recipe seemed pretty straightforward.
I used my cookbook called The Girls Who Dish! which is written by some wonderful Vancouver female chefs.
I chose the Confit and Cambozola because it sounded good and wasn't very high maintenance. Just chuck it in the oven and leave it. What could be better? This was pretty good, although I wonder if maybe my garlic was getting old - it didn't soften very much. But it infused the tomatos and the "broth" with lots of garlic flavor, so I guess that's ok. This could be made for 10 people just as easily as it could be made for 4, and that's good party food.



Confit and Cambozola
By Mary Mackay from the book The Girls Who Dish!

serves 4

4 ripe tomatos, core removed
20 garlic cloves, peeled
4 tsp finely chopped fresh basil
4 tb olive oil
salt to taste
2 oz cambozola cheese sliced into 4 pieces
pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375'. Slice about 1/8" (.3cm) off the tops of the tomatos. Place the tomatos cut side up in 4 ramekins. The tomatos should fit snugly (I baked my 4 together in a baking dish). Press 5 garlic cloves into each tomato and sprinkle 1 tsp of basil over top. Drizzle each with 1 tb olive oil and season with salt. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet and bake on the middle rack for 75 to 90 minutes. To check for doneness, pierce a garlic clove with the tip of a paring knife; the garlic should be soft. Remove from the oven and top each with a slice of cheese. Top each with pepper.


Don't forget to send me your post for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge! Email me by Ddecember 3.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks very festive.

Lis said...

Wow that looks fantastic. I love anything that goes well for dipping a good crusty bread it. I'll be trying this!

Question though - I've never heard of this cheese and I peruse & purchase from the gourmet cheese section of my store often. If I can't find it, what can I use in lieu of? Thanks! :D

Anonymous said...

This looks like it would be good to have on a chilly night.

Sara said...

Why thank you Peabody, it is, isn't it!

Lis - Cambazola is like a cross between brie and blue cheese. If you can't find it or don't like it, I would use pretty much any melty cheese. Scott put goats cheese on the leftover tomatos the next day for lunch, and it was really really good.

Mandy - Hey, nice to hear from you again. Yes I agree, and having the oven on for all that time doesn't hurt when it's cold either.

Anonymous said...

And you could sort of call it a salad.
It sounds like a really simple thing to put together and looks excellent.

Ruth Daniels said...

It does sound delicious - I'm drooling as I write this.

Thanks for sharing and, as always, putting together a great WCC.

Anonymous said...

Where are you, that you're getting good tomatoes on the last day of November?

Sara said...

Tanna - yes you could - other than the cheese and a bit of oil, it's pretty healthy.
Ruth - Thanks!
Anon - in October I bought a flat of tomatos from the last farmers market - half of them were green, so they have been ripening in my basement. I am all out of them now though.