Oh my gosh, what a day! It’s the weekend and another drizzly, cool day in the Twin Cities. Being an obsessed food blogger, I knew I had to start cooking! I’m making mushroom crostini with fromage fort.
Let me start from the beginning. I had leftover dried mushrooms, (from the carrot dish). Mary Jo was going shopping and she said she might go to the Mall of America, so I’m not going to tag along with her. What’s better than spending the day making a delicious appetizer from leftovers!
Speaking of leftovers and the title of this post is mushroom crostini with fromage fort. Fromage fort means “strong cheese” in French, and is nothing more than leftover cheeses. You could make this from any leftover cheeses you may have. Just put them in a food processor with some garlic, sour cream and leftover white wine, (whatever that is, we never have any)! Make a creamy cheese spread, put it on toasted bread and saute some mushrooms and onions with some herbs and the combination is awesome.
I started out my cooking adventure today by making a couple loaves of my french baguettes. I really don’t like buying bread when I have time to make it myself. I did go to the store to pick up some leftover cheese. Ha. Gruyere and white cheddar, which are pretty tasty.
In the meantime, I started soaking the dried mushrooms. I let them soak for a couple hours then wrung them out by hand and placed them on some paper towels to dry some more. They sat out for quite a while since the bread takes about 3 hours to make start to finish.
Next, I grated the cheese, put the ingredients in my little 3 1/2 cup Kitchen Aid food processor, and made the cheese spread. It tasted fantastic. I couldn’t wait to toast up that bread and spread the cheese, and top with the savory mushrooms!
Well, four and a half hours later, after cleaning up all the dirty dishes, I’m ready to figure out how I’m going to photograph this yummy appetizer. The cherry wood Boos Block is what I would use. We live in a condo and the only natural lighting is by the sliding glass door out to the deck. This lack of natural light, especially in the kitchen, makes me take things over to the windows, set up the food and then take some shots. I’d love to show you some stove shots but they would be low lighted and yellow from the electric lighting. Not really pleasing.
Anyway, I’m packed with stuff around my work area and see that the Boos board needed to be cleaned off so I could prepare the crostini and take it over to the windows to take some photos. I picked up the board and it slipped out of my hands and knocked over all kinds of stuff and the cheese spread ended up on the floor, upside down in a smashed glass bowl!
It was not very funny at the time….Looking back though, I’m glad that I had some leftover cheese…Fromage Fort! So by accident, I really had to make fromage fort. The second batch was just as good as the first, except that I had to clean up all the dishes again. Mary Jo had come home by then and she felt sorry for me so she washed while I dried.
The photos turned out pretty good and the efforts of a whole Saturday afternoon were rewarded with some great tasting mushroom crostini with fromage fort! I love leftovers!
And this is to my brother-in-law John. You better start eating fungus man! This stuff is good!
Enjoy!
Ingredients
Cheese spread
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 4 oz . gruyere cheese , grated
- 4 oz . white cheddar cheese , grated
- 2 tbsp soft butter
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 1 garlic clove
- pinch of kosher salt
Mushrooms
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 oz . dried mushrooms , rehydrated, (Oyster and shiitake used, or fresh mushrooms, 1 cup)
- 2 tbsp chopped white onion
- 1 garlic clove coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp thyme leaves
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley , plus more for garnish
- salt and pepper
- baguette , sliced 1/2 in. pieces, lightly coated with olive oil and toasted on a griddle on the stovetop.
- (This amount of mushrooms will give you enough for about 15 crostinis)
Instructions
Cheese spread
- Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree for about 1 minute.
- Keep at room temperature to use right away, or store in refrigerator for 1 week
Mushrooms
- Heat skillet on medium high and add butter and oil
- Cook shiitake mushrooms until lightly browned, 3 to 4 mins.
- Add oyster mushrooms and saute another 2 minutes
- Lower the heat to medium low and add onion and garlic, 2 mins
- Add wine and lemon juice and cook until the liquid has evaporated
Crostini
- Coat the toasted bread with the cheese spread
- Add mushroom/onion
- Garnish with chopped parsley
- (Place in microwave for 15 secs if desired to slightly melt the cheese spread)
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