Salad with Baked Goat Cheese and Rosemary Infused Honey

The week before Christmas was one of those incredibly busy weeks.  There was a lot of cooking going on at our house.  Tuesday was probably the craziest day.  I had a couple of new recipes chosen for dinner - chicken crusted with pecans and drizzled with a white wine maple reduction and a salad with baked goat cheese and rosemary infused honey.  Only problem was the fact that I also had to broil 240 bacon wrapped waterchestnuts and make a vat of vegetable soup for Christmas Eve.  The waterchestnuts took 20 minutes a pan - at an average of 40 per pan.  Ok, you can do the math.  I got home about 6:30 and didn't start the broiling right away.  It was 9:15 by the time dinner was ready to go in the oven.  I worked on the waterchestnuts and did a bit of the vegetable soup.  Connie chopped and chopped and chopped.  Turnips, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, cabbage...  I opened cans of corn and tomatoes and chopped carrots and celery.  Somehow, we got the soup in the stockpot and the waterchestnuts broiled then in the freezer. 


Our invitations to the after holiday party had gone out four days earlier and we already had 105 attending.  Normally, we have 125-150 here.  But, here we are a week later - and a week and a half before the party - and we've got close to 140 attending!  So, we may be pushing closer to 200 this year.  The good news is that we already have 200 chicken wings in the freezer along with 120 teriyaki flank steak skewers, a bunch of green olive gruyere poppers, wing eggrolls and brownies. I'm almost done with the menu and the grocery list.  A lot of the food is last minute - which makes it tough.  But, I've done this enough years that it's no longer overwhelming.


Finally, dinner was ready.  It was too late.  Neither of us really wanted the chicken.  So, I put the salads together and added a slice of chicken.  Dinner at 10 pm.  Bedtime.  But, we got a lot done and I'll not gripe about that.  Eating too late. Yup.  Getting a lot done.  Nope. 


What did we think?  This was clearly a five on our scale of one to five.  This was the first recipe I picked out of the cookbook and won't be the last. 

Baked Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Salad with Rosemary Infused Honey

Ingredients:

for the onions:
1 T olive oil
3 medium sweet onions, very thinly sliced
1 1/2 t sugar

for the goat cheese:
1/2 lb soft goat cheese log
1/2 c panko bread crumbs
1 T minced fresh rosemary or 1 t dried
1 T minced fresh thyme or 1 t dried
1/4 t sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

for the salad:
3 c dark leafy greens
3 T olive oil
1 1/2 T red wine vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 c rosemary infused honey

for the honey:
6 oz honey (I used buckwheat)
6 sprigs fresh rosemary

Directions:

for the honey:

In a jar (a canning jar works nicely,) mix the honey and the rosemary.  Put the jar in a saucepan of simmering water.  You want the water no more than halfway up the sides of the jar.  Simmer the honey for 10 minutes.  Then, remove the jar from the water and set it aside for about half an hour to allow it to infuse.

for the onions:

Heat the oil in a large skillet.  Slice the onions very thinly.  Add the onions to the skillet and saute them for about 15 minutes on very low heat.  Sprinkle them with the sugar and saute them for another 5 minutes.  They should be well caramelized. 

for the goat cheese:

Preheat your oven to 400.  Mix the bread crumbs and herbs. 

Cut the goat cheese into 1/3" rounds. 

Coat both sides of the rounds with the bread crumb mixture. 

Bake the cheese on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 5-10 minutes per side or until it's golden brown.

for the salad:

Put about 1/2 cup of greens on each salad plate.  Top the greens with some caramelized onion then two goat cheese rounds.  Drizzle the salads with the oil, vinegar and honey.

adapted from Stonewall Kitchen Harvest