Cheese Souffles

Wednesday, July 26th
Menu: Goat cheese souffles, mixed green salad with sauteed shrimp and herb vinagrette; for dessert (a rarity in our house) goat's milk vanilla ice cream (LaLoo's - yum!) topped with caramelized baby bananas, chopped almonds, and chocolate sauce.

Okay, I really don't understand why there is such terror around making souffles. They are easy to make and of the ones I have made, can be done ahead and refrigerated, leaving only the baking to be done at the last minute. So anyway, last night was my first experiment with a cheese souffle, goat cheese specifically. It was incredibly good, rich and creamy, with the melt in your mouth texture that makes souffles amazing. The recipe came from the May 2001 issue of Bon Appetit and I did follow the recipe this time, except for making the souffles ahead of time and refrigerating them until I was ready to start dinner. I let them come to room temp before baking and they were perfect. Even with his aversion to mushy food, I think Andrew has become a souffle lover; he definitely approved of this dinner although he did make sure to caveat that nothing can top the warm chocolate souffles that I make. He has nothing to worry about - they're not coming off the rotation of regular desserts for special occasions!