Hello I'm Holly, and I'm a Junior studying interior architecture here at Samford! Over quarantine and summer break, I did a lot of cooking, baking, and staging for styled photo shoots. I've always had an appreciation for art and design, whether it be for a well made film, a beautiful photograph, an oil or watercolor painting, or an interior space. I appreciate beautiful, quality things, and food definitely falls under an artistic category that I admire. I'm excited to be collaborating with the marketing team to contribute a few recipes on this blog and share my favorite essentials to create a charcuterie board that's sure to be a crowd favorite!
Rosemary Lemon Scones
This recipe is incredible and beyond easy!
Ingredients
4 Cups All Purpose flour
1 Tbs baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup sugar
100 g diced cold butter…. The rough equivalent to that is 7 Tbs + a little so just go with that, but if you have a kitchen scale, use that!
1 Cup whole milk ( can add more if needed)
2 Tbs chopped, fresh rosemary
1 egg
Powdered sugar
2 lemons
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 420. Combine dry ingredients together in a food processor, then add diced butter until it looks like breadcrumbs. If you don't have a food processor you can grate the butter to lightly fold into the flour until it's thoroughly combined. After transferring it into a bowl, add milk and mix lightly. You don't want to overwork the dough. Then combine the chopped rosemary. Flour a surface and roll out the dough (1-1 ½ inch thick) and cut with a round cutter or cup. Place the scones straight onto a baking sheet - you won't need to grease it or anything - and lightly brush each with egg wash. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes
For the icing, squeeze lemon juice into a bowl of powdered sugar. I don't have a specific measurement for this, it just depends on how you want it. I tend to do thinner icing (so more lemony than sugary) . Cover the scones with icing once they've cooled and enjoy with clotted cream and jam!
Charcuterie Board
I tend to go WAY overboard with cheese boards because there are so many items that I hate to leave out. Also I love to have a lot of different options on a board for people to choose from. I'd much rather just list a lot of different recommendations than give you a strict pairing of a few things, so I'm going to do both!
Here are some good rules to go by - always choose 1-5 cheeses. Once you go over 5, it gets overwhelming. Also If you're getting more than 1 or 2 cheeses, get at least one cow, sheep, and goat cheese.
Recommendations
CHEESE:
Montamore
Robusto
Manchego
Soft goat cheese
Midnight moon
Triple cream brie
Camembert
Humboldt fog - IF you like blue cheese (has a pretty blue stripe down the middle)
Compte
Gruyere
Coastal English Cheddar (costco)
Dubliner
Saint angel triple cream blue
Any kind of alpine cheese is worth a shot tbh
Stilton (if you LOVE blue cheese)
CRACKERS / BREAD:
Trader Joe's Fig and Olive / Rosemary crisps
Effie's oatcakes
Lavash crackers (fresh market)
Rosemary Olive oil Bread
Fresh Baguette (Continental Bakery quality)
FRUIT:
Fresh figs
Strawberries
Blueberries
SC Peaches
Champagne grapes
Honey Crisp apples
MEAT:
Genoa Salami
Prosciutto
Smoked salmon (if you wanna go there lol)
ADDITIONAL ITEMS:
Marcona almonds
Mixed nuts
Terra chips
Fig jam (please get this and put on almost everything)
Olives
Dates
A restaurant in Chattanooga, TN called Alleia has an appetizer that's toasted bread (I'm pretty sure they put it on a grill, but you could just toast bread the normal way lol), ricotta, and truffle honey. If you feel like buying truffle oil (make sure it's not infused olive oil… you need straight up truffle oil) and just drizzling that with honey or combining the two, it's SO good. There's probably a more sophisticated way to make truffle honey, but this is easier and I think tastes the same.
DRINKS:
Only and always Belvoir Elderflower Lemonade
(with the exception of Fentimans rose lemonade or La Croix)
SMALL BOARD NECESSITIES (THE BEST OF THE BEST)
- Sartori Montamore cheddar or Robusto Gouda (cow)
The cheddar is softer but still super sharp and crystalized. It's also super easy to crumble. The gouda is from whole foods and is probably one of their most popular cheeses. I feel like every time I go and ask about cheeses they ALWAYS point me to Robusto.
- Manchego (sheep)
Kind of hard, kind of soft… I don't really know what you call that medium range of the two textures. It has a super light and creamy taste
- Any brand of regular, soft goat cheese or Cypress Grove Midnight Moon
Just depends on which you prefer and what you want to add to your board. It's nice to have something creamy if you already have two harder cheeses, but also Midnight Moon is SO good. It's aged so it's sharper than regular goat cheese. With regular goat cheese I usually always put honey on the top and put it on an Effie's Oatcake cracker :)
- Lavash Crackers, Trader Joe's Fig and olive crisps or a GOOD baguette
- Champagne colored grapes - they're so good and are BEAUTIFUL
- Genoa Salami or Prosciutto
ETON MESS
Cut strawberries, crushed meringue (can just get from Trader Joes), and homemade whipped cream. Just mix it together. Literally my favorite dessert of all time and so easy.
SALMON & FARRO SALAD
Ingredients
- Salmon
1 Salmon Filet
Honey
½ tsp Lemon Pepper
1 tsp Rub with Love Salmon Rub
Butter
Lime
- Farro Salad
(farro)
1 Cup farro
1 cup water
1 cup chicken stock
(green goddess)
½ cup basil leaves
½ cup fresh parsley
¼ cup green onions
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup cashews
¼ cup milk
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp black pepper
(corn relish)
⅓ cup olive oil
1 lemon juiced and zested
½ tsp sea salt
3 white corn cobs
Instructions:
Combine farro, chicken stock, and water in a pot and put over the stove on high heat. Once the farro has soaked up the chicken stock and water, set aside in a large bowl to cool. Sometimes I like to add a bit more chicken stock before I take it off of the heat if I want my farro to be softer. Just make sure not to add too much to the point where the farro can't soak up any more liquid.
Put all ingredients for the green goddess dressing in a blender and blend until smooth. Easy enough!
Shuck the corn, cover in olive oil, and place them on a pan on high heat. Charr each of the sides, leaving the rest raw. Once charred, place on a plate and use a sharp knife to cut the corn off the cob. Squeeze lemon juice and sprinkle salt and pepper. Then combine the corn with farro and mix with green goddess. You'll probably have left over dressing, so combine the dressing to however much you want in your salad. Then place the salad in the fridge until cool / cold.
I prefer grilled salmon, so if you have access to a grill DEFINITELY do that (if you do, use olive oil instead of butter), but since most of us are college students that don't have grills, here's another way to do it!
Heat a large non-stick pan on high with a Tbs of olive oil. Place salmon in the pan and reduce heat to medium-low. Do not move the fillet. Allow the salmon to cook for about 7 minutes or until well browned and cooked about three quarters of the way through. Turn the fillet, add butter, and cook for about 3 minutes more, or until it's still barely pink in the center. Top with lemon (or lime) and serve over the farro!
Thanks for following along! - Holly Schumpert
