It's Saturday night and Wilson and I are spending a quiet evening home alone.  Our intent was to open a 2003 Domaine du Colombier Hermitage, which is a wonderful Syrah we sampled at a tasting over a year ago.  When we enjoy a good bottle of wine I like to serve food that we can graze on and linger over.  To me, the cheese plate is the perfect accompaniment to wine.  The cheese plate is also the reason I'm a lacto-vegetarian and not vegan, I think I would literally weep if I gave up cheese.  There is always the possibility though.  I would definitely give up cheese before I would give up wine and bread :)

Before partaking in our wine and cheese we started the evening off with a cocktail.  Tonight's concoction was a Ginger Peach Mint Martini.  Be forewarned, I like them strong!

Ginger Peach Mint Martini

3 oz Yazi ginger vodka

1 ½ oz Peach Schnapps

1 tsp fresh lime juice

1 tsp simple syrup

4 mint leaves, plus 1 for garnish

In a shaker, muddle 4 mint leaves with the simple syrup and lime juice.  Add the Yazi, Peach Schnapps and ice.  Shake well and strain into a sugared rimmed martini glass.  Garnish with a mint leaf. 

My cheese plate was comprised of Roaring 40's Blue, Petit Basque, Extra Long Aged Beemster Gouda, Roncal and Chèvre.  The accompaniments were fresh fruit, Marcona almonds with olive oil, sea salt and rosemary, chutney and the green fig leaf wrapped object is a Roasted Italian Fig Ball.  The fig ball is comprised of about 20 black figs that have been dried, roasted and glazed with fig syrup and pressed together to form a ball with fig leaves holding it together.  Below is a picture of the figs after I cut into the ball. 

Raincoast Crisps are a wonderful thin cracker that were perfect spread with Chèvre and topped with chutney.  I also made some homemade bread which turned out alright but was by no means perfect.  Part of the problem was I didn't use a recipe and just made it up as I went along :)  The flavor was wonderful because I started with a sponge I made yesterday and then added additional flour, water and salt to it this morning.  Instead of using one of my typical methods for shaping the loaf I played around with it a bit too much and ended up with a very dense bread.  Experimenting is fun even when you don't get a great result.

Hope this inspires you to take a night off from cooking and enjoy a wonderful meal of cheese, bread and wine.