So I'm having a dinner party tonight.
And because I'm a fancy food writer,
my friends expect to be impressed.
A cheese plate is a really good appetizer to serve
at any party, but it can get a little expensive.
And I already ate like half the cheese.
Don't worry though—I’m gonna show you how to turn
these scraps into something really elegant
that all my friends are gonna love.
So what we're gonna do is
make a little dish called “fromage fort.”
Which already you're off to a good start
because the name is fancy and French.
But what it is, is it’s just cheese that's fortified
with a little bit of wine, some butter,
some garlic, and some herbs.
I know the term “leftover cheese”
probably doesn't mean anything to you,
so we can just call it “bonus cheese,”
or “cheese that's here, 'cause I'm a quitter.”
The great thing about it is you can really do
whatever you want with it, it's very open to variables.
We've got some Parmesan.
We've got some really nice, soft,
stinky sheep's milk cheese.
We've got another cheddar-type situation,
and we've got some feta.
You just want a nice mix of soft and hard cheeses,
not too much of one or the other.
And you want about 8 ounces.
So the next thing we're gonna do
is we're gonna take some garlic, peel it,
throw it in the food processor,
and then we're just gonna pulse it.
And that is good.
Next, we're gonna add our cheese.
So with cheese that has an edible rind like this,
you can just leave that on.
If it has like a hard Parmesan rind, don't throw that in here—
you're gonna save any hard rinds for your stock bag.
So let's add the feta, that's easy to crumble in.
All right, and for the harder cheeses,
we're just gonna grate those real quick
'cause you want everything to disperse nice and evenly.
Put that in there.
For these smaller Parmesan pieces, you can just crumble 'em.
And if you don't have a bunch of fancy cheese, don't worry.
You can use cream cheese, you can use cheddar,
straight up string cheese if that's what you have.
You just want 8 ounces of a bunch of different cheeses.
And I'm just gonna pulse that real quick to combine.
The next thing we're gonna do is add some butter,
you want about two tablespoons.
And just to help everything kind of disperse evenly,
let's cut that butter.
And you'll see it'll start to ball up, which is good.
So the next ingredient is a little bit of wine.
You don't have to open a brand new bottle for this.
If you have something already open, you can use that.
You can also use a little bit of vermouth.
You don't need a ton, you just wanna add a little flavor—
help everything kinda soften and emulsify.
So we're just gonna add a splash.
Oop, that's good.
And now for the final touch,
we're just gonna add in some herbs.
Got some Italian parsley here.
Put some thyme in there.
One more blend.
And that is gorgeous.
I like to split it up over two different serving dishes,
so not everyone hovers around the same one.
It's amazing how hard it is
to make food look pretty sometimes.
So now we have our fromage fort
with our little accoutrements.
As far as what you should serve it with—
I like crackers, I like breads, I like vegetables
to pretend I’m like a more healthier person,
and also just because radishes are delightful.
Rainbow carrots are a great thing to serve
'cause they're beautiful, they're crunchy, they're sweet,
they go great with cheese.
But really, anything you wanna dip cheese into,
you can put on a plate along with fromage fort—
which is basically anything.
You can also make it a day ahead of time,
two days ahead of time, or if you're running late
and you need to make it last minute,
right before you serve it.
It's really super adaptable, easy to make,
and it'll free up a bunch of time—letting you focus
on the more important parts of your party, like the playlist.