You know those beautiful little artisan goat cheeses you see in fancy food stores? The ones that are about the size of a smashed golf ball and cost about $8? They’re so pretty with their dainty nasturtium flower on top, or the ones ever so lightly dusted “artisan-like” with peppercorns. Let me let you in on a little secret: it’s a racket those goat cheeses! Now, unless the cheese itself was milked from the teat of the artisan’s own goat (which some of them are, so don’t yell at me, but some of them are not), they take about two seconds to make. Well, maybe two minutes.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly appreciate the craft and the beauty of those little jewels, but who has $8 to spend these days on a tiny piece of cheese that wasn’t flown in from some moldy cave in France?

We had guests coming over to wish us a Happy New Year and I hadn’t yet been out to replenish “the larder.” Heck, it was noon and I still hadn’t even made it into the shower! Fortunately I had one of those long logs of goat cheese that I got at either Costco or Trader Joe’s during my holiday provisioning. Perfectly decent goat cheese for under $6. I cut the log into quarters and made half with some ground Turkish sweet chili peppers and the other with a blend of Italian herbs, red pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Beautiful and tasty.

Make your own blend of herbs that you already have in your spice cabinet (maybe some herbes de Provence and a little lavender or some smoked paprika), roll your petite cuts of goat cheese in it – and voilà – you’re a cheese artisan!

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