.fried goat cheese with cherry preserves.

That's really all that needs to be said. Seriously.

But, y'all know I have more to say so, let's just get to it. First of all, how incredibly excited was I to find this at Trader Joe's!

So excited. No joke. I heard they had one serving size goat cheese medallions and indeed they do! And in cute little 6 medallion bunches! I love it! I bought two bunches. If you don't have a Trader Joe's close to you.... well, I feel bad for you. Really, I do. But I will eat the hell out of my goat cheese medallions without guilt. Sorry.

In May I went to a restaurant with some family and one of the appetizers was fried goat cheese. I tried it and was so impressed. It was delicious. They combined it with a nice balsamic vinegar sort of thing and I could have eaten like 50 of them. So, when deciding what to make with my adorable little medallions I knew that I wanted to try to do a fried goat cheese side dish. Besides of course eating them on salads, sandwiches, and delicious pizza. Since I don't have any balsamic in my kitchen (which probably needs to be remedied) I decided to try some warm cherry preserves as a substitute. Whoa y'all. Whoa. This added a completely new dimension to the goat cheese and I highly recommend trying it.

While perusing recipes I found that fried goat cheese could be used in a wide variety of salad recipes as a topper. I decided to just enjoy mine as an appetizer sort of meal, with grapes and a spinach, fontina and garlic chicken sausage (also found at Trader Joe's). And, if you can't find single serving medallions, don't fret. You could just buy a log of goat cheese, they usually are 8 ounces, and slice it into 8 medallions. The tips I learned for slicing is to put the log in the freezer for 15 minutes prior to slicing, then wipe the knife clean in between each slice.

Fried Goat Cheese with Cherry Preserves serves one
2- 1 ounce goat cheese medallions
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon bread crumbs
1 egg
A dash of dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon cherry preserves

Prepare a drudging station by placing the flour in one bowl, the egg, whisked, into a second bowl, and the bread crumbs and spices in a third bowl.

Place a small amount of olive oil in a pan and put over medium heat while drudging the cheese. Make the thickness of the cheese medallions as uniform as possible. They might crumble a bit, but that's ok, just form them back together. Place them first in the flour for an even coating, then into the egg, then into the bread crumb mixture. Then put them in the hot pan for roughly 2 to 3 minutes, flipping once.

Once they are brown and crispy on each side place them on a plate. Take a spoonful of the cherry preserve, roughly a tablespoon, and place it in the still warm pan. Once it's warm it will be much thinner, drizzle it over the fried goat cheese. Serve as an appetizer, or as a side dish.

As a side note, you could also probably try to use less drudging ingredients if only cooking for one. I had a lot of it left after drudging both medallions. The amounts listed would probably be better for 4, or maybe even 6, medallions.

XO