Corsu Vecchiu with Carrots and Raisins

So... cheese.  I think you can't go wrong with cheese.  Particularly with the cheese courses in The French Laundry Cookbook.  Not only are they delicious, they are easy (well, easy is a relative term, but waaaay easier than anything else in the book).  And with my favorite local cheese shop - Venissimo Cheese - easy to find the weird cheese.

This was no exception.  Behold!  Five easy pictures to get you to a beautiful composed cheese course.

First, I made the spice mix.  After combining all of the spices in a bowl, I threw them in the vitamix.  While it admittedly did not work as well as a spice grinder, my vitamix still rules.

Next I shredded some carrots.  Thank you, Mr. Food Processor, for taking care of an otherwise time-consuming and arduous job in 10 seconds.

I also simmered down some carrot juice (bought in a gigantic jug from Costco, just because I happened to be there and saw it), added a little of the spice mix juice and shredded carrots, and tried some.  It was like dessert!  (now if I could only convince angry toddler this was true...)

Next up: raisins.  Gently simmered in water with some lemon juice.

Then pureed... in the handy-dandy vitamix!

Because this was all so easy, I did the above steps in the morning. 

Right before peopel were supposed to come over, I sliced the cheese.

And plated it.  Pretty, even without the carrot powder (I had some, then it turned out to be funny-smelling, so I decided against using it) and the chervil (which is only found in like one freaking place in San Diego, and I didn't want to go to Specialty Produce just to get a garnish).

Tasty, although not astonishing.  The sweetness of the carrots and raisins was a nice compliment to the "ripeness" (stinkiness) of the cheese.  And it was easy!  I don't think I can emphasize enough how easy.  Lets just say... it took a total of 30 minutes of time.  That's Rachel Ray-timed cooking, except without the insufferable abbreviations and shortcuts.  Think about it... Thomas Keller or RR.  I know which one i'd chose!