Appleton Creamery
Goat Cheese
recipes: Adaptable, intelligent, and small in size, the goat is perfectly suited to a family dairy. While traditional dairy operations face perennial hard times, goat farms are thriving thanks to America's growing appetite for fresh goat cheese.
One of these small, cutting edge farms is Appleton Creamery of Appleton, Maine. Appleton is a snug whitewashed village on Rt. 131 between Union and Searsmont.
Cait Hunter has been raising goats and making cheese for 21 years. Her husband Brad is a sailmaker and the farm is a pleasant collection of buildings and plantings including house, sail loft, barn, paddock and gardens.
The Hunters with daughter Fiona keep a registered herd of 45 Alpine goats. It is very much a family business, with Cait milking, making the cheese, and attending farmer's markets often accompanied by Fiona. Brad tends the herd and other farm animals including ducks, chickens, cats and guard dog Claymore.
Every morning Cait gets up at a very early hour to milk before heading off to her regular job at school. She used to milk by hand but now uses a milking machine. Her cheese making room is small and spotless. Cait makes her cheese daily in small batches, using pasteurized milk, rennet, cultures, and salt, with no preservatives.
Goat cheese is lower in calories and more digestible than most cow's milk cheeses. It also has naturally higher amounts of some vitamins.
One of the by-products of cheese making is more goats. Most years around seventy new kids are born, delivered by Brad. Last year, due to a surge in twins and triplets, the tally was much higher. The kids are hand raised and named and part of the work of the farm is finding good homes for them.
The other goat by product, composted manure, insures a bountiful garden each year where the Hunters grow much of their food as well as the herbs and garlic that flavor the cheese. Brad also raises his own hops and barley for home brewing.
There is not much of a market for goat milk, which is rich and distinctive in flavor. Some of us prefer it to cow's milk, but the real interest is in chevre, a tangy spreadable cheese which served fresh without aging.
Appleton Creamery chevre comes in a variety of styles and flavors, but their most popular product is is marinated in olive oil with roast garlic and herbs. This flavorful offering won a 1999 American Goat Cheese Society award. Other chevres include dill, classic plain and orange. Seasonal flavors are spring spread, chive, strawberry, maple, and basil. Cait also markets pepper rounds and logs, goat cheese buttons (also award winning), and aged hard Crofter's cheese. She also produces cheese cakes, pound cake, and her daughter's own Fiona's Fabulous Fudge.
Appleton Creamery markets their cheeses through stores, restaurants and farmers' markets. Cait is at the Belfast Farmers' Market on Fridays. The farm is located on Gurney Town Road in Appleton. They encourage visits (please make arrangements in advance) and can be reached at 207-785-4431, through email at hunter@midcoast.com, or visit their website: www.appletoncreamery.com.
We like herbed chevre best spread on our own Fisher Farm crackers. It is also great crumbled over pasta or salads or tossed with new potatoes. Chevre keeps well in the refrigerator and can be frozen if necessary.
Pasta w/ Goat Cheese & Asparagus
- 1 pound asparagus
- 2 tablespoons chives, chopped
- 1 pound fettuccine
- 5 ounces Appleton Creamery Classic Plain chevre 2 tablespoons butter
- salt & pepper to taste
Scrape and trim the asparagus. Slice into 1/4 inch lengths. In a kettle bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Add the fettuccine, boiling vigorously for 9 to 12 minutes. Drain the pasta.
Melt the butter in the kettle and add the asparagus. Saute for about 1 minute and add the fettuccine, goat cheese, chives, salt & pepper. Pour in the reserved water. Toss well and serve.
Fresh Chevre and Wild Mushroom Ravioli
- 6 9X12 sheets of fresh ravioli
- 8 ounces Appleton Creamery Classic Plain chevre
- 1 ounce dried wild mushrooms
- 1 cup boiling water
- tablespoon fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon salt
- fresh black pepper to taste
Pour boiling water over mushrooms and let soak until mushrooms are soft. Reserve water. Chop mushrooms into tiny pieces, mix with chevre, thyme, salt and pepper until fully combined. With a teaspoon, roll 36 balls of cheese and refrigerate for one hour.
On a sheet of pasta, place 12 balls of cheese mix, equally spaced out 3 x 4. Lightly dampen the pasta with the mushroom water, around the cheese balls. Place another sheet of pasta over the cheese and press around balls until the cheese is sealed in between the pasta sheets. (You may need to roll out the top layer of pasta a little to fit over the cheese-filled layer.) Cut sheets into 12 ravioli and set on a cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal (this will keep the ravioli from sticking to each other). Repeat with the rest of the pasta sheets and refrigerate again for at least one hour.
Boil a large pot of salted water. Drop pasta in for 6-7 minutes or until the ravioli float to the top. Serve with a light Parmesan cream sauce or fresh marinara.
The Belfast Farmers' Market is open Tuesdays 2:30-5:30 and Fridays and Saturdays 9-1 at Reny's Plaza on the corner of Rtes. 1 and 3 in Belfast. This month visit our Big Salad Bowl on June 23, Farm Animal Day on the 27th, and our 20th Anniversary celebration, Friday the 30th and Saturday July 1st. Come to the Belfast Farmers' Market and bring a friend!