Another holiday to celebrate, which gives me an excuse to get creative with my Cheesery! While I never really celebrated St. Patty's Day (minus the few NYC bar crawls in my early 20's), I feel like quarantine has led me to celebrate anything and everything as a way to keep things fun while stuck at home.
I was inspired to make this board but it did go through many iterations before I narrowed in my vibe.
At first I was thinking of doing an all green board which limited me greatly to the types of food I could have on it...as much as a board filled with vegetables sounds beautiful, I am not excited to actually eat it....which is actually a tangent I need to go on, so bear with me...
I love getting inspiration from other people's boards online, but I find most of them, while absolutely gorgeous, are 50% inedible. I saw this beautiful monochromatic green board but literally, it had a whole artichoke on it. Not cooked, just a whole artichoke sitting there. And while it was super pretty, I am not sure how one goes about noshing on a whole raw artichoke. I pride myself in making my boards 100% edible with elements that you actually WANT to eat. But anyway, that's my rant....I'll get off my cheese soap box now.
Back to the creative process.....after I nixed the monochromatic green board, I thought of doing a completely sweet board (cookies, candies, marshmallows, Lucky Charms, et al) but again, after a few cookies, I would feel awful and an entire board would go to waste. Then I thought of some symbols of St Paddy's Day....Pots of Gold, Leprechauns, Rainbows, and I came up with this idea.
As with my Valentine's Day Cheeseboard, I added both sweet and savory elements and I created the board right on my kitchen table (more of a grazing table type situation). I wanted to add foods that my daughter would like, as well as things us adults would love as well. Once I mapped out the idea of doing a Rainbow with a "Pot of Gold" at the end, I started to think up foods to represent the ROY G BIV color scheme, and fun ways I could make things like clouds or a pot of gold. Coming up with Rainbow foods was fun:
RED: Prosciutto, Strawberries, Raspberries
((Other ideas: Salame, Sopressata, Apples, Pepperoni, Strawberry Preserves/Jam))
ORANGE: Cheddar Cheese, Cheese Puffs aka Moon Cheese, Goldfish
((Other ideas: Cotswold Cheese, Colby Jack, Orange Slices, Sliced Peaches))
YELLOW: Tete de Moine, Manchego, Honeycomb
((Other ideas: White Cheddar, Crackers, Havarti, Gouda, Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes))
GREEN: Herbed Goat Cheese, Shelled Pistachios, Edamame, Green M&M's
((Other ideas: Green Apples, Green Grapes, Kiwis, Pears, Cucumber))
BLUE: Blueberries & Blackberries
PURPLE: Purple Grapes
((Other ideas: Purple Rinded Cheese))
Next came what would wind up on each end of the rainbow....for the clouds I wanted to play around with some Brie Cheese and for texture add some White Chocolate Dipped Pretzels. I was hoping to find small wheels of brie, but couldn't. Another idea is to use small mozzarella balls to create clouds, or even Burrata.
On the other end of the rainbow would be our "pot of gold" so I wanted some Shamrock Cookies with green sprinkles or green royal icing, Gold Coins (like you see around Hanukkah), and Yellow M&Ms. Some other ideas are rainbow gummy strips, rainbow lollipops, yellow sprinkle cookies....let your creativity flow!
