Using up special ingredients: Blue Cheese Crackers

Have you ever bought a "special" ingredient for a recipe and not needed it all?  So what do you do with the leftovers?  I'm frugal, so I hate to waste anything - so I go searching for a recipe (or an idea) to use it in a new and creative way.

Last weekend's Bacon and Blue Pierogies required 4 oz of Blue Cheese.  Because I wasn't totally sure about the amounts, I bought an extra wedge as backup.  Which meant that I've had blue cheese sitting in my fridge for a week - calling my name.

I've made these crackers before - they are a play on a savory shortbread.  I love them.  This time I adjusted the size to be more bite-sized.  I think I prefer them smaller!

Blue Cheese Crackers

Ingredients:

4 oz blue cheese, room temperature

4 Tbsp butter, room temperature

3/4 Cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

1. Mise en place.
• I've said this before.  Get your stuff together before you start cooking.  This recipe has 5 whole ingredients... I think you can manage.

  

  Look closely.  See something wrong here?

  

  I might have gotten excited to make the recipe... and forgot to take pictures until the end!

2. Cream together the blue cheese and butter
• It is really important that both be room temperature.  They won't combine very well if they're not. Trust me - leave them out on the counter for a few hours before trying to make this.
3. Mix in the flour, black pepper, and cayenne.
• Fresh ground black pepper.  Please please please - use a pepper mill or a spice grinder.  Don't buy ground black pepper in the little tin at the grocery store.  Trust me - the flavor is completely different.
• Cayenne.  Use as much or as little as you can handle.  My husband and I both love spicy things - so I'm generous with it.  But it's totally up to you.  But don't skip it unless you're allergic!

  

  Here's a funny picture of my empty bowl!  It's the best I could do!

  
  
4. Prepare the dough.
• For small crackers: split the dough in 1/2 and put into 2 sandwich-size ziptop bags.
  For large crackers: put the whole batch into 1 sandwich-size ziptop bag.
• Squish it all the way to the bottom and roll to form it into a small log.
• Seal the ziptop bag and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours or the freezer for 1 hour.  You need the dough to be very cold in order to slice nicely.

  

  This is after it's chilled, but you get the idea...

  

  For reference, this is 1/2 the dough making small crackers.
  

  

  To give you a sense of how small the log is...
  

5. Slice the coins and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
• Cut the log of dough into 1/4" thick coins.
  
• Parchment make this a very easy clean up.
• I got about 20 small crackers from 1/2 the batch.
  
6. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes.
• Watch them closely and pull them out when nicely browned.
  

  

  5 minutes
  

  

  10 minutes
  

  

  15 minutes
  

  

  20 minutes

 Tadaaaa!  Used up my leftover blue cheese and now have a nice snack for the weekend!  They are light and crispy and tangy with a nice little bite from the blue cheese and peppers.

Hope you enjoyed this quick little recipe!  Come back and visit next weekend when I spend some more time practicing in my kitchen.