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.

Homemade Pierogi Part 2: Assembling, cooking...and EATING!

When we last met our intrepid heroes... er... cooks...

Last night, we left you hanging.  We had packed up our ingredients and put them in the fridge overnight.  It was late on a Sunday and I had to be up early on Monday.

So then on Monday evening, we worked together (hubby helped!) to assemble and cook them all!

Date night in our kitchen

1. Form the pierogi.
• This took some patience.  Like... a LOT of patience.  Hubby was better at this than I was.
• Let the dough warm up before starting.  We were anxious to start and tried to play with cold dough.  It was not happy.
• We used my new pasta rolling attachment for my stand mixer.  Lots of places will tell you that the dough is too tender for this, but we were careful to not overwork it.  It came out beautifully.
• Roll the dough until it is about 1/8" thick.  Try to keep the flour on only one side of the dough.  Trust me.  It's important.
  
• Cut into circles.  We have a little gadget to do this, so we tried it.  It was almost more frustrating than helpful.  Cut circles: use a glass, or a biscuit cutter, or a cookie cutter.  Anything round.
  
• Scoop a SMALL amount of potato and cheese mixture into the middle of the circle.  Trust me - go smaller than you think you need.  I had a tendency to overfill them and had a very hard time getting them closed.
  
• Top with some bacon bits.
  
• Fold over and seal tightly.  This is tricky.  You really need them sealed completely or the filling will come out when you boil them.  I recommend wetting your finger and running it around the inside edge before folding them closed.  This will help form the seal.

  

  This is what happens when you do not use flour on the outside of the dough.  OOOPS!

• Pinch the edges closed with your fingers or a fork.
  
2. Boil.
• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil.
• Lower a few pierogi in the pot at a time.  Do not crowd the pot.  Better to do this in batches.
• When they float, they're done.  This seriously only takes a couple of minutes - tops.  Fresh pasta cooks very quickly.
• Put the boiled pierogies on a wire cooling rack to drip dry and cool.  Do not do what I did and think that wax paper would help.  We lost 3 beautiful pillows of fluffy yumminess to the evil Wax Paper monster.
  
3. (Optional) Store for refrigerator or freezer.
• If you are planning to store them, you can absolutely bag them up.
• Allow them to cool completely.
• I wrapped them in wax paper (now that they're cool) to keep them from sticking to each other.
• Put in a ziptop bag and put in the refrigerator for up to a week (HAH!  As if!!)
• If freezing, I've read that it's better to freeze them on a sheet tray all laid out flat.  Once frozen, you can transfer them to a ziptop bag.  This is all to avoid them sticking together.
  
4. Sauté.
• Melt butter in a sauté pan.
• Add a few pierogi, taking care not to crowd the pan.  Crowded pans = steaming, not sautéing. They won't get all crispy brown and yummy.
• After a couple of minutes, gently turn over to the other side to brown.
5. Serve.
• There are plenty of ways to serve pierogi:
• Browned butter
• Caramelized Onions
• Applesauce
• Sour Cream
• Hot sauce (if you're my husband)

They were wonderful.  The dough is very tender and light. The filling was subtle with blue cheese (hubby and I agreed that we both wanted more blue flavor next time).  It was perfect with a bit of browned butter and a small dollop of sour cream.

I hope you enjoyed this longer adventure in my kitchen!

Let me know what you liked and what you might like to see next!

Homemade Pierogi Part 1: Preparing the pieces

Oh yes, you're reading that correctly!  Today we are finally tackling a project I've been dreaming about for months.  MONTHS, I tell ya!

If you've been reading my posts this past week, I walked you through my process for selecting the various ingredients and adjusting this recipe for my preferences.  Check them out:

• Monday: Making Choices in the Kitchen
• Tuesday: Blue Cheese
• Wednesday: Potatoes
• Thursday: Bacon
• Friday: Flour

Which brings us to today.  Time to put it all to work and make the star of the show:

I was inspired by Bacon & Blue Cheese Pierogies from SugarDishMe. With a couple of changes (which was the point of the whole last week of posts):

• I decided to use the Pierogi dough recipe from Tasting Poland.  As is mentioned there: "Usually we make the pierogi dough without eggs as ingredients. However, in some recipes there are eggs, and indeed, they are used in some Polish households. The truth is that the addition of whole eggs (or just yolks) to the pierogi dough makes it more rigid when cooked. For most people it is not an advantage, so we recommend using the traditional recipe, without eggs. It results in a softer dough, which – despite its delicacy – will not fall apart."  I also prefer that it is a simple dough without sour cream or yogurt added.  We want the stuffing of these pierogi to shine here.
• For the filling, I made several adjustments:
• No onions (and therefore, no olive oil)
• No mushrooms (YUCK!)
• Different potatoes
• Different cheese
• But I'm keeping the traditional American bacon

Ingredients:

• Dough
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/2 tsp oil
• Filling
• 3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1/2 cup milk
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 8 strips bacon
• 4 oz Gorgonzola cheese
• Finishing
• Butter for sautéing
• Sour cream for topping
• Additional bacon bits and Gorgonzola, if desired

Instructions:

1. Gather your mats (I play World of Warcraft.  Mats is short for materials.)
   
2. Cook your bacon.
• You can fry it on the stovetop or bake it in the oven.  I chose the oven method because it meant I could be prepping other pieces while it cooked.  I also find it less messy.
• Line a baking sheet with foil (don't skip this step or you'll be cursing me when you clean up). Place a cooling rack on top of the foil so that the bacon will be held up out of the dripping grease.  Bake @ 400° for 15-25 minutes.  The length of time will be determined by how crispy you like it, how thin or thick your bacon is, and how hot your oven is.  I had thick cut bacon and cooked it for 20 minutes.  In the end, I wish I'd cooked it a wee bit longer to get it more crispy.
  
• When it's done, it'll look sooooo pretty!  Crispy and sizzle-y and still nice and flat!
  
• Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate and let it cool completely.
• Chop into bite-sized pieces to be put inside the pierogies.
3. Make the filling.
• Peel and cut the potatoes into even sized pieces.
• Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Be gentle with the salt.  It's important because this is when you're going to get flavor inside the potatoes, but remember we're adding blue cheese and bacon which are both salty.
• Add the potatoes and cook until just tender.  They won't be cooked much longer in later steps, so they should be at the texture that you prefer.  I choose to leave them short of mushy because I like the soft-but-still-holding-together potatoes.
• Note: If, like me, you don't have a pot big enough for all the potatoes, cook half at a time and keep the peeled-but-not-cooking potatoes in a bowl of cold water.  This will prevent them from oxidizing (which is a fancy word for turning brown because of contact with oxygen).
  
• Drain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
  
• Add the milk, fresh ground black pepper, and 4 oz of blue cheese.  If you want the cheese to completely melt in, add when it's still piping hot.  If you'd rather the cheese still have some larger chunks, wait for the potatoes to cool slightly...but it should still be warm.
  
• Taste it.  Add a piece of bacon and taste it again.  Make sure that there is enough salt and spice for your tastes.  Be very careful with the salt.
4. Make the dough.
• Put the flour and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer.  It is totally possible to do this without one, but I love how much easier doughs have become now that I own one!
  
• Pour 3/4 cup boiling water into the flour and vigorously stir/mix.  It doesn't look like dough yet.  Trust the process.
  
• Cover the bowl with a tea towel and wait 5 minutes.
• Pour 1/4 cup cold water into the mixture and vigorously stir/mix. Still looks odd.  It'll get there.
  
• Cover the bowl with a tea towel and wait 15 minutes.
• Add 1/2 tsp oil (I used olive oil) and knead. Knead knead knead. Generally 5-10 minutes.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished dough! I ended up adding a bit of water to bring it all together.

At this point, we packed up our ingredients and put them in the fridge overnight: dough into a ziptop bag, potatoes stayed in the bowl covered with foil, bacon pieces in a sandwich size ziptop bag.  It was late on a Sunday and I had to be up early on Monday.

Tune in next week!  Same Bat time, same Bat Channel!

(Just kidding... the rest of the instructions will be posted tomorrow!)

Decisions, Decisions: Blue Cheese

I know, I know.  Blue cheese (bleu cheese?) is a love/hate thing.  But I think most people who hate it haven't learned that it's a category of cheeses as varied as the day is long.

Smooth. Creamy. Soft. Hard. Firm. Mild. Sharp. Sweet. Peppery. Stinky.

And depending on what you're planning to do with it, you need to make different selections.

In my research, I found a few sites with good articles for understanding the world of blue cheeses:

• Of course, Wikipedia has a page: Blue Cheese
• "Blue cheese is a general classification of cheeses ... spotted or veined throughout with blue, blue-grey, blue-green, or blue-brown..."
• So it's not a type (like Cheddar or Mozzarella or cream cheese), but a general classification.  There are lots of different blue cheeses... keep reading.
• Serious Eats
• An Introduction to Blue Cheese: 4 Beginner Blues for Newbies
• Cheese 101: There's More to Blue Cheese Than You Think
• The Cook's Thesaurus has a great article on the major varieties of blue cheese

For this project, I'm intentionally sticking with the varieties that are available at a reasonable price point in my local grocery store.  The cheese won't be served on its own, but folded into the stuffing of a pierogi, so it doesn't need to be strong enough to stand up to a cheese plate, or pair nicely with a certain wine or dinner plate.

I stopped by the store and took a few pictures of my options with my cell phone (so forgive the quality of these pictures):

• These aren't really being considered... but I grabbed a picture anyway.  The flavors on these will be much more strong than I'm looking for in this recipe.  I'm sharing just to point out that there is an OK variety at my local store:
• Country Castle Limburger ($4.99 for 6oz or $0.83/oz):
• A semi-soft cheese with origins from Belgium. Only one factory in the USA, located in Monroe, Wisconsin, produces Limburger domestically. Limburger is a pungent smelling, surface-ripened cheese that pairs well with hearty rye breads and even a slice of onion.
  
• Société Roquefort ($7.99 for 3.5oz or $2.28/oz):
• Société® Roquefort has an ivory-colored paste with emerald-green veining and a creamy, moist texture. Its rich, intense sheep milk flavor balances the blue mold aroma creating the magic taste that has made Roquefort famous around the world and distinguished it by many as the King of Cheeses.
  
• Several are generically labeled as "blue"...  will be hard to tell from a package what they're like:
• Salemville Amish Blue ($4.29 for 4oz or $1.07/oz):
• Internationally renowned rBGH free blue cheese produced in an Amish community from cows that are hand-milked twice daily. Salemville® Amish Blue cheese is recognized for its well-balanced, earthy flavor and picturesque veining.
  
• Athenos Blue ($4.99 for 4.5oz or $1.11/oz):
• Athenos Blue Cheese, aged 60 days for a more complex flavor, is crumbled and ready to be thrown into your next salad.
  
• Stella Blue ($3.74 for 7oz or $0.54/oz):
• a delectably rich and tangy flavor and an easy-to-crumble, semi-soft texture that’s perfect for salads and sauces.
  
• Two Danish Blue's:
• Castello Traditional Danish Blue ($4.99 for 4.4oz or $1.13/oz):
• A fine, nutty, blue mould aroma with hints of marzipan and a soft bitterness of sourdough
  
• Castello Extra Creamy Danish Blue ($5.99 for 4.4oz or $1.36/oz):
• A mild blue mould aroma, buttery with a hint of oiliness and a sharp blue mould sourness overlaid on tempered salty butter.
  
• And one Gorgonzola:
• Salemville Amish Gorgonzola ($4.29 for 4oz or $1.07/oz):
• Salemville® Amish Gorgonzola cheese gained widespread fame by winning Best American-Made Blue Cheese at the World Championship Cheese Contest in 2000. This rBGH-free artisanal blue cheese is made in small batches by a Wisconsin Amish community. Milk comes from local farmers whose herds of four to twenty-five cows are hand-milked twice a day. Savory, slightly piquant, earthy flavor with a rich, creamy texture and beautiful, consistent veining.
  

So.... which to pick??

We decided to go with the Gorgonzola for this batch.  We'll see how it turns out, but I think the creamy texture and earthy flavor will work well with potatoes and bacon.

Up tomorrow... the key to this redhead's heart: potatoes.