Who doesn't like brussel sprouts?!

I’ve never really had a problem eating vegetables. In fact, I can’t think of a vegetable that I don’t like. I’m sure they are out there (durian fruit probably – but that’s a fruit!), but I’m usually pretty happy with almost any vegetable dish.

I’m not a normal eater really though. Most people have a problem with at least a few veggies and it seems like, to me, that most people have a problem with brussel sprouts!

Honestly, I think this is due to two causes:

1) Sprouts have some weird cultural stigmas and are frequently mentioned as the hard-to-eat veggie.

2) Most people have no earthly idea how to prepare them.

So this is the brussel sprout recipe for people who don’t like brussel sprouts. Think of it as an intro to the sprout. Because what could be a better way to eat something than to put it on a pizza?

Brussel Sprout Pizza

Yield: 2 Pizzas

Prep Time: 20 minutes plus time for dough

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pizza doughs (homemade is good)
1 Cup pizza sauce, below
10 ounces low moisture mozzarella cheese, grated
10 brussel sprouts, sliced thinly
8 ounces bacon, crispy
6 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
Fresh basil, chopped
Salt and pepper
Cornmeal, for peel

Homemade Pizza Sauce (adapted from American Pie)
1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 Cup water
1/4 Cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
2 Teaspoons dried basil
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt.)
Salt and pepper

Homemade Napoletana Dough (Again from American Pie)
5 Cups (22.5 ounces) bread flour
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon instant yeast
2 Cups (scant) cool water

Helpful Equipment:
- Stand mixer (for dough), but you can make it easily without
- Pizza Peel
- Pizza stone

Directions:

1) To make dough, combine water, oil, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl. Stir together and let sit for 5 minutes to make sure yeast is active. It should bubble.

2) Stir in flour until it’s well-incorporated and forms a ball. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Then mix either with your hands or with a stand mixer. If using hands, repeatedly dip one hand in water and work the dough vigorously until it’s smooth, about 8 minutes. If using a mixer, mix with dough hook until smooth, about 6 minutes. If at any point, the dough is very sticky, mix in more flour.

3) Cut dough into 6 even pieces, coat with olive oil and add to a large plastic bag. Let rest for 20-30 minutes.

4) Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but ideally overnight.

5) Remove from fridge at least 90 minutes before making pizza.

6) For sauce, mix together ingredients and set aside until needed.

7) Grate cheese, cook bacon, and roughly chop sprouts.

8) Preheat oven to 550 degrees with pizza stone for at least 20 minutes.

9) Roll out dough to form a 12 inch pizza. Place dough on a pizza peel lightly dusted with cornmeal. Add sauce and spread it smoothly over pie. Top with mozzarella, sprouts, bacon, blue cheese.

10) Slide pizza onto stone and let cook for 10 minutes.

11) Take out pizza and top immediately with fresh basil.

12) Slice and serve!

Making the Dough

I’ve talked a lot about making homemade pizza dough, so I’m going to do the abbreviated version in this post. If you want a full run down, this post has a great run down on the method that I used for this dough.

I really like making pizza dough. It’s actually one of the easier doughs to make in my opinion. It’s very wet so it’s actually pretty easy to work with once you get the hang of it.

The key thing to remember about homemade dough is that you want to give it at least 4 hours to rise in the fridge (overnight is great) and then you want to take it out at least 90 minutes before baking your pizza.

Beautiful things.

But there are a good number of store-bought doughs out there if you want to make this recipe even easier.

The Toppings

There’s really only a few toppings for this pie, but each of them is packing a lot of flavor.

Mini cabbages really...

This a great beginner brussel sprout recipe because you don’t need to know how to prepare them perfectly. Basically just chop off the stem-end of the sprout and then dice up the sprouts.

I sliced each sprout in half and then just sliced the sprouts roughly.

Get it?

Besides the bacon, sprouts, and blue cheese, you need a good sauce and mozzarella as well.

One thing I’m not a fan of is most store-bought sauces. Similar to my homemade trial with pasta sauce, pizza sauce tends to be pretty flavorless and too salty. So take the time to stir a few spices into normal tomato sauce. You don’t need to cook it or anything. You’ll end up with a much better sauce. Trust me.

Essentials.

Making the Pizza

Assuming you have a pizza peel and stone, making homemade pizza becomes pretty straightforward. Just make sure you heat your stone up as much as you can. I crank my oven up to 550 and let it preheat with the stone in the oven for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, roll out your dough into a rough circle. Mine usually ends up slightly more rectangle in shape, but whatever. If you use the homemade dough recipe in this post, you should get about a 12 inch pizza out of each dough ball.

Than transfer the dough to your pizza peel that’s been dusted with cornmeal and ladle on a bit of sauce. I don’t like a lot of sauce on my pizzas. About half a cup per pizza is usually enough for me.

No need to over-sauce.

Spread out the sauce, then top with mozzarella cheese. Follow that with your bacon, sprouts, and blue cheese layers.

This guy is ready for the oven!

High and deep!

Slide the pizza right onto your hot stone and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

The crust should get nice and crispy and the cheese should be bubbling hot.

I snuck a peek at mine at about minute nine.

Bubble Bubble.

When you pull the pizza out, immediately top it with some fresh basil. You wouldn’t want to bake the pizza with the basil on it because it would just shrivel up and lose a lot of flavor. Fresh is best when it comes to basil.

Fresh basil. Key.

Let the pizza cool for a minute or so and then slice it up!

It's really good, people.

I usually judge most pizzas by crust alone, but I have to say that toppings on this guy surprised me. They were really flavorful. The brussel sprouts just give a light veggie flavor to the pizza. It’s really not an intense flavor and I think most people would like it.

Homemade pizza is one of my absolute favorite things to make and this recipe is a keeper for me.

Gimme the blues anytime!

Last week’s poll was a list of pizzas from a local pizza joint here in town. They make really unique and delicious pies so I thought I’d try my hand at recreating one of them.

Let me start this post by saying that I’ve never actually had their version of the winning pizza, The Delta Blues, but I figured I’d try my hand at it anyway. It’s described as a red sauce pizza with mushrooms, bacon, blue cheese, and spinach.

I figured I could handle that. This turned out to be a very flavorful pizza. My favorite part of it was actually the spinach, but we’ll get there.

Delta Blues Pizza

Yield: 2 pizzas

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour + time for dough

Ingredients:

1 recipe of pizza dough, below (makes two pizzas)
1 Cup pizza sauce, below
16 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
8 ounces bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 pound mushrooms, sliced and sauteed
4 Cups baby spinach, chopped
Salt and pepper

Basic red sauce:
1 Cup tomato sauce or strained tomatoes
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 Teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
1/2 Teaspoon onion powder
Pinch of salt and pepper

New York Style Pizza Dough (From American Pie)
Makes 2 large pizzas.
5 Cups (22.5 ounces) bread flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey or sugar
3 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons instant yeast
3 Tablespoons olive oil (plus more for the dough later)
1 3/4 Cups room temperature water

Helpful Equipment:
Pizza stone
Pizza peel

Directions:

TO make the dough...

1) Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and stir together with a large spoon until the dough comes together.

2) Dip one hand in a bowl of warm water and vigorously knead the dough in the bowl, constantly turning the bowl, until the dough comes together and starts to firm up, about 4 minutes.

3) Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

4) Continue to work it for another 2-3 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth and very elastic.

5) Cut the dough in half, roll each half into a ball, and add each ball to a plastic bag coated lightly with olive oil.

6) Let dough sit at room temp for 15 minutes and then store in the fridge overnight.

7) Remove the dough from the fridge 2 hours before making pizza.

Making the pizza...

1) Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl. Feel free to add other ingredients to your liking.

2) Cook bacon in strips in a large skillet, until they are browned, but not quite crispy. Remember that the bacon will cook in the oven as well.

3) Pour out the bacon grease but leave a tablespoon or two. Add your sliced mushrooms and cook for a few minutes over medium-high heat until the mushrooms release their liquid and turn soft and browned.

4) De-gas dough, roll it into a 14 inch round, and add it to a prepared pizza peel. Dust the peel with a bit of flour or cornmeal so the dough slides off easily.

5) Add a light layer of sauce to pizza followed by mozzarella cheese, bacon, mushrooms, blue cheese, and a pinch of fresh ground pepper.

6) Slide the pizza into a very hot, pre-heated 500 degree oven for 14-15 minutes.

7) When the pizza comes out of the oven, add chopped spinach to the top.

8) Let cool for a minute or two and then slice and eat!

Adapted from a Pablo's pizza.

Making the Dough

You could use store bought pizza dough for this, but for my money nothing beats homemade crust. Once you get the hang of it, it really only takes about 10-15 minutes to whip up. Of course, for a really good dough, you do need to let it sit overnight, so there’s some planning involved.

Sometimes I use my stand mixer for this, but on this day I did it by hand.

Get it?

Start by adding all the dough ingredients to a large bowl. Mix them together with a large spoon until they come together (top left). Then dip your hand in a bowl of warm water and knead the dough vigorously. After a few minutes the dough will start to firm up (top right). At that point, let it rest for 5 minutes which will let the dough relax.

Continue to knead it in the bowl with your hand. After another few minutes you should end up with a really soft dough that’s very elastic and stretchy (bottom left). Cut this dough into two even halves and stick them in some large plastic bags with a good drizzle of olive oil (bottom right). Let these sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and then store them in the fridge overnight.

Yes. That’s right. Overnight. That requires you to do some planning, but trust me. It’s worth it.

Making the sauce

I kind of mess around with red sauce and the above recipe is my most current version. Seriously though, I recommend that you just add a cup or two of tomato sauce to a bowl and stir in dried spices until it tastes good! If it tastes good straight, it’ll taste good on a pizza!

Saucy!

The Toppings

There are only three toppings for this pizza: bacon, mushrooms, and spinach. The bacon and mushrooms need to be cooked before going on the pie. Some people don’t cook the mushrooms before adding them to pizza, but I’ve found that this makes the pizza kind of watery because the mushrooms release a lot of liquid as they cook.

If you saute them for a few minutes though, they release most of their liquid and you don’t have that issue.

I cooked my bacon in strips in a large skillet until it was not quite crispy, but definitely browned. Remember that it’s going to cook further in the oven.

Then I used a few tablespoons of the bacon grease to saute my sliced mushrooms for about 5 minutes until they are soft and lightly seared.

The cooked stuff.

You’ll obviously need some cheese also. For this pizza, mozzarella and blue cheese are what you need! Shred the mozzarella and crumble the blue cheese if it isn’t crumbled already.

Cheesy!

Making the pizza

A few tips for making the pizza to really make it exceptional.

The first thing, and most important, is to make sure you get your oven as hot as possible. Hopefully you have a pizza stone you can preheat in the oven, but heat it up to 500 degrees and let it get hot for 20 minutes or so.

Second, be sure to take your dough out of the fridge about 2 hours before you want to make the pizza. Letting it come up to room temperature will make it easier to stretch and shape.

Third, when you’re shaping your pizza, feel free to use a roller to get it in a rough circle, but the dough should be very strong and you should be able to pick it up and fling it around without worry.

Once it’s the right size (probably 14 inches across), lay it on a pizza peel or a baking sheet that’s been coasted lightly with cornmeal or flour.

Fourth, go light on the sauce. A light coating of sauce is all you need.

This is my pie, shaped and ready to go!

Shaped and sauced.

Then I added on some mozzarella, my bacon and mushrooms, the blue cheese, and some extra mozzarella on top. I also added on a good pinch of fresh black pepper.

High and deep!

Slide this beauty onto your very hot baking stone and cook it for about 14 minutes. The crust should be a nice golden brown and the cheese nice and bubbly.

This is about as perfect as it gets.

14 minutes later...

What about the spinach?!

Don’t worry. I didn’t forget the spinach. The key to adding greens like spinach to a pizza is to add them right when the pie comes out of the oven. If you actually cook the pizza for 14 minutes with spinach on top, they’ll just shrivel up and burn.

But if you chop it up roughly, and add it to the pizza right when it comes out of the oven, the heat from the pizza will wilt it slightly, but it’ll still be a tiny bit crunchy.

Chop the spinach first!

You’ll want to let this cool for a minute or two, but then you should slice it up and eat it as soon as possible!

A slice of the blues.

I used a bit of a thicker crust for this pizza than I have with some other pizzas I’ve made because the toppings on this guy were pretty heavy. It turned out to be the perfect combination though. I really liked this pizza!

Homemade pizza is one of those things where the little details make all the difference. Homemade dough, a hot oven, and fresh ingredients can really make something special.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a FAN of The Delta Blues!

Need a Super Bowl App?!

Did you all think I was going to let the Super Bowl just roll by without posting a good game recipe?

Please.

From my experience, in most Super Bowls the game is almost always over-hyped. The commercials are usually okay, but also over-hyped. But the food. The food is never over-hyped. It’s always good. Cheesy things. Saucy things. Meaty things. You really can’t go wrong with the food during the Super Bowl.

This recipe is something I’ve been working on for a few weeks now (hard work). It combines some traditional buffalo flavors like Blue Cheese and hot sauce on a nicely toasted french bread which is easy to slice up and pass around!

Just as a warning, I wouldn’t exactly call it healthy, but seriously. It’s the Super Bowl. If there was ever a day to let the old belt out a notch, it’s on game day.

Buffalo Bread

Yield: 1 loaf. Serves 8-10.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Loaf French bread
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
1 stick unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons sour cream
8 ounces low-fat mozzarella, shredded
4 ounces blue cheese
1/2 Cup hot sauce (Frank's is the best)
1 Cup scallions, chopped
4 cloves garlic
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1) Mix mayo, sour cream, garlic, scallions, and butter in a medium bowl. Combine well.

2) Grate mozzarella and stir it into the mix.

3) Slice French bread horizontally down the middle and toast it in the oven until it's crispy, about 5 minutes at 425 should do the trick.

4) Spread hot sauce on bread. Make sure it's a nice even layer.

5) Next, pile on the mozzarella topping. This layer is really rich so there's no need to pile it too high. Just a nice even layer will do the trick.

6) Sprinkle blue cheese on top of bread.

7) Broil on high for 2-3 minutes until cheese is lightly browned and bubbling and bread edges are toasted.

8) Let the bread cool for a minute and chop it up for serving!

Prepping the bread

I typically really don’t like mayonnaise, but there’s just nothing else that can give the right texture to this dish. I think you could substitute the light stuff if you want, but it’s pretty essential in my opinion.

Simple enough stuff.

This recipe only takes a few minutes to throw together. Just mix the mayo, sour cream, butter, scallions, and garlic in a medium bowl. Mush up the butter really well so it’s not all in one big chunk. Since we’re going to be spreading this on bread, you want to make sure it’s an even mixture.

Not healthy. But GOOD.

After it’s all mixed together, grate the mozzarella and toss that into the mix also.

This is pretty serious stuff.

Delicious and creamy.

The Bread

Bread choice is pretty important for this recipe. I went with a big French loaf which is nice and airy, toasts nicely, and will hold up to lots of toppings.

I recommend this loaf, but I guess you could slather this stuff on all kinds of different breads.

A good French loaf is the only way to go.

The Most Important Part

The key part of this recipe is to toast the bread before you put on toppings. You don’t need to toast it for long, but you want to make sure that it has crisped up a bit on the top and bottom.

I cut my loaf down the middle and then toasted them at 425 degrees for about 5 minutes.

Don’t forget this or your final bread will be kind of soggy which isn’t good at all.

Once your bread is done toasting, turn on your broiler on high to heat up. That’s how you finish the bread.

Then take your hot sauce and spread it all over the bread surface. You want the bread pretty much covered in hot sauce. Frank’s is the perfect hot sauce for this. I don’t recommend anything else.

Toasted and sauced.

Then take your topping mixture and spread it evenly over the bread.

The key thing here is to not over fill the bread. Don’t worry about using all the filling, you might have some leftover. Just make sure there’s a nice even layer over the bread. It’s a pretty rich layer so no need to pile it super high.

Don't over do it.

As a final touch, and the thing that makes this all really buffalo is to sprinkle on some blue cheese right on top.

Again, no need to over do it.

Yum.

Finishing the loaf

To finish this guy off, BROIL the bread on high for about 2-3 minutes until the cheese is just starting to brown and the edges on the bread are good and toasted.

Once it comes out of the broiler, let it rest for a minute and then slice it up into sticks which makes it easier to serve.

Sliced up and ready.

One or two of these bad boys is an awesome snack. They are spicy and cheesy and crunchy and just pretty amazing. Whether you’re a Steelers fan or Packers fan, you’ll make friends with this stuff.

That said, I think I’m rooting for THE PACK.

These flavors are out of this world.

Believe it or not, not everything that’s delicious needs to be a huge production. Sometimes the most delicious thing you’ll eat all week can be thrown together in just a few minutes and take only three ingredients.

This is that dish.

It’s almost impossible for me to imagine a dish so packed with flavor that can be made in the same amount of time as this quick fig dish.

It’s so quick you can literally make it during a commercial break. I know. Because I did.

Figs with Blue Cheese and Honey

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

Figs (about 4 per person)
Blue Cheese
Honey
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Slice figs in half and broil them for 1-2 minutes on high, cut-side up, until they are warm and slightly browned around the edges.

2) Sprinkle on blue cheese and drizzle with honey.

3) Devour them!

The Figs

If you aren’t familiar with figs, they are a very strange fruit. When you cut into them it looks like some sort of alien fruit. If you take a leap of faith and bite into one though, you’ll be rewarded with a subtly sweet flesh that’s like nothing else.

They happen to be in season near the end of Fall so this time of year you can usually find some really good ones in the store. You could use any kind of fig for this dish, but I used brown Turkish figs.

Beautiful things!

Figs are best when they are almost over-ripe. They should be kind of mushy. If they are firm then they aren’t quite ripe yet.

You can also tell pretty easily when you cut into them. Of course, by then, they are cut open so you might as well just eat them even if they’re a bit under-ripe.

Usually the darker the color, the riper and sweeter they will be.

Broiling the Figs

If you were just going to pop a fig in your mouth, you’d want it to be ripe. If they aren’t ripe, they can be a bit bitter.

But for this recipe, it’s okay if they aren’t perfectly ripe because we’re going to broil them for a minute which will soften them up and also caramelize them a bit.

Just slice the figs in half, lay them out on a baking sheet, cut-side up, and place them under the broiler for about 2 minutes. You want them to be warm and slightly browned around the edges.

The Toppings

The toppings don’t get much easier than this. Just some blue cheese and honey is all you need.

And no. You can’t substitute the blue cheese. The tanginess is essential to the dish. There’s only 3 ingredients so no substitutions people!

I went pretty heavy on the blue cheese...

Once your figs come out from the broiler, sprinkle on as much blue cheese as you want (I like a lot) and drizzle on some honey.

Serve it up and wow your friends!

Tried to make it pretty...

The nice thing about broiling the figs is the skin because a bit crunchy. So you get this kind of crunchy texture, with the soft fig flesh and the blue cheese and the honey.

It’s really out of this world.

An awesome snack.

The only other thing I’ll mention about this dish is that it can actually be served as either an appetizer or a savory dessert. It works perfectly both ways.

Some things are better when they aren’t overcomplicated. This is one of those things.

If you can get your hands on some nice figs, definitely give this dish a shot!

Really good!

You guys pulled a trick on me! When I posted last week’s poll on rhubarb, nobody even mentioned that it would be absolutely impossible to find rhubarb in June! After going to a few different stores and checking in at a farmer’s market, I learned that the rhubarb season is approximately 10 seconds long.

So you see, it’s impossible to make the dish that I wanted to make as an appetizer. But I got as close as humanly possible.

It turns out that for this specific recipe you can sub apples for rhubarb, leave everything else the same, and it’s very delicious. So if you happen to have rhubarb, go for it. If you don’t, you can use a few apples!

Chutney on Toast

Yield: 15 pieces.

Prep Time: 15 minutes + cool time

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup sugar
1/3 Cup red wine vinegar
1/4 Cup orange juice
1/4 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 inch of fresh ginger, grated
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced (OR 2 1/2 Cups chopped rhubarb)
1/4 Cup dried currants
2 scallions minced (not the green parts)
Baguette, sliced and toasted
5-6 ounces blue cheese

Directions:

1) Combine 1st five ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar melts, about 2 minutes.

2) Peel, core, and chop your apples (or rhubarb) and add them to the chutney. Stir everything together and cook over low-medium heat until the apples are soft, about 5 minutes.

3) Add currants and chopped scallions to the chutney at the very end.

4) Cool the chutney for at least an hour and serve on toasts with blue cheese.

Making the Chutney

In terms of chutney making, this is actually a really easy one. Some chutneys require lots of cooking time, but this one is just a few minutes of chopping and cooking. Really easy to throw together!

Basic stuff!

Start by combining the first five ingredients in the list in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir it until the sugar melts. Should just take a minute or two.

While you’re waiting for that to happen (or before you start it if you’re a slow-poke), peel, core and chop your apples. Rhubarb would be even easier prep I guess.

Not exactly rhubarb...

Next, just add all your apples into your sugar mixture. The apples won’t be covered by the mixture, but give them a good stir. As they heat up, they’ll cook down and also give off some of their own liquid.

Don't worry about the liquid covering...

Meanwhile, get these bonus ingredients ready. These just add a nice punch of flavor and texture to the finished chutney. You could use raisins if you don’t have any currants, but if you do, give them a quick chop first.

You could use raisins also...

Add your currants and chopped scallions to the chutney along with a pinch of salt and let it simmer for maybe 5 minutes until the apples are soft. Mine was a bit liquidy, but that’s just fine.

Yum.

Cooling it down

The original recipe said to cool the chutney for at least an hour before using it, but I was hungry so I just stuck mine in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Mine was still warm to the touch when I ate it which I thought was kind of nice. If you let it cool all the way down it’ll obviously get thicker but you’ll have to WAIT!

The Toasts

You could serve this with any number of crackers or toasts. You want something pretty sturdy though. The chutney is pretty thick and with the cheese added in, I recommend just making some thick toasts using a baguette.

Slice them on a diagonal like so…

Sliced bread!

That allows for maximum surface area! Cook these at 400 degrees on a baking sheet for about 5 minutes until they are nice and toasty.

Perfect toasting.

Also, get your blue cheese ready. If you can, try to hunt out a creamier blue cheese. You want one that’s kind of spreadable. Don’t buy the blue cheese crumbles that are pre-crumbled and try to spread it on a toast. Just get a small block of the stuff.

I love blue cheese so much. If, for some reason, you don’t like blue cheese, you could use goat cheese I think but it wouldn’t be as good.

My favorite cheese.

You want a good-sized schmear of cheese on each toast.

And yes, schmear is a technical term. It means this much:

A schmear.

When adding the chutney to the toasts, use a spoon and try to drain off any extra liquid so you just get the apples and other non-liquid stuff. If you get too much liquid it’ll just make your toasts soggy and, dude, nobody likes soggy toasts.

Respect the ring!

The apples were sweet and spicy and the blue cheese is creamy and delicious.

I honestly think I could’ve eaten 20 of these in one sitting. This would be an awesome dish as an appetizer for a dinner party!

I’ve had cauliflower soup before in a curry form, but this recipe looked really interesting. Instead of spices the soup is flavored with heavy cream and chunks of Stilton cheese. I loved it!

Look but delicious.

Homemade croutons add some much needed texture to this dish.

Cauliflower Stilton Soup

Yield: Serves 3-4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 head of cauliflower (about 2 1/2 Cups) cut into florets
4 Tablespoons butter
2 Cups vegetable stock (or chicken stock)
1 Cup whole milk
1/3 Cup Stilton cheese
1/2 Cup cream or half and half
Pinch of salt and pepper
Garnishes: Croutons and Stilton Cheese

Helpful Equipment:
Immersion blender (or a normal blender)

Directions:

1) Chop the onion and celery.

2) Trim the greens off the cauliflower and slice into florets. Cut some of the florets in half.

3) In a large heavy pan, melt butter and then add onions, celery and cauliflower. Let this cook for 5-10 minutes over high heat until everything starts to soften.

4) After veggies have cooked for about 10 minutes and are soft, add the stock and milk and a small pinch of salt and pepper. Bring the soup to a simmer and then cook, covered, for about 25 minutes or until the cauliflower is extremely tender.

5) Take the soup off the heat and blend it with immersion blender (or regular blender if you do not have an immersion one).

6) To make croutons, take old bread and chop up a piece or two of it. Toss the bread with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Toast at 350 degrees until they are very brown and crunchy.

Adapted from Gourmet Today.

Starting the soup

This soup is actually very easy to make. It only has a bit of work to do and start to finish I’d say it takes about an hour. First, you’ll need these things:

Just a few veggies.

Chop up the onion and celery. No need to get too worried about size considering we are going to blend everything up later. On the cauliflower, trim off the greens and cut down the stalk and then slice it into florets. Some of the florets should be cut in half. Again, don’t worry about getting them perfectly even.

Don't worry too much about uniform chopping.

In a large heavy pan, melt your butter and then add your onions, celery and cauliflower. Let this cook for 5-10 minutes over high heat until everything starts to soften. It’s fine if some of the veggies start to brown a bit, but the goal is just to soften them, not caramelize them.

A little browning is okay.

Besides the veggies and butter, you’ll need this stuff:

Plus these things!

After your veggies have cooked for about 10 minutes and are soft, add the stock and milk and a small pinch of salt and pepper. Bring the soup to a simmer and then cook, covered, for about 25 minutes or until the cauliflower is extremely tender.

Next, take the soup off the heat and blend it up! If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can just do it in batches in a normal one.

Merry Christmas to ME.

Making the croutons

Good croutons add a lot to this soup. The crunchy, salty bites work great with the creamy soup and cheese. I used old bread and just chopped up a piece or two of it and tossed the bread with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt.

Good use for leftover bread.

Toast these in a 350 degree oven until they are very brown and crunchy. You can use any bread for these really. Stale bread is just fine!

Nice and crispy.

Finishing the soup

Once your soup is blended, return it to the pan and heat. Once it’s hot, whisk in your cream and Stilton cheese. Be sure to whisk well so the cheese melts nicely. The soup should get pretty creamy and then just let it simmer for another five minutes or so (still whisking). That will help it thicken more.

I also crumbled some additional cheese to add as a garnish for the soup.

More mild than blue cheese.

Be sure to taste the soup for salt and pepper before serving. The cheese will add some saltiness to the soup, but I definitely had to hit mine with a good pinch of salt. I also served mine with additional toasts on the side. They’re awesome to dip in the soup.

Mmmm.

The thing that shocked me about this soup is how perfect the stilton works. It’s not quite as strong as a gorganzola or traditional blue cheese so it doesn’t overpower the cauliflower flavor at all. It just adds a nice creaminess to it and the croutons are almost swoon-worthy.

I’m pretty sure that this soup reheats awesomely, but I can’t say for sure because I’m eating my first bowl of it while writing this post…

So this post is all about quick stuff you can throw together 15 minutes before the party. Both of these appetizers are cheese-involved because cheese is a great way to bring some quick flavor to an appetizer dish.

Two Halloween Appetizers

Yield: Serves 8.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

Mozzarella Eyeballs
1 pound fresh mozzarella balls (you can find this in the deli section normally)
1/2 Cup Kalamata or black olives, sliced
1 Jar roasted red peppers
Toothpicks

Putrefied Cheese Log (Adapted from Martha Stewart. I know her recipe is called "Petrified" but Putrefied is a much better Halloween name in my opinion.)
5 ounces Blue Cheese (honestly you could use any cheese you wanted here I think. Just grate it up if it isn't crumbly.)
5 ounces cream cheese
Blue and/or green food coloring (just a few drops)
1/3 Cup Sesame seeds. Black work best, but are also hard to find. I just used regular and toasted them.
Crackers

Directions:

For eyeballs:
1) Drain red peppers and then give them a spin in a food processor.

2) Cut your olives into slices.

3) Cut a little divet out of each mozz ball so olive fits snugly on top.

4) Put eyeballs together and secure each olive with a toothpick.

For cheese log:
1) Combine blue cheese and cream cheese in a bowl and mush it all together with a fork.

2) Once it is all combined well, then add a few drops of food coloring and work it through the cheeses.

3) Then scoop cheese mixture out onto some plastic wrap. Gently fold the plastic wrap over and roll the cheese into a log. Try to compress the cheese really well so it forms a solid log. Sometimes it helps to twirl the ends around which tightens the plastic wrap around the cheese log.

4) Let this sit in the fridge for a few minutes just to firm up.

5) Meanwhile, toast sesame seeds (if you want) over high heat in a dry pan. They should take about 10 minutes to toast up nicely.

6) Let your sesame seeds cool after toasting and then just roll your cheese long in them and press to down so they stick to the outsides.

7) Serve it with crackers!

Mozzarella Eyeballs

This is a really simple dish that you can make in about 15 minutes. In dark lighting it kind of resembles a bloody dish of eyeballs. Always a crowd pleaser.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. First, drain your red peppers and then give them a spin in a food processor. Heck, if you are really in a rush, you could just use tomato sauce here people.

Quick and easy sauce.

Next, cut your olives into slices. Is this even a recipe?

I used kalamata because I'm fancy like that.

The only tricky part about this, and I’m pretty sure it is optional, is to cut a little divet out of each mozz ball so your olive fits snugly on top.

Make a little divet for the olive.

Then put your eyeballs together and secure each olive with a toothpick! If I were to make this again, I think I would serve it in a shallow bowl rather than a plate so the sauce would cover more of the eyeballs.

Easy and quite tasty actually.

These are pretty classic flavors that go really well together so it’s a surefire win for an appetizer.

Putrefied Cheese Log

This is kind of an odd one, but basically it’s a flavorful cheese spread formed into a log and coated with sesame seeds which somewhat resemble maggots I guess. I will say that it’s very tasty. Especially if you are a blue cheese lover like me.

Can't go wrong with blue cheese!

Just combine your blue cheese and cream cheese in a bowl and mush it all together with a fork. Once it is all combined well, then add a few drops of food coloring and work it through the cheeses. I think I added a bit too much green, but you get the idea.

Then scoop your cheese mixture out onto some plastic wrap.

Looks Gross but that's the point.

Gently fold the plastic wrap over and roll the cheese into a log. Try to compress the cheese really well so it forms a solid log. Sometimes it helps to twirl the ends around which tightens the plastic wrap around the cheese log.

If you’ve ever made compound butter, it’s the same idea.

Kind of like making compound butter.

Let this sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes just to firm up. Meanwhile, you can toast your sesame seeds (if you want) over high heat in a dry pan. They should take about 10 minutes to toast up nicely. Toasting sesame seeds is not as finicky as pine nuts or something with a lot of oil in them.

Let your sesame seeds cool after toasting and then just roll your cheese long in them and press to down so they stick to the outsides. Serve it with crackers!

Maggots!?

Mine kind of looks more psychedelic than putrefied, but whatever. It’s pretty darn delicious. The sesame seeds make it in my opinion.

Totally gross dude.

The best thing about going to a Halloween party (or hosting one) is seeing lots of little appetizer dishes all around that you can sample throughout the night.

You could make both of these dishes in under an hour and they would be pretty well received at any party.

Have any other quick appetizers? They don’t have to be Halloween specific, but if you do, leave a comment!

Given that there were two food bloggers at the event, the food was pretty solid. For starters, these were the pesto pork chops we grilled up.

Flame licked.

We had quite the menu for this event, especially given that there were only four of us. Course one was margaritas. Nothing like a little tequila to smooth out a Saturday.

Course two was a dish that I learned from my Dad actually: Jalapeno Poppers wrapped in bacon.

Jalapeno Poppers
(For 12 poppers. Enough for 4 healthy guys.)

- 12 jalapenos
- 6 ounces cream cheese
- 2 ounces blue cheese
- 12 strips thick bacon
- Toothpicks, soaked in water

Making the poppers

If you have some rubber gloves you may want to put them on. First, mix your cream cheese and blue cheese together in a bowl. You can just use cream cheese if you want, but I think the blue cheese gives it a nice bite.

THe perfect mix of cheeses.

As far as the jalapenos go, chop off the stem but try to leave as small a hole as possible at the top of the pepper. Then chop them in half horizontally and cut out all the guts. If you want these guys really spicy you could mix the seeds in with your cheese mixture. That’d be kind of crazy, but I’m not against it.

Then stuff as much of the cheese as you can between the two halves of the jalapeno and sandwich them back together. They should be able to close completely.

If you are my father, then you have a drill bit that you use solely for this purpose. He just drills out the center of the pepper so there’s no need to cut them in half. It’s about 10 times as fast, but I don’t have a drill really so I do it this way. Still works great.

KInda messy, but worth it.

The problem obviously is that if we were to throw these guys on the grill like that, the cheese would just melt right out and you would have one big hot mess. Solution: bacon.

Wrap each pepper in a full strip of bacon. Start at the top of the pepper to make sure the top hole is covered and then just wind the bacon around until it is snug around the pepper. Then secure the whole thing with a toothpick. Make sure to soak your toothpicks in water before you do this or they will just burn off really fast on the grill.

As the bacon cooks, it contracts and keeps the pepper nice and tight so very little cheese will escape as it melts. I know it sounds crazy but it works!

Ready for the heat!

These guys need to cook until the bacon is nice and crispy. Probably 10-15 minutes on the grill. Turn them every few minutes. The first time you make them you may lose one or two, but don’t worry about it. You’ll get good at it quickly.

Warning. This will smell delicious.

The final result is crispy bacon wrapped around a roasted pepper that still has a tiny bit of crispiness to it. Inside is an awesome cheese mixture.

I think I could eat a dozen of these by myself, but usually 2 or 3 is enough to do the trick.

Tightly wrapped!

Rex cut up a bunch of nice veggies and marinated them. You can find his recipe on his post, but here is some grill porn for ya.

Veg city.

Pesto Pork Chops

There is a farmer’s market around the corner from my house and it gets bigger every weekend. My favorite stand so far is one that sells all kinds of pork products. They have amazing bacon (used theirs for the poppers above) and also pork chops.

Rex had lots of fresh basil growing in his backyard so we decided to mix up some pesto to marinate these guys in.

Basic Pesto

- 1 1/2 Cups fresh basil
- 1/4 Cup pine nuts
- 3-5 cloves garlic (ok. Five.)
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Just mix up all those things in a food processor or blender and then pour the pesto over your chops in a plastic bag. Let these marinate for an hour or two at least.

Flavor packed.

Literally, as we were walking out to the grill it started to monsoon rain. Luckily, Rex is prepared for any situation. He has a full tent that was quick to set up that completely covers his patio – grill and chairs. Awesome.

While we were cooking the veggies above, there were some serious flare-ups on the grill and it would create these huge plumes of smoke which would get trapped in the tent. I stepped back from the tent and snapped this photo while Rex was manning the grill.

Hunting the hunter.

Cook the pork chops on pretty high heat for 5-7 minutes a side depending on thickness. You want to make sure they have a good char on them.

I don't have to tell you that these were good.

So there are a few recipes here that maybe you can use the next time you are looking for something to grill.

Good times.

Here ya go!

Healthy?

Ok. Is this really a salad? I don’t know. It’s sort of just a plate of breakfast food on a bed of spinach. To make it more “salady” I poured on a quick vinaigrette I whisked up that was just 2 parts olive oil to 1 part balsamic vinegar. Easy.

First thing first, a breakfast salad needs some bacon. I like to cook my bacon in the oven on a baking sheet sometimes because I find that it cooks the pieces more uniformly and you can cook a bunch at once.

Necessary.

And potatoes! I was only making two salads so I only sliced up a few new potatoes I had and let them fry in two tablespoons of oil. It was at this point that I began to realize that my salad was becoming sort of like a cobb salad (read: not healthy at all).

Crispy = good.

Ok. So here is actually everything I put in this salad:

The Breakfast Salad
For 2 full plates of salad

- 4 strips of bacon
- 1 Cup sliced potatoes, fried
- 1 Tomato, sliced
- 1/2 Cup stale bread, toasted in the oven (croutons/my take on toast)
- A few handfuls of greens, I used spinach.
- Blue Cheese
- Vinaigrette
- Eggs (I liked two eggs, Betsy only wanted one)

Ok. So I started my salad in a pretty healthy fashion.

Healthy!

Then I added the potatoes, bacon, toast, blue cheese, and vinaigrette.

Getting less healthy.

The eggs. Now there are obviously a lot of ways to crack (cook) an egg. I cooked mine sunny side up which means I fried them for a few minutes but never flipped them so they are basically raw. You could also poach them like I did for this salad or fry them on both sides, or hard boil them. Poaching or hard boiling would be the healthiest way to do it.

Borderline salad.

Obviously, this was a bit heavy for a salad, but I must say that I thought it was pretty good and the flavors are time-tested!

Anybody else have any ideas for this kind of salad?

The secret to good hot dogs.

I think there are two real secrets to making fantastic hot dogs at home: First, use good dogs. I’m sorry Oscar Meyer, but you just don’t have my heart when it comes to hot dogs (although you do when it comes to jingles!) I always go with either Nathan’s or Hebrew National.

The second tip involves method. The best part of these dogs is that they are cooked on the stove until they are crispy, then baked for a few minutes in the bun which melts the cheese, crisps the bun, and brings the whole dog together.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can even start with the dogs, we need to get the tater tots started.

I use normal frozen tater tots for this, but I don’t really follow the recipe. I cook them at the same temperature that most frozen tots recommend (425), but I cook them longer (40 minutes or more depending on your oven) and I spice them up A LOT.

They look pretty bland out of the bag.

Do not follow instructions bag. Unless you like bad food.

For the tots: I cook them for 20 minutes, take them out and shake them, put on about half of my spices, return to the oven for 20 more minutes, and then season with the rest of the spices.

I’ve tinkered with a bunch of seasonings over the years, and I would encourage you to play around. This is my favorite currently though.

The secret to good tater tots.

If you like your tots super crispy you may even want to cook them for another 10 minutes bringing the total cooking time to 50 minutes.

Back to the hot dogs. Start them off in a frying pan on medium high heat.

A humble start.

If they look dry, add just a bit of olive oil to the party. After about 10 minutes, they will look delicious.

Phase one. Done.

Once your dogs are done, this is what you should do. Cut up some cheese. Any cheese will do. I prefer these:

Give people a variety. Or don't.

Sorry, I didn’t have time to take a lot of photos at this point, but I think you can handle it. Put your preferred cheese in your bun, then put your dog in the bun, then put the whole package in the oven for 5 minutes. The cheese will melt and the bun will get crispy. It will be fantastic.

Let’s check in on our tots.

Beautiful babies.

They still need probably 15 minutes.

What about those dogs?

This is how you finish off hot dogs.

You can top them with whatever toppings you like. I prefer mustard or even blue cheese dressing. Again, I wasn’t able to take too many photos of the whole deal because they were eaten in like 30 seconds.

I promise if you make your dogs and tots like this from now on, you will have a bunch of new friends.

If you didn’t know, you can get Macheesmo updates via E-mail or RSS. That way you don’t have to keep typing in www.macheesmo.com every time.