Blue Cheese

Crostini are toasted or grilled slices of bread with tasty toppings, often served as an appetizer. For a relaxed supper, put a plate of toasted baguette slices and bowls of various toppings on the table (however many you like or have time to make) and have a make-your-own crostini simple supper night. The Bread: Many bakeries can thinly slice a baguette for you in their slicing machine. You usually get about 25 slices per average baguette. Each of the toppings recipes makes enough topping for 15 to 20 baguette-sized crostini, although the number depends on how high you pile the toppings. Of course, you can make crostini with the larger Italian or French loaves, also. The slices should be 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick. Toast the baguette slices. There is a difference of opinion on how toasty they should be: Some people like them just lightly toasted, while others like them very dry and crisp, almost like croutons. The bread can be toasted a couple of hours or even days ahead of time. When the slices are cool, store them in a well-sealed container or plastic bag until you’re ready to assemble the crostini.

Here’s a simple supper to make in the chill of fall or winter, when the sweetness of the onions and the richness of the cheese is comforting.

Most of us have had the classic egg-and-bacon sandwich. When conceiving of our own, we were inspired by the French salad of frisée au lardons, in which the bacon lardons are rendered and warmed up, gorgonzola is used for the dressing, and the frisée is tossed into the mix, becoming warm and wilted. Here, we have essentially married the salad and the classic sandwich, and the resulting ’wich illustrates that, by just doing a little more, you can take a standard sandwich to a higher realm. If you are preparing this recipe for a large number of people, you can fry the eggs and set them aside on parchment paper on a tray, popping them in the oven to heat them just a bit when you’re ready to assemble the sandwiches. This sandwich would be great made with poached eggs, as well.

Chef Alex Lee used to serve a tomato mosaic at Daniel, and when I got two super-ripe watermelons, one yellow and one red, I mimicked the appearance of his savory dish on my dessert menu. The cheese and granité add depth of flavor. I’m not giving you a yield here, since this is more of a combination of flavors than anything, and you can make as many as you like.

The beauty of a dish like this is that you get just enough meat to feel satisfied that you’ve had a substantial meal, but you’ve actually consumed a much greater proportion of healthy greens than of red meat. Plus, it can serve four people on the budget of one steak.

As an alternative to mashed potatoes, try making this mouthwatering polenta. Nearly any easily melted cheese will do, but I happen to love the taste of the king of Italian blue cheese, Gorgonzola. It’s available in either sweet (dolce) or more tangy (piccante) versions, and the choice is really up to you. If you have access to a good cheese counter, they’ll let you taste before you buy. And if Gorgonzola isn’t available but you still want to make this dish—and trust me, you really do—you can use any good blue cheese, such as Roquefort, Stilton, or Bleu d’Auvergne.

Artichokes take a little time to prepare, but it’s time well spent for a dish this extraordinary. The filling becomes hot, bubbly, and creamy, like an individual serving of warm artichoke dip for each diner. You can get most of the prep work out of the way well ahead of time, too; the artichokes can be boiled earlier in the morning and baked later or, if you prefer, the whole dish can be prepared a day in advance, as it reheats very well.

Use this béchamel-based sauce as a dip for potato chips and French fries or as a topping for burgers, such as the Buffalo Burger (page 27) or the Blue Burger (page 70).

I couldn’t do this book without including a blue cheese and bacon burger; the combination of a juicy burger, crisp, smoky bacon, and sharp and tangy blue cheese is just too good. You can top this burger with crumbled blue cheese or you can do what I often do and spoon some hot Blue Cheese Sauce (page 110) over the finished burger. Serve it with warm Homemade Potato Chips (page 98) and extra sauce for dipping; it’s insanely delicious. (See photograph on page 2.)

Cobb salads occupy a delicious middle ground between the decadent (hello bacon and blue cheese!) and the virtuous (lean turkey, and it is a salad after all). Whichever side you land on, there is no denying how awesome the mixture of tangy blue cheese, salty bacon, creamy avocados, ripe tomatoes, and crisp romaine lettuce is. It’s not hard to imagine how good those ingredients would taste not tossed with cubes of cold roasted turkey, but atop a hot and juicy turkey burger. It makes perfect sense to me!

I’m not talking about bison here; I’m talking about the sauce that made Buffalo, New York, famous. I took two of my favorite football-watching foods and melded them into one. Buffalo wing, meet the burger! Hot sauce and tangy blue cheese have found a new home. For an appetizer, make bite-size sliders if you want. Another way to go would be to make this burger with ground turkey or . . . that’s right, ground chicken.

Top oven fries with the works—tender beef, broccoli, brown gravy, and a bit of blue cheese. You can use leftover roast beef, such as part of the extra Tuscan Braised Beef (page 172), or buy the lowest-fat, lowest-sodium cooked beef you can find.

This exciting, inviting fruit salad is especially delicious served with grilled pork or chicken.

Most mashed potatoes are full of butter, cream, and other added fats. But this dish pairs wing sauce with blue cheese, packing tons of flavor and thus eliminating the need for added fats or butter.

When I was a child, we went to Chuck E. Cheese’s for our birthdays. In addition to all of the cool games and the characters, I loved that they cut their pizzas into squares instead of wedges. Not only could you get more crust or less crust as you like (I’m a less-crust girl), I got to eat a number of pieces, since they’re petite. Here, I’ve cut the flatbread into squares to distinguish it from other pizzas . . . and because it just feels more decadent. If you’re making this pizza on a charcoal grill, heat the coals until they are hot and covered with gray ash. Then place the pizza on the grill about 5 inches from the coals for best results. Cover and grill for 3 to 4 minutes.

Looking for a tasty, healthy variation of a beef or turkey burger? Skip those processed veggie burgers and go for this all-natural alternative, the portobello. A portobello mushroom smothered with reduced-fat blue cheese crumbles is just as healthy as it is mouthwatering, and it is hearty enough to serve to even a meat lover.

Pat: Good old mashed (or fried) potatoes are an everyday event in the South, but there’s something about a casserole of cheesy scalloped potatoes that makes a meal more special. After experimenting with countless variations, we decided that this two-cheese version was our favorite. You’ll love how the sharp cheddar mingles with the blue cheese, and how the finished casserole has a crispy top and a tender, creamy middle. This dish has become a Neely holiday staple, especially at Thanksgiving, because it’s delicious with turkey and buttered green beans.