think liz. » blue cheese

Prosciutto, Pear and Blue Cheese Sandwich

Elizabeth — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:14:14 +0000

I know I’ve told you guys the components of my perfect salad, right? Fruit, candied nut, cheese, dried fruit, simple vinaigrette, and of course, greens. Delicious. Well it hadn’t occurred to me that you could scoop of all the deliciousness and put it on a sandwich. Easy enough, right? I just hadn’t thought of it. That is, until my good ol’ reliable cooking light featured this sandwich. Pretty much all of things I love in a salad, but on a sandwich. Oh so delicious. Each bite I took of this sandwich seemed to get better – which most sandwiches can’t boast. A welcome change to my boring lunches!

Recipe for Prosciutto, Pear and Blue Cheese Sandwich

Total Time: 20 Minutes
Serves 4 – serving size one sandwich

Ingredients
8 slices 100% multigrain bread
1 tablespoon butter, softened
3 cups arugula
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto
1 ripe pear, cored and thinly sliced
2 ounces blue cheese, sliced

Preparation
1. Preheat broiler.

2. Arrange bread in a single layer on a baking sheet; broil 3 minutes or until toasted. Turn bread slices over; spread butter evenly over bread slices. Broil an additional 2 minutes or until toasted.

3. Combine arugula and shallot in a medium bowl. Drizzle arugula mixture with oil and vinegar; sprinkle with pepper. Toss well to coat. Divide arugula mixture evenly among 4 bread slices, buttered side up; top evenly with prosciutto. Divide pear slices and cheese evenly among sandwiches; top each sandwich with 1 bread slice, buttered side down.

Book Club Treats

Elizabeth — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:01:48 +0000

I had the pleasure of hosting book club last month and made some fun treats that were gobbled up. My goal was to make simple/quick items that had very few ingredients but still packed a lot of punch in the flavor department. Oh, and I had a very small budget, so the ingredients had to be fairly inexpensive.

I started with a recipe that I had tried at a wine tasting party I had attended earlier this year: Parmesan Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped Dates. I could not get enough of these when I was at the party, and the same went for book club. I will admit, they aren’t the prettiest to look at, but with only three ingredients (parmesan, bacon and dates), they were so worth making. The flavors are complex and addicting – smoky, sweet and salty. Perfect!

Still on the savory side of things, I decided to make a dip, but one that was a little less expected than normal. I am a big fan of stinky cheese, especially all different varieties of blue cheese so I was won over by this Blue Cheese and Caramelized Shallot Dip. Again, few ingredients with big payoff. I served them with black pepper kettle chips and a mix of sliced veggies.

I was looking for a reason to make this Strawberry Almond Cream Tart and book club was the perfect excuse. Such a beautiful presentation for such little work. I love making desserts like this! I was completely addicted to this tart – I could have eaten the whole thing by myself! Perfect for entertaining.

I made a few other little snacks – tea sandwiches, spiced popcorn, (and Ellie brought mini chocolate pudding pies), but I would say that these items were the stars of the evening!

Grilled Balsamic Skirt Steak with Sauteed Baby Spinach and Tomato-Vidalia-Blue Cheese Salad

Elizabeth — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:48:54 +0000

Let me start this post out by saying how I am so ready for my tomato plants to start producing! I strongly dislike buying fresh tomatoes at the grocery store. They never really taste as good as I’d like. Thankfully I found some organic ones on sale for this recipe and they were decently tasty. Not as good as what you get from your backyard, but good enough.

I’m telling you, the most recent Cooking Light issue really did well. This was another quick and easy meal that felt healthy and affordable. I used flank steak, only because I couldn’t find any skirt steak and that was fine. A grid iron steak, fajita steak, flank steak, skirt steak, all of those would work well in this application. The meat was good, but the real star was the tomato-vidalia-blue cheese salad. Who knew something so simple could be so incredible! Since the recipe isn’t include on the link, here’s how to make it:

Mix 1 tbsp olive oil, 1.25 tsp white wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Toss with 2.5 c halved grape tomatoes, 1.3 c diced sweet onion (Vidalia if you can find it), 3 tbsp blue cheese (I used more). That’s it!

Grilled Balsamic Skirt Steak with Sauteed Baby Spinach and Tomato-Vidalia-Blue Cheese Salad

Blue Cheese-Stuffed Chicken with Buffalo Sauce

Elizabeth — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:00:34 +0000

Good combination = blue cheese, chicken and buffalo sauce. Kinda like chicken wings. It’s even better with panko bread crumbs on the chicken. Everything is better with panko. Trust me.

Here’s my confession on this recipe – I made the buffalo sauce that is included in the recipe and then it fell off the burner and onto the floor. Not recoverable. Yeah. Not my finest cooking moment. So instead of making it again, I just took a bottle of buffalo sauce out of the fridge and used that. And it was great.

Recipe for Blue Cheese-Stuffed Chicken with Buffalo Sauce

Herbed Balsamic Chicken with Blue Cheese

Elizabeth — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:00:29 +0000

So I’m trying to get back into healthier cooking as I try and shed this last 15 pounds to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I haven’t been very good with what I’ve been eating lately (I mean, can’t you tell ?) and this is the beginning of my effort to rectify that. This is a simple recipe that is great for weeknight meals. I made a simple balsamic vinaigrette to toss with some baby spinach (which I prefer to arugula. . .) and served the grilled chicken on the top. I know that blue cheese isn’t exactly ‘waist line friendly’ but the rest of the recipe is so wholesome that a little bit of cheese didn’t hurt anything.

Recipe for Herbed Balsamic Chicken with Blue Cheese

Stilton and Pear Salad

Elizabeth — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:38:02 +0000

So my favorite salad in town is at Zax’s and it consists of blue cheese (Gorgonzola, I believe), candied pecans, pears, mixed salad greens and a simple vinaigrette. It’s pretty simple so I decided to try and recreate it at home for me and some friends. I went off of a recipe that I found on epicurious and added some candied pecans (also from a recipe on epicurious). The pecans were not particularly pretty, but they were tasty. They came out of the oven looking coated and dull, not shiny or even liked a typical spiced pecan. But who cares when it’s tossed in a salad and consumed with other tasty ingredients! I especially liked the simplicity of the dressing and how perfectly the 6 cups of salad was coated by the small amount of dressing. I still have all the ingredients on hand so I have a feeling I will be eating this salad again this week!

Recipe for Stilton and Pear Salad

Recipe for Candied Pecans

P.S. Running update: I haven’t run since Saturday morning, but I’m planning on running tonight, tomorrow and maybe Friday after work or Saturday morning. The weather is so great for this right now. I’m glad I decided to try to run a 5K now and not during the heat of Austin’s summer!