Monday, April 20, 2009

A sandwich idea to make blue cheese palatable

I love most kinds of cheese and I would say the smell of "stinky" cheeses don't really deter me. However, my first inclination would not be to eat, purchase, or make recipes containing blue cheese. I eat blue cheese but it's not really my favorite in terms of the scent and appearance. Well, I recently had to purchase Gorgonzola for a mac and cheese recipe and I had quite a bit leftover. Gorgonzola is a veined Italian blue cheese made from unskimmed cow's milk. It's crumbly in texture like feta but has the classic greenish blue mold coloring of blue cheese. I was trying to figure out what to use the rest of the Gorgonzola on and I decided to make a salad and a sandwich. The salad was fine but the sandwich was soo delicious. The different salty/sweet flavors had this great complexity and really married together well. It's just a sandwich so I don't really have a recipe but if you just use the follow ingredients, I don't see any reason why the sandwich would not come out as anything but delicious.

Gorgonzola, Spinach, & Pear Sandwich

Take some crusty Italian bread, cut in half (center and top/bottom) and hollow out bread in the center to create crusty "boats". Sprinkle with olive oil.
Cut 1-2 pears into long slices approximately 1/4 inch thick (I used Barlett which is a softer pear but you can and prob should use a firmer pear such as Bosc or Anjou)
Spread leaves of fresh, washed spinach on the 2 bottom pieces of bread, layer pear slices on top of the spinach.
On the other side of the bread, fill with lots of Gorgonzola cheese and finely sliced red onions.
Now sprinkle red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar on top of all halves.
Place sandwich halves in a pre-heated oven set at 350 degrees. Bake until bread looks toasty and starts to turn golden and cheese is melted.
Put halves together to make 2 sandwiches and enjoy!

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