recipe ideas for blue cheese that's too blue?

I adore blue cheese.  I buy it by the quarter wheel.  But the problem is, the outside edge is too blue for me.  The texture is just too powdery.  Anyone got some great recipe ideas for using up the blue cheese rind?  

I usually make cheese biscuits, which is my regular recipe but with blue cheese instead of cheddar.  These are very sharp but delicious.  It's just we are on a gluten-free cleanse right now so I can't make those.

But it wouldn't hurt to get a collection of yummy recipes for blue cheese to help prevent waste in the kitchen.

Blue cheese salad dressing? The too blue could be mitigated with a little more of the carrier you use I use mayo. depending on the size of your batch and how fast you use it I have used avacado in my blue cheese dressing. Look at red lentil bread if you want a GF biscuit/bread it has a near corn bread consistency but not exactly. I've never used blue cheese in it but  bet that would be good.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lentil+bread

We sometimes add blue cheese to the white sauce for cauliflower cheese, crumbled up and added to a quiche, in omelettes and in savoury muffins with shredded spinach. It is also good in a Waldorf salad using pears instead of or as well as crunchy apples.

What about blue cheese with scrambled eggs or an omelet?

Pasta or gnocchi with walnuts, sage, and blue cheese is a favorite. You toast/fry the walnut pieces in butter with chopped sage, toss with pasta and the cheese and a little cream if needed.

I am curious if the cheese is a particular type of blue; if it's too blue when you get it or does it get too strong over time; and how you are storing it.

Some blues are bluer than others, and those made from sheeps milk are often more pungent, some are aged longer, etc so I'm surious what you're getting in the first place.

If it's too blue from the get go, it may be that the rind (which isn't a visible rind on most blue types) is just kind of meant to protect the inside of the cheese, has picked up dust and random mold from the aging area, is dehydrated, and isn't meant to be very palatable; or wasn't stored properly before you brought it home and it got dry, sweaty, or over ammoniated.

Doing a little home affinage can help make cheese last longer. Blue cheese in particular "sweats" a lot and if it's tightly wrapped in a non permeable wrapper, that will seep back into the cheese and cause it to over-ripen more quickly. Clocheing or placing it on a sushi mat inside a larger container can let it breathe and stay in better shape longer. Misting the cheese surface with salt water or some alcohol of your choice can slow down the blue development on the surface; as soon as you buy it, unwrap and mist it and then put it away in a bit of an airier container and then re-mist as you cut.

If that is a bit much (which, yes, it is) re-wrapping it in paper for storage can help too.

Something interesting that can happen- if you are storing blue cheese in some kind of small "chamber" like a cloche environment, you may be able to inoculate other cheeses that have a crumbly texture (cheddar style cheeses) because it has natural fissures for the mold to grow into. You would just add a piece of the other cheese into the same container (with or without a piece of blue because the mold will still be inside the container). I have done this accidentally a few times.

Mercy Pergande wrote:
I am curious if the cheese is a particular type of blue; if it's too blue when you get it or does it get too strong over time; and how you are storing it.

I can't remember what it's called, but it's beautiful and blue creamy cheese in the middle.  It's the rind that is too blue for me.  It has a really grainy texture that I don't like although the taste is delicious.  

I don't need to worry about the blue cheese getting too old at home, when I'm on a blue cheese binge, it gets eaten in a few days.  Every so often, my body craves it and I give in.  

Blue cheese is so singular and is also a great probiotic food! Bleu de Auvergne is one I especially love. And I agree, sometimes there is nothing that will do besides the flavor some good blue cheese.

Try it with the walnuts and sage- those flavors really balance and mellow a pungent blue!

I have some fresh pasta to gobble up for breakfast tomorrow.  So I looked up Blue Cheese Pasta and boy oh boy, are there a lot of yummy-looking recipes.  A lot of them seem to take cream or half and half, but this one from the BBC looks especially good.

400g penne pasta
25g butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp fresh chopped sage, or 1 tsp dried
100g stilton, cubed
handful toasted walnuts, chopped

...

Boil the pasta according to pack instructions. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then gently fry the onion until golden. Add the garlic and sage, fry for a further 2 mins, then remove the pan from the heat. Drain the pasta and reserve some cooking water. Stir through the buttery onions, stilton and 2 tbsp cooking water, then sprinkle with the toasted walnuts to serve.

The link has some extra hints on how to improve the recipe with bacon and the like.

I'll just change it to match the one serving of pasta I have.  Although, I might just fry up the whole onion and put some aside for dinner.   Tough decisions.  

I couldn't wait for pasta day!

r ranson wrote:I couldn't wait for pasta day!

delicious but too greasy.  The recipe has potential.  Carmalized onion and blue cheese would make a great potato chip flavour.