Jasper’s Maytag Blue Cheese Chips

This is the first non-Tartine cookbook dish I've posted. It is so good I just had to share. I just had to! For a fairly recent blue cheese convert, this is heaven on a chip. And my bias towards the Iowa-made Maytag Blue made these chips even more enticing. But this wasn't the first time I've had these chips. The first time I had them was at a local restaurant called Jasper's. Technically it's not "local-local," but it originated in Texas and only has four or five restaurants in the state.

I have craved these chips off and on for the past year. Jasper's isn't an inexpensive restaurant, so it's not the type of place you dash off to whenever you crave their food. Therefore I decided to google the recipe. And what do you know: Jasper's shared this recipe with Austin's paper before I ever tasted these lovelies.

Valentine's Day seemed like the perfect time to try this recipe out. I have no idea why I thought this dish was going to be difficult. Now that I've made it and reread the recipe I must say this is such a simple and delicious appetizer that it could be my go-to recipe when we have last-minute company. (It doesn't hurt that I usually keep a pretty little wedge of Maytag Blue in the refrigerator). Because this recipe is so simple I'm actually going to share it. Enjoy!

1 cup heavy cream + cornstarch (for slurry)
1 cup blue cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
4 cups potato chips, non-ruffled, thick cut
1/4 cup Maytag blue cheese, crumbled fine
1/4 cup chives, snipped

Bring cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Thicken with cornstarch slurry (a mixture of cornstarch and cold liquid mixed together until smooth). Blend in blue cheese using a blender. Season with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Strain through chinois (AKA: a fine strainer).

In a heat-resistant bowl, warm potato chips in a 350-degree oven. Remove chips from oven and add warm cream sauce. Toss gently until all the chips are evenly coated. Place in a serving dish and sprinkle with crumbled Maytag and chives. Combine. Note: The chips cool and deteriorate very quickly. Serve immediately. Serving smaller batches more frequently will yield better results.

Notes:

• This serves 8, but, um, Brad and I were able to polish off the entire thing.
• I used Kettle no-salt chips. I highly recommend a low or no-salt chip due to the salty nature of the cheese.
• The cornstarch slurry wasn't very straight-forward. I used 2 tsp. cornstarch to 2 tsp. water, but in reality I probably should have used 2 tsp. of the cold heavy cream. The water worked out fine though.
• I needed about 1/3 of a pound of blue cheese for the entire recipe.
• Make sure you crumble the blue cheese for the topping very fine. I didn't spend too much time on this and when I got a big crumble it was a bit overwhelming.
• I didn't use all of the cream sauce. I had about 1/2 cup left. This was nice because we got to have chips the next day!

Banana Cream Pie

I've been putting off adding this blog update because I don't really know what to say about it. I think bananas are gross and therefore I think the same of this pie. According to my husband it's amazing though. This is what he requested for his birthday dessert (last November).

This is another recipe from the fabulous Tartine cookbook. And like almost all Tartine recipes this one is somewhat complex. It requires the use of three separate recipes: one for the crust, one for the cream filling, and one for assembling the actual pie.

This is the first pie I've seen that coats the crust with chocolate. What a great idea! It prevents the cream from making the crust soggy. Genius. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the chocolate covered crust. But can you tell I have never crimped a pie crust? While this is fairly embarrassing it also makes me a bit proud. Proud because I have family who love me and make pie for me. My Grandma Jean used to make me a pie for my birthday every year (after my mom figured out I don't like cake). And now my fabulous pie-making husband continues the tradition.


But I digress (because I think bananas are gross). If you love bananas the way my husband does I recommend this pie. And if you have a loved one who loves banana cream pie I recommend you make this for them.

Gougeres

I decided I wanted to make some sort of roll that I could put in the freezer and take out when the mood struck. I of course decided on fancy rolls--gougeres. The lovely French version of a cheese puff (with traditional gruyere of course). I had made them before with success, but the second time I tried to make them (for a friend's Thanksgiving meal, no less) they failed. I think they failed the second time because I didn't let the choux paste come together properly because I was in a hurry. The photo below shows proper choux paste.


In all honesty the hardest part of making gougeres is getting the dough in the pastry bag. There are only eight ingredients in the Tartine cookbook recipe I used: milk, butter, salt, flour, eggs, gruyere cheese, black pepper, and fresh thyme (which is optional in most recipes). The second hardest part of making gougeres is piping the dough on a cookie sheet. I didn't even do a great job of piping, but they still came out great. And it never fails that I fill the pastry bag too full and the dough comes out both ends of the pastry bag. Since filling the bag is the hardest part I tend to overfill. Will I ever learn my lesson? Probably not.

Besides eating about five of these when they came out of the oven, I have another couple dozen packed away in the freezer. To freeze them you simply pipe them on a cookie sheet, put the cookie sheet in the freezer, and then pack the gougeres up when they're frozen. Tartine says they'll remain fresh for about a month. I'm not sure we'll make it a month before they're all eaten.

My husband's tart

I'm a little bummed my husband loves my Tartine cookbook as much as I. Why? I guess because I want to master all of the recipes myself. Is that ridiculous? No, not the mastering part, but the hogging the cookbook part is. Why? Because anyone who doesn't want someone else to make them goodies from Tartine is a moron. These recipes are not easy! Also, I always enjoy the dishes other people make more than my own (probably because I'm usually full from sampling my ingredients before my dish is ready).

When I announced I was going to make a Tartine fruit tart for Easter my husband volunteered to make it (in addition to the ham). I would have been crazy not to take him up on the offer. I was already making pecan rolls (anything with yeast in it always stresses me out), a green salad with potatoes, roasted asparagus, and, um... Nothing else. That doesn't sound like a lot does it. Well, I was running around trying to find a new tablecloth (which ended up including new napkins) and the perfect flowers. I also dyed eggs. And cleaned. Okay, now I've redeemed myself. Anyone who knows me well knows cleaning is a very involved, slow, thorough process for me. But I digress...

My husband's tart was not only beautiful, but also delicious and refreshing. How often can a woman say that about her husband's tart? Our guests agreed and we were left tartless. Thank you, Tartine! And thank you dear husband.

Croissants are a pain in the ass (and worth it)

Some of you (mainly Brad and Melanie) know I've been talking about making croissants from the beautiful cookbook, Tartine, for a couple months. I finally braved the daunting five-page recipe and did it. It took forever, and now it's taking even longer because I'm blogging about it. However, they actually turned out--sort of. They tasted amazing. They were the best croissants I've ever had. The only problem was that they were huge! I called them my everything's-bigger-in-Texas croissants. They were ginormous!

Here's what I mean by daunting and forever:

Friday night

• Make preferment (I thought this would be fast, but it turned out to take at least a half hour)
  

Saturday

• Make dough
• Let dough rest for 15-20 minutes
• Mix dough until smooth and elastic (about 4 minutes)
• Let dough rise and increase by half (about 1.5 hours)
• Form dough into 2" thick rectangle
• Place dough in refrigerator to chill 4-6 hours
• Mix butter (almost three cups!) until malleable about an hour before taking dough out of refrigerator
• Roll dough into 28x12 rectangle, "spot" the butter over two-thirds of the length of the rectangle, fold dough into thirds and seal seams
• Again roll dough into 28x12 rectangle and fold again in the same manner
• Place dough in refrigerator for 1.5-2 hours to relax the gluten
• Again roll dough into 28x12 rectangle and fold into thirds
• Place dough in freezer to chill until evening/night
• Place dough in refrigerator before going to bed

Sunday

• Roll dough into 32x12 rectangle (this was hard as the dough was cold and had never been stretched this much)
• Cut dough into long triangles
• Roll triangles into croissants
• Let pastries rise 2-3 hours (croissants should double in size)
• Make egg wash
• Brush croissants with egg wash and let dry for 10 minutes
• Bake 15-20 minutes (rotating after 10 minutes)
• Cool croissants
• Eat croissants