For the Foodies

A friend came over the other night and mentioned the Disarono and blue cheese pairing she had at a local festival. Well I had artisanal blue cheese and Disarono. Why not recreate? You'll need tasting or appetizer spoons to pull this off. It's amazingly simple.

Place a good bite of blue cheese onto to spoon. Use another spoon to add about a teaspoon of amaretto. I also added strawberries and pecans to round out the plate.

Cool, huh?

Tools of the trade:

• Crate & Barrel Appetizer Spoons

Quickly Impressive

I have a love-hate relationship with salad. I love to buy the pricey ones at restaurants. I hate it when for weeks on end I buy salad greens only to let them rot in the refrigerator. I don't know what it is, but I have the best of intentions when I buy salad greens, but my good intentions rarely lead me to refrigerator to make a salad before the greens go bad.

I've done better this last time around. The greens were in the crisper for a week before I made my first salad and they hadn't gone bad! Now when I'm in the mood to make a salad, I have a couple of killer ones. One is apple and bacon, the other is citrus. I'm working my way up to a fennel version. I also have one I learned to make salad with halloumi and grapes, but that's another post. Salad is really simple, but in a flash can be a real show stopper. This is the bacon apple salad.

Wash and spin dry your greens. If you are the epitome of lazy like me, grab a few handfuls of greens rinse them and blot with paper towels. A note on salad greens: I hate iceberg lettuce, unless I'm at a steak house and someone has drowned it in blue cheese. I prefer the dark greens, which are actually better for you. I get down on watercress, baby spinach and baby arugula too. Baby arugula is my favorite. I love its peppery bite. Oh yeah. I like Bibb lettuce too.

I digress. You'll need a crisp apple. For salad, I tend to go for any variety other than Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith. Grab some pecans, dried cranberries, fresh parsley, fresh mint and blue cheese.

A couple of slices of cooked bacon would be nice too. This is turkey bacon.

Let's make the dressing. I don't measure anything. I use the mini bowl in Miracle. Throw in a little Dijon mustard (it makes the dressing creamy so you don't have to use so much oil.) Honey, salt, pepper and cider vinegar round out the party. I really, really wished I had a shallot, but no luck. I don't like garlic with this salad.

Take everything for a spin. Once everything is well mixed, leave the food processor running and drizzle in the oil. You can see when you've added enough oil because the dressing will be creamy. The ratio for acid to oil is 3:1, but you can cheat this because of the mustard and honey.

Now, get ready for assembly. I really like this salad in layers. Finely chop the parsley and mint. I have braces, so I have to chop the pecans too. Chop the bacon.

Dress the greens. I keep it simple. I pile the greens on a plate and add a couple of tablespoons of dressing. I mix it up with my hands. I sprinkle the chopped herbs next. The dressing helps the herbs stick. For some reason, I like the herbs in the salad instead of in the salad dressing. Sprinkle on the dried cranberries and blue cheese.

Slice the apple and arrange it on the salad. I know mine is not quite neat. If you have any apple left over, rub the cut side with the salad dressing or cider vinegar and wrap in plastic wrap. Top the salad with bacon and pecans. Drizzle with extra salad dressing.

Yum! Yum!

Tools of the trade:

• Oxo Salad Spinner
• Shun Sankoku
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block
• KitchenAid Food Processor

Blue Chip

Morton's is one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago. We tend head over after work at least once a week. They have $5 appetizers. Order three and you have a steakhouse meal for $15. One of my three is always the blue cheese fries.

Last week, we switched it up a little and went to a different spot, Sullivan's. When I saw the blue cheese potato chips on the menu, I was a little disappointed because I am not a fan of potato chips. Since I was familiar with the concept of fries and blue cheese, I decided to give these a shot. Oh my damn. Who knew??! These were excellent!! Creamy blue cheese (I'm still trying to figure out the creamy part.) The chips were thick-cut and some were just slightly soggy from the cheese. Oh man.

I had to see if I could recreate these at the house. Here's the attempt:

Get a baking potato. Scrub it well (I leave the skin on.) Slice using a mandoline. You can use a V-slicer or your knife if you like. I wanted thin, even slices. My knife skills aren't that good. I sliced mine thicker than wafer-thin Lay's, but still relatively thin.

I put the sliced potato to ice water. I let it hang out there for about 30 minutes. I pulled the potatoes from the ice water, rinsed them and patted them dry.

I let the canola oil heat to 325 in a cast iron skillet. I fried the rounds in batches. Each batch fried for two minutes. Drain on paper towels. The easiest way to do this is to use a strainer or a spider.

I know these look woefully underdone. Never fear -- we're going for round two!

After your last batch, crank up the heat and get the oil to 375. Fry again, in batches, until you have the desired crispness and color.

Here's the magic. As each batch comes out, drain the chips on paper towels and salt immediately. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with blue cheese. Repeat until all the chips are done. Try not to drool into the bowl as you layer. You can stash these in a warm oven, about 200 degrees, as you wait for the next batch.

These didn't make it to join their brothers. (I had to taste test my frying skills.)

Now that all are done, sprinkle your last cheese on top. The cheese on the first layer should have melted by now. Give the cheese on the top layer time to melt, or sit the dish in the oven for a moment. Wow.

All is now right with the world.

Tools of the trade:

• Lodge Logic 10" cast iron skillet
• de Buyer Mandoline
• WMF Spider