Smokey Blue Cheesecake

Pacific Northwest Blues

Last spring I saw a fabulous performance by King Louis and Sweet Baby James along with Linda Hornbuckle and Janice Scroggins at the Joyce Garver Theater in Camas. It was a great experience. I was reminded of the fact that we are blessed with a wealth of talented blues artists here in the Pacific Northwest.

It is not only performing artists that express the blues with award winning talent in this part of the country. We also have artists and photographers with a gift for expressing the blue notes of our experience with soulful skill and enthusiasm. Our experience of life’s more pungent notes is something that can be conveyed at a creamery too, and even in the kitchen.

At Rogue Creamery in Central Point, Oregon they have a gift for focusing flavor notes from around the world with naturally occurring molds that reflect the unique terroir of the Pacific Northwest. Add to that the innovative touch of smoking the blue cheese over hazelnut shells and you have a beautifully complex cheese that plays a sharp tang against a hint of darkly sweet nuttiness. This cure imparts a sultry smokiness to the rich voicing of Rogue's Smokey Blue.

This season Camas's Joyce Garver Theater has been closed and the Performing Arts Series that brought us King Louis and Sweet Baby James last season has lost its long standing venue. The school district that tore down an elementary school this year and replaced it with a newer more modern building and is preparing to update its existing stadium with one that is bigger and better does not want to spend the money to update this well-loved community asset. It's too bad. Yet standing in the shadow of sweet notes remembered and hope denied, when life deals us a taste of its sharper edge, what can we do? Try singing the blues!

Smokey Blue Improvisation

This composition came from the recipe collection at Rogue Creamery's Cheese Shop just off I-5 in Central Point, Oregon. They offer quite a variety of recipes but the most intriguing was for this Blue Cheese Cheesecake.

On the drive home I found myself trying to work out the chords and pair it with just the right topping to enhance the impact. The recipe itself suggests pairing it with a Fig Rum Raisin Dessert Sauce or with a Port Wine Sauce. Both sound interesting but I couldn't find the dessert sauce or fresh figs and I wanted to try a fruit topping rather than the port wine reduction. Finally I decided to bend it in another direction by combining the earthy complexity of this unusual dessert with the drama of a Hazelnut Pear Flambé topping.

The result was rather unusual but interesting and worthwhile. Some bites of cheesecake have more of a blue cheese bite than others, offering a sharp salty flavor that contrasts the smooth creaminess of the more traditional cheesecake on top. The pear sauce provides a lovely sweet-spicy counterpoint and the hazelnuts add a touch of resistant crunch.


Smokey Blue Cheesecake
adapted from a recipe distributed at Rogue Creamery

¾ cup graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup finely ground hazelnuts
2 Tablespoons melted butter
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1½ 8-oz pkg’s cream cheese (12 oz total)
4 oz Greek style plain nonfat yogurt
3 medium eggs
¼ cup sugar
½ Tablespoon lemon juice
2-3 oz Smokey Blue or Crater Lake Blue cheese, crumbled

Let cream cheese, yogurt, eggs and blue cheese come to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease the bottom of a 6" springform pan. Combine graham cracker crumbs, ground hazelnuts and 2 Tablespoons of sugar in a small bowl. Stir with a fork until well blended. Add the 2 Tablespoons of melted butter until combined.

Press the crumb mixture evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Bake 5-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Crumble 2-3 oz of blue cheese evenly over the bottom of the warm crust.

Beat cream cheese until soft; add sugar, yogurt, slowly add eggs one at a time. Beat until combined. Add lemon juice. Pour mixture into the pan. Bake for approximately 45 to 50 minutes, or until cheesecake is just set, and beginning to get slightly golden around the edge.

Let cool for 2-4 hours, or refrigerate overnight before serving for best results.

Top with Hazelnut Pear Flambé.

Serve and enjoy!

Hazelnut Pear Flambé

These shorter days of autumn mean less variety at the fruit stand. Once again the produce bins are filled with apples and pears. In muted shades of red, green and yellow, pears subtly complement the rounder shape, glossier color even the crisp texuture of seasonal apples. Yet all the while pears gently hint at a quiet complexity and sophistication apples can only dream of.

I have always found pears fascinating though, I must admit, I only started cooking with them recently when I suddenly seemed to get the hang of ripening them at home and figuring out when they were ready to use. After poaching pears and roasting pears last year, I recently found even more great hints on choosing and ripening pears at Sizzleworks. So, when I was recently unable to find the suggested ingredients for a cheesecake topping, the first thing I thought of as a substitute was pears.

It didn't hurt that I also found this wonderful recipe on an old newspaper clipping from the Oregonian. I saved it because of its combination of simplicity and drama as well as its inspiration to combine Asian spices and Northwest pears and hazelnuts. I was also intrigued by the step that called for setting it aflame! I've always wanted to master a flaming dessert and add it to my repertoire.

Of course, the flambé step here is optional. If you don't have the time or interest for the drama this recipe will still taste terrific. It can even be made ahead, if desired, to cut down on last minute preparation. I must say though, especially if you like to entertain as you cook, the flambé step adds a lot of interest at serving time.

This dessert sauce fits into a number of different seasons gracefully depending on what it tops, ice cream or cheesecake, gingerbread or pancakes. It’s uniquely spiced fruit and earthy crunch lend Northwest flair to a variety of simple but elegant desserts.


Hazelnut Pear Flambé
adapted from FOODday where it was attributed to "Martin Yan Quick and Easy"

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 cup light rum
1/4 - 1/2 cup hazelnuts

Place a frying pan on the stovetop over medium heat. When hot, add the butter, brown sugar and five-spice powder. Stir to combine. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves.

Increase heat to high. Add the hazelnuts and pears to the sugar mixture and cook until the pear is tender, approximately 2 minutes.


Remove the pan from the heat. Pour the rum over the mixture. Be sure you are not standing over the pan, that the pan is not under an exhaust fan, and that it is clear of any flammable items, then CAREFULLY set the rum aflame. Return the pan to the stovetop and continue cooking for another 2 minutes.

Spoon the Hazelnut Pear topping over cheesecake, gingerbread, pancakes or coconut ice cream.

Serve and enjoy!

Cocktail Eyeballs and Sakétinis

I really don't do a lot to celebrate Halloween. I hardly ever dress up or go to a party. Usually I just stay at home and hand out candy to the ghouls and boys that ring my doorbell dressed in their cute little costumes. Then I answer it some more as the older kids come by in makeshift costumes taking the rest of the candy off my hands so I don't end up eating it all myself.

Sometimes I watch a Halloween movie though that is generally on the tame side too. No absurdly gory movies for me. I prefer classics like "Dracula" or "Young Frankenstein", possibly "The Birds," or even an old episode or two of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Last year I was on my own with my husband out of town and my son out with friends. The waves of trick-or-treaters at my door were intermittent and I was fairly bored. What to do? Like any good food blogger I pulled out a recipe I had just discovered on the Internet and tried to recreate it.

This is a fairly easy recipe but has tremendous impact. I think it was the fuzzy little root of the radish, intact and looking all quivery, that convinced me to try it. I am not all that fond of radishes and green olives are not my favorite garnish but all the same these are totally edible and so worthwhile for a Halloween party or even for an evening at home. These are definitely worthy of a smile, or a grimace, as a garnish for Martinis, Sakétinis, or Bloody Marys. They can also be frozen individually in ice cubes and served in a clear beverage. Or just serve them as is. Arranged on a serving dish and drizzled with a red sauce these are very eye catching.


Cocktail Eyeballs
I think I first saw them at Show Me Vegan

2 bunches of fresh radishes
1 jar small green pimiento stuffed olives

Carefully wash the radishes in cold water and pat dry.

Using a vegetable peeler or small paring knife create stripes by carefully peeling a radish from top to root, leaving small streaks of red between the peeled stripes of white, and being careful to leave the root intact.


Slice away approximately 1/3 of the stem end of the radish. Using the coring tip of a vegetable peeler scoop out the interior of the radish, being careful not to break the sides.


Push one pimiento stuffed green olive into the cavity you created. The olive should fit snugly and protrude above the surface of the radish less than half way with the pimiento stuffed end facing outward.


Slice away the protruding end of the olive so that it is flush with the radish.

Use as a garnish for Sakétinis or other Halloween cocktails.


Or arrange stuffed radishes in a serving dish and drizzle with cocktail sauce or a red salad dressing (I used Pomegranate Dressing), enough to pool slightly in the bottom of the dish. Serve with toothpicks.


Sakétini
From “the sakétini” booklet distributed by Saké One

2 oz. Momokawa Silver or other dry Saké
1 oz. vodka or gin

Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lime curl, olives or other festive garnish.

Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins with POMx Iced Coffee

Iced Coffee from POM Wonderful?

The folks at POM Wonderful recently sent me another great product to try: their new POMx Iced Coffee. I got bottles in two flavors, Café au Lait and Chocolate. When it first arrived I have to admit I was curious. What would it taste like? Would it have some hint of fruitiness?

The answer is no. As Pom says itself, in an ad with googly-eyed talking sheep, “that would just be weird.”

While these coffee drinks are made by POM Wonderful, the pomegranate juice people, and while it has all of those great nutritional benefits found in pomegranate juice, those benefits come from “a super-pure, super-concentrated, 100% natural blend of polyphenal antioxidants” rather than pomegranate juice itself. This concentrate contains all of the benefits of an 8 ounce bottle of pomegranate juice…. except the exotic flavor. Instead POMx iced coffee, especially the Café au Lait flavor, actually tastes like, well, an iced coffee drink.


For me that’s a good thing. Because of the antioxidant boost in these POMx beverages I would buy them over other brands of bottled coffee drinks given a choice. And from the energy drink angle, well coffee is my energy drink of choice so that works too.

Choc-ola Remembered

I will have to say I found the chocolate flavor interesting too. I suppose, in the world of coffee drinks, it is similar to a mocha. Oddly though, what came to my mind when I first tasted the chocolate flavored POMx Iced Coffee was a chocolate beverage I remember fondly from my childhood: Choc-ola. (Does anyone else remember those?)

Choc-ola came in a glass bottle, like many other soft drinks of its day, and had to be shaken to fully mix the chocolate you could see at the bottom of the bottle. Icy cold on a summer’s day, they were fantastic. Sometimes they were available in coke machines of that era and if I could find one I would choose it over Coca-Cola every time.

Chocolate Flavored Drink Weirdness

What's more, I have this indelible memory from sometime before I was six years old of buying a Choc-ola at a roadside souvenir stand in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and giving it to a big black bear that was chained beside the building. He sat up on his hind legs and promptly downed the whole thing.

Does the Pomx Chocolate flavor iced coffee taste like that? Well something brought Choc-ola to mind when I tasted it. Maybe it was a weird association between the bear and the sheep. Or maybe there was some similarity in the silky smooth chocolate flavor that reminded me of that retro soft drink I favored of as a child. Actually I think both flavors of the POMx Iced Coffee were really good.

....and Muffins

What else can you do with these drinks? I got to thinking that what other coffee drinks might have over the POMx Iced Coffee is a seasonal spin. I also started thinking, as I drank my Café au Lait, that what I was missing here was a muffin. After a little recipe tampering I came up with these tasty Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins. This recipe is adapted from my recipe for Java Monkey Muffins. It includes some pumpkin that was leftover in my refrigerator, a bottle of Pomx Café au Lait flavored iced coffee (you can substitute coffee and milk if you prefer) and some pumpkin pie spice. Then they are topped with an espresso/pumpkin pie spice glaze that really gives it that pumpkin latte flavor.

These muffins are soft and luscious, low in fat and sugar (at least before the topping) and are made with wholesome oatmeal and mashed pumpkin, not to mention the added nutritional boost of the POMx antioxidant concentrate. Tasty, nutritious and maybe just a little bit weird, these muffins make a terrific, and seasonally sensitive, breakfast treat.

Give them a try to add an energy boost to your morning and a little seasonal stimulation to your table.


Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins

1 cup old fashioned oats, uncooked
1 cup POMx Café au Lait Iced Coffee (or ½ cup coffee + 1 teaspoon espresso powder + ½ cup milk)
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
½ cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.

Mix oats and coffee drink in a medium bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.

Add egg whites, butter, pumpkin and vanilla mixing until well blended.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl and mix well.

Stir dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture, just until moistened.

Fill muffin cups nearly full. Bake 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees or until golden brown. Cool muffins in tins on a wire rack. After 5 minutes remove from pan. Drizzle with Pumpkin Spice Latte Glaze.

Yield: 12 muffins

Pumpkin Spice Latte Glaze

1 teaspoon espresso powder
½ -1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 ½ Tablespoons hot water
¼ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

Dissolve the espresso powder in the hot water. Add ¼ teaspoon vanilla and mix gently.

In a small bowl, mix 1 Tablespoon of the espresso mixture into the confectioners’ sugar. Add more of the espresso mixture, one teaspoon at a time, until it is a nice consistency for a glaze.

When thoroughly mixed drizzle from a spoon over cooled muffins, or put the glaze in a quart sized ziplock bag, seal the bag, snip of ¼ inch of a lower corner, and squeeze the glaze in a random pattern over the muffins.

Serve and enjoy!