Sheriff Stubb's Gorgonzola Burgers

Oh yes, it is really and truly grilling season, and you know what that means...time to break out the barbecue sauce! In our house, our favorite sauce (after much taste-testing of many sauces) is something called Stubb's. It comes in all kinds of flavors, and our preference at the moment is for the Hickory Bourbon variety.



I had it out to make my dangerous BBQ Casserole a little while back, and the southern husband must have found a website on the jar while he was holding it lovingly in his arms, because the next day there was a print-out on my desk for a recipe entitled Sheriff Stubb's Gorgonzola Burgers. Well technically it was half a recipe, because he only printed out one page. Maybe he thought if I had the general idea I could just wing it. But it's the thought that counts, and he happily ran back and printed the rest of it when I said I just might make these if I actually had the whole recipe.

Now, the reason these are called Sheriff Stubb's burgers is (I think) because of the apple slices that go on top of the burger. The recipe says to cut perpendicular slices of a Granny Smith apple and pop the seeds out of the center, leaving you with what they call a Sheriff's Star. So I did...and sure enough, there was the star.



Slight digression: that is the teenager's hand, and please note the blue heart drawn in magic marker. I have asked her approximately 900 times not to draw on her hands, or arms, or feet, or other body parts...and inevitably at least once a week she is sitting at the dinner table with more artwork on herself. Which leads to this:

Me: I thought I said please don't draw on yourself with ink?

Her: My friend did it and I didn't notice.

or...

Her: I didn't have any paper

or...

Her: I was bored and I couldn't help it!

Etc.

Anyway, you pop these apple slices on the grill alongside your burgers (which by the way have been made by mixing a little bbq sauce in with the meat and wrapping bacon slices around the burgers), and you grill them up together until the burgers are cooked to your liking and the bacon is done and the apple slices are warm and a little soft. Meantime you mix up some crumbled blue cheese with a little more bbq sauce until you have a nice little spread -- you can see it on the bottom of the bun on that picture up top. Layer it all together, and there you go. Go make 'em.

Sheriff Stubb's Gorgonzola Burgers

1lb Ground Beef
8 Slices of Bacon
3 Tbs of Stubb’s Bar-B-Que Sauce
½ Cup Gorgonzola Cheese
Medium Granny Smith Apples
Hamburger Buns

1. Combine 1lb ground beef with 3 Tbs Stubb’s BBQ Sauce. Form 4 patties, wrap each patty with two pieces of bacon, securing with toothpicks. Baste thoroughly with Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Sauce and set in refrigerator until ready to grill.

2. Thinly slice apple perpendicularly to the core. Slices should be about 1/8 inch thick. Gently remove any seed pieces, leaving a Sheriff Star in the middle. Set aside until ready to grill.

3. Combine ½ cup gorgonzola with 1/3 cup Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Sauce. Gently blend leaving slightly lumpy. Refrigerate until use.

4. Cook burgers and Sheriff Star apples on the grill over medium heat.

5. Lightly toast buns and spread bottom bun with Gorgonzola Spread. Remove toothpicks from cooked burgers, top with Sheriff Stubb Apples Badges and serve on top of prepared bun.

Click here for printable recipe

Tomato Gorgonzola Soup

This soup is the single best way I know to use up that piece of blue cheese that you bought for something else but still have a little piece of. The Southern husband and I are currently trying to train ourselves to use up all of whatever ingredients we bring home...so if we bring home a half pound of Swiss cheese, for example, and we don't use it all up in the cheese fondue that we had the other night, we figure out what we can make next that calls for Swiss cheese. (You will hear more about our adventures in Swiss cheese in the days to come, assuming all goes well).

So after I made shrimp in gorgonzola sauce a little while ago, I still had a little hunk of the gorgonzola left. Just enough to make this scrumptious soup, which has chunks of chopped tomato in it and gets its creamy goodness not only from the gorgonzola but also from a little cream cheese and heavy cream and milk tossed in as well. I know...but if you are going to make homemade soup, you might as well go for the gusto, right?

The only TINY drawback to this recipe is that in order to use up the gorgonzola, I had to buy a largish container of tomato juice (another key ingredient) because apparently they do not sell smallish containers of tomato juice. So there it is in my fridge. Sitting there. Mocking me.

Anybody got any good recipes that call for tomato juice, or do I need to buy more gorgonzola and start the cycle anew?

TOMATO GORGONZOLA SOUP, adapted from Allrecipes

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 minced cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
• 4 ounces softened cream cheese
• 1/4 heavy cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups tomato juice
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1. Heat oil in medium pot over medium heat. Add garlic and stir for 2 minutes.

2. Add cheeses, cream and milk and heat until cheeses are melted and mixture is simmering

3. Stir in tomatoes with their liquid, tomato juice, basil, sugar and pepper to taste. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often, and serve.

Click here for printable recipe

Shrimp in Gorgonzola Sauce

Shrimp, shrimp, shrimp....what else can I tell you about shrimp that I haven't said a hundred times before?

Here's my shrimp video, in case you missed it last time...

I kind of can't believe I made this whole shrimp slideshow extravaganza without including this recipe, which I love with a passion and which I have been making ever since the Southern husband and I were first engaged, lo those many years ago. It is still as scrumptious as it was back then, and is one of those easy, reliable, elegant recipes that you will go to again and again...at least, I do. So for all you shrimp-lovers out there, here's one of my all-time favorites.

SHRIMP IN GORGONZOLA SAUCE

• 10 ounces large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
• Chopped fresh parsley
• Fresh ground pepper

1. Melt butter with garlic in large pan over medium high heat, and saute shrimp until opaque. Add cheese and lemon juice and stir until cheese is just melted.

2. Serve over rice, garnished with parsley and fresh ground pepper

Click here for printable recipe

Penne with Gorgonzola Tomato Sauce

This blog started out with me trying and then posting new recipes that I had tried out and loved, and a lot of what I put up here is still exactly that. But a few months into it, it occurred to me that I should also be sharing some of the tried and true beloved recipes that I have made again and again over the years. And so I started a category called "Kate's Favorites." (you can find it on the right hand side of the blog web page, under the heading "What's Cooking At Framed." These are all the recipes up on the blog that are my true blue, time-tested, best friends of recipes. The ones I would take with me to a desert island. This is assuming there is a Fairway supermarket on the desert island, and if I can also take my crockpot and my La Crueset dutch oven.)

Anyway, this pasta recipe is one of the oldest and best recipes in this category. I got it out of Bon Appetit magazine about one million years ago, before Bon Appetit got all fancy and frou-frou (I miss the old Bon Appetit!! Why do they always have to CHANGE things that are working just fine?? Are you LISTENING to me, Facebook owners??), and I have made it over and over and over again ever since. It's a great way to use up a piece of blue cheese. You can jazz it up by mixing in shredded chicken or chopped shrimp. If it is fresh basil season it is pure heaven on a plate, but it's pretty dang great with the dried kind too. It's one of those happy, cooperative recipes that merrily adapts to whatever you end up tossing into it. I love recipes like that, don't you? And it's also just delectable in its original form.

So one of my favorites, from me to you. Enjoy.

PENNE WITH GORGONZOLA TOMATO SAUCE, adapted from Bon Appetit

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 medium onion, chopped

• 4 garlic cloves, chopped

• 1 14 1/2-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, drained, chopped

• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried, crumbled

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

• 6 ounce Gorgonzola cheese

• 1 pound penne pasta

• 1 cup freshly grated Romano or Parmesan cheese

1. Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in chopped tomatoes and basil. Cook until mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, using fork, beat butter with Gorgonzola until blended.

3. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain well. Return pasta to pot.

4. Whisk Gorgonzola mixture into tomato sauce. Add sauce to pasta and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with Romano and serve.

Click here for printable recipe

Ricotta Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Walnut Sauce

Okay, settle in, boys and girls, this is a long one. And let me start by saying that this most definitely breaks the 30 Minutes Or Under Rule that I usually have for making dinner, but I do tend to bend that rule on Sundays when I have time to really take my kitchen out for a spin. This weekend I decided that I was going to try making homemade gnocchi. I've never made it before, and I actually have not eaten it all that often, and so I knew I needed a clear afternoon to really get down into it.

So, first I needed a recipe. I have this cookbook called ITALY AL DENTE by Biba Caggiano, and the subtitle is "Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, Polenta, Soup." Bingo. I read the chapter on gnocchi and learned there are two basic types: potato and ricotta. Biba advises neophytes like me to start with ricotta. The recipe is pretty basic.

16 ounces whole milk ricotta, a cup and a half of flour, 2 teaspoons salt, one egg and 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmagiano cheese.

Mix it all up together until you have a wet dough.

Then knead it for about 2 minutes until it feels pliable and smooth. I was a little wary of this particular direction, but actually you recognize it when it happens.

I would like to pause at this moment for a moment on one of God's gifts to cooks, which is the Silpat. That is my beloved Silpat you see in the picture above. The recipe said to do all this kneading on a wooden board, but I have been around the block enough to know that when it comes to dealing with sticky anything, you can't do better than a Silpat. They are silicone (I think) mats that are roughly the size of a cookie sheet, and nothing -- I mean nothing -- sticks to these suckers. Pie crusts, chocolate chip cookies, candied walnuts, now sticky gnocchi dough -- my Silpat has seen it all, and has never, ever let me down. If you don't already have one -- or four, like me -- you NEED one. Trust me.

SILPAT

Meanwhile, back at the gnocchi. Next Biba told me to divide the dough into sections. Being a gnocchi newbie, I cut my dough into three sections.

Which once I started the next step I realized should have been more like 6 sections (easily remedied). Next step was to roll the sections into long ropes, about the width of your finger, stretching as you roll. Stretching as you roll? This took me about 5 ropes to figure out, but I got there.

Then you cut your rolls into one inch pieces.

Then you take a fork, face it downward and away from you and press each of these little pieces onto the tines of the fork, forming little grooves. The better to hold the sauce, Biba says.

There they are, my adorable little gnocchi's! (or is the plural "gnocchi?" I should look that up.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I needed a sauce. Apparently gnocchi is a cooperative little pasta that works well with a simple marinara sauce among other things, but I was WAAAAYYY too invested at this point to let myself off that easily. I settled on a walnut gorgonzola sauce that sounded just sinful.

Chopped walnuts that I roasted in a 375 oven for three minutes. 3/4 cup heavy cream and 3 tablespoons of my really good butter. And best of all, 3 ounces of what the cheese guy at Fairway swore to me was the best creamy Gorgonzola in the place. Gorgonzola Dolce, direct from Italy to the Fairway in Paramus, New Jersey, right to my kitchen counter.

Okay, then things started happening fast. First, my biggest pot got filled with water and put on to boil, so the cute little gnocchi's had enough room to swim around and not stick to each other.

While the water was heating I started the sauce. First melt the butter over medium heat, then add the walnuts and saute for about 2 minutes. Add in the cream and the gorgonzola, give the whole thing a stir and then simmer for about 4 minutes until it thickens slightly.

Now, I wish I had a picture of this next part because I didn't quite believe it would happen until it did, but at this point things were happening at the speed of light. As the sauce was simmering for its allotted four minutes, it was time to cook the gnocchi. You drop them into the boiling water and they sink to the bottom like little stones...and then about 2 minutes later they pop to the surface. At which point they are DONE. By the time I finished dropping the last little gnocchi into the pot, the first ones were popping up. (Phew!). The final step is to scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drop them into that simmering cheese sauce....and there you have it. Gnocchi nirvana.

Succulent little ricotta gnocchi, coated in creamy Gorgonzola sauce with bits of roasted walnuts. Can I get an Amen?

I'm exhausted now.