blog — molly yeh

cheese

yogurt queso with cilantro cream

in ,

If I had a hot tub the first thing I’d fill it with would be rainbow sprinkles so I could reenact all of those Instagrams that people take at the ice cream museum. When that gets sticky and buggy the second thing I’d fill my hot tub with would be queso and then I’d throw a B.Y.O. chips party for all of my friends. Imagine sitting around a bonfire but instead of a fire in the middle it’s a hot tub of queso, that would be the life. Now imagine that the queso is just slightly healthier, almost enough so that you could maybe actually eat a whole hot tub of it by yourself and you don’t actually need to share it with your friends. That’s yogurt queso! It's really inauthentic and I got afraid to post this after reading the truth about queso, so this is really a queso-inspired yogurty cheesy dip (I hate the word "dip" for some reason???) but it's tasty! And a little tangy from the yogurt and I love eating it with the extremely thick and salty and sometimes even chewy potato chips from the deli section of Hugo's, our nearest grocery store. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Yogurt Queso with Cilantro Cream

serves 6-8

Ingredients

2 tb unsalted butter

1/2 small purple onion, finely chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped, plus more for serving

1/2 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped

Kosher salt

1/4 c (32g) all-purpose flour

1 c (240g) whole milk

4 oz jack cheese, shredded

1 c (225g) greek yogurt (whole, 2%, or fat free), divided

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Black pepper

1/4 bunch cilantro, finely chopped, plus more for serving

Clues

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, jalapeño, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until soft, about 7-10 minutes. Stir in the flour and continue cooking for another minute. Add the milk and cook, stirring, until the mixture is thick and coats the back of a spoon. Add the cheese, stirring until melted, and then add 2/3 cup yogurt, the cayenne, crushed red pepper, a few turns of pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. To make the cilantro cream, mix the cilantro with the remaining 1/3 cup yogurt and a pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper. Serve the queso warm with the cilantro cream dolloped in the center. Top with additional fresh cilantro, chopped bell pepper, black pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne.

This recipe was cut from Short Stack Yogurt. Preorder it now! 

slice and bake cheese crackers

in

hallmark movies, sufjan christmas, lefse parties, please get at me!!! the holiday season is upon us and i am here for it as aggressively as ever. last year my holiday season was half spent sneaking out of holiday parties to the nearest fast casual restaurant with my laptop and book manuscript, and the year before that it was spent planning our wedding and not having too many sufganiyot so that i could fit into my dress, but this year i am buying extra stock in stretchy pants and spiking everything with schnapps. it's gonna be so great! i still have some book tour stops* but those are all about partying, being merry, and eating cookies so they're only gonna further my descent into becoming one big ball of chrismukkah. 

*alert! new tour stops have been added including grand forks and berlin! and a handful of other events near and far are brewing, so hold onto your butts. 

obviously one of my favorite parts about planning the holidays is thinking up menus: which dumplings will be at our dumplings of the world party, which latke toppings will make their debuts, and how i'm going to decorate eggboy's 30th (!!!!) birthday cake. one component that's sometimes kind of a challenge is the appetizers. usually my holiday meals are basically all large appetizers (dumplings, latkes) or so staunchly main-course-oriented (thanksgiving) that i avoid complicated appetizers to allow for more room and energy for the bird and its stuffing. in the latter case, simple things like cheesy twists or a block of cream cheese with jalapeño jam dumped on it do the trick, but my family's been falling back on those for years, so this year i'm adding a new recipe to our arsenal of unfussy cheese appetizers: slice and bake cheese crackers!

i am really excited about these because they are the combination of two of my favorite childhood snackees, slice and bake cookies and cheez its. they can also be prepped far in advance, frozen, and baked up fresh so they're hot and ready for the party. these pimiento-flecked bbs feature Roth’s alpine-style grand cru reserve, which is made right in wisconsin but has a strong gruyère-like personality that will make you feel fancy and festive. it's such a flavorful cheese that these crackers really don't need to be a served with much else. you could pair them with some apricot jam or onion jam, but i like them all by themselves. and also all to myself... so make a double batch...

slice and bake cheese crackers

makes 40 crackers

ingredients

8 oz roth grand cru reserve cheese, shredded

1 c flour

a good pinch of kosher salt

a few turns of black pepper

1/4 c unsalted butter, cold and cubed

optional: 2 oz diced pimientos, drained

2-4 tb cold water

Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or everything bagel topping

clues

place the cheese, flour, salt, and pepper in a food processor and pulse until combined. add the butter and pulse until the mixture turns to small pea-sized pieces. continue pulsing and add the pimientos, if using, and water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture resembles couscous and sticks together when you squeeze a small amount in your hand.

turn it onto a lightly floured surface and use your hands to work the mixture together into two cylinders that are each about 2” wide. roll the cylinders in seeds or everything bagel topping and then wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or up to 3 days (or freeze for up to 3 weeks and thaw in refrigerator overnight before going onto the next step).

preheat the oven to 425ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

slice the cylinders into 1/4” slices, arrange on the baking sheets about 1" apart and bake until lightly browned. begin checking for doneness at about 15 minutes. remove from the oven, let cool on the pan, and enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you to roth cheese for sponsoring this post!

head this way for a roth cheese coupon!

grilled blue cheese with honey and walnut pesto

in

have i told you that i'm, like, *kind of* a pescatarian these days?? not 100%. maybe 90%. (i'll always eat the brisket that you cook for me.) but this summer, with all of our happy vegetables and eggs, a new ful-fueled fascination with beans, and after my trip to cheese school and a first-ever branzino cooking experience, i have been having so much fun diving deep into meals that don't have a big hunk of meat at the center. i like putting the focus on vegetables, nuts, and other things that won't make me look outside and see our macaroni and feel mommy guilt. it's a great challenge and i feel like i'm eating more vegetables for it. maybe it's just in my head. i also like not feeling obsessive about cleaning all of the cooties off of every surface of my body and kitchen when i cook meat, and between the garden and our eggs i can get away with going to the grocery store way less now. 

(side note: we have two chicken breasts in our refrigerator because i'm a dirty hypocrite but i'm having trouble figuring out what to add to next week's ful burritos that will make them better than just burritos filled with mushy beans. do you have any suggestions??) 

so! i don't know where i'm going with this, i think i just wanted to tell you since friends update friends on those kinds of things. not--i repeat not!!!--that i want you to change your menu for when you have me over for dinner next. but when you come to my house we'll probably have lentils. or if we're grilling, how about a fancy grilled cheese!  

let's discuss grilled cheese! i like grilled cheeses where the inside of the bread is first toasted. it allows the cheese to get a little jump start melting, and then there is more textural excitement all up in the middle with nary a soggy bite in sight. a few months ago at cheese school, we tasted various cheese pairings and the one that blew my mind the most was honey with castello's double creme blue cheese. it was like salty/sweet but on steroids because of blue's awesome funkiness and this particular blue's uber creaminess. i knew right then and there that this combination would make one luxurious grilled cheese. so i came right home and did just that. i paired it with a second blue cheese, a quick little walnut pesto too for some oomph and bulkiness, and boom! it's the grown-up grilled cheese of my/your/our dreamz. oh and it needs wine because that's the rule about eating a grown-up version of a kid thing, so this is getting paired with the bright and rich napa cellars' zinfandel. yum. the grilled cheeses pictured here are miniature, fit for a party, but if you're making a meal out of it, go the magnum route. 

grilled blue cheese with honey and walnut pesto

makes 4 mini or 2 large grilled cheeses

ingredients

walnut pesto:

1/2 c toasted walnuts

1/4 c olive oil

1 clove garlic

a squeeze of lemon

crushed red pepper

kosher salt and black pepper

grilled cheese:

8 mini slices bread (pictured) or 4 slices sandwich bread

2 ounces castello double creme blue cheese

2 ounces castello traditional danish blue cheese

honey 

clues

to make the pesto, blend all ingredients in a food processor and season to taste. be careful not to add too much salt since the blue cheese is salty!

to make the grilled cheeses, toast one side of each of your slices of bread, flip them over, and then top half of them with a layer of walnut pesto, both types of blue cheese, and a drizzle of honey. top with remaining slices of bread and grill until the cheese is melty. 

serve with a pickle and zinfandel and enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you, castello and trinchero family estates, for sponsoring this post!