A while back I discovered bread cheese, or Juustoleipä as its been known for over 200 years in Sweden and Northern Finland where it originated. It’s a pretty unique cheese in the sense that it’s baked during the cheesemaking process, which caramelizes the sugars on the outside of the cheese creating a brown crust.
The thing that I love most about bread cheese though is that it doesn’t melt quite like regular cheese does and is actually meant to be heated or sautéed prior to serving.
I first used it to create a grilled cheese that was made completely out of cheese. After that I made a few more of my 100% cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, added a couple burger patties and some bacon and came up with the Bread Cheese Bacon Double Cheeseburger. Since then though I’ve mostly just been frying the cheese and drizzling syrup on it, which is how I came up with my most recent idea — Bread Cheese Waffles!
I once again used cheese from Brunkow and Carr Valley — this time chopping it into squares that were perfectly waffle-sized. I then plugged in my waffle maker, waited for it to preheat, placed the two bread cheese squares into it and pressed down on the lid. 45 seconds later my Bread Cheese Waffles were finished! Now, I know that this isn’t really any different than just frying the bread cheese in a pan and adding syrup but come on, how awesome does it look in waffle form!?
Hormel recently sent me a bunch of bacon — 12 pounds to be exact — and this Bacon Weave Quesadilla is what I did with the first two pounds of it.
Actually, I should clarify that a little, the two bacon weave “tortillas” that I made only totaled about a pound and a half, but when you’re cooking with bacon you’re obviously going to eat some along the way, and that’s where the extra half pound went.
For the bacon weave tortillas I started off by cooking two large bacon weave squares and then placing a bowl over each one and tracing around it with a knife to create a circle. The trick with these bacon weaves is to cook them to the point where the bacon sticks together and is able to be cut, but you don’t want to cook it too much or when you add your quesadilla ingredients and finish cooking it your bacon will burn.
The cooking time will vary depending on which type of bacon you use and how thick it is, but for my original two bacon weaves I just cooked them in the oven at 400° for about 15 minutes. Then, after cutting them into circles, I added some chicken and cheese to them and fried my Bacon Weave Quesadilla in a pan on my stove for about five minutes. Completing my meal was a bowl of fresh homemade guacamole.
Overall I think that this was my favorite bacon weave creation to date. It was completely and utterly delicious. You know what though? Maybe quesadillas just aren’t quite your thing, and in that case you could also incorporate a similar bacon weave concept into Bacon Weave Pizza, a Bacon Weave Grilled Cheese or even a Bacon Weave Breakfast Burrito.
I stumbled across Project Pie while walking around the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas one afternoon looking for something to eat after about 12 hours of non-stop drinking the previous day. The restaurant had opened up only a few days prior to my trip out there, and boy am I glad they did because their pizza ended up being the perfect way to not only start my day but also to soak up whatever excess whiskey was leftover in my stomach from the night before.
You know what I hate about ordering pizza? Waiting for it. Especially when I’m really, really hungry like I was on this particular day. Luckily, at Project Pie you don’t have to wait long at all thanks to their 800° oven that cooks your 12 inch pizza in three minutes flat.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself though because first you have to either choose between one of their nine signature pizzas or build your own by starting with fresh pizza dough and adding any combination of the 24 ingredients they offer. It’s basically a pizza version of Chipotle or Subway.
Each pizza costs $12 regardless of how many toppings you add so you might as well go all out, which is exactly what I did by topping mine with mozzarella, ricotta and Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled meatballs, bacon, mushrooms, black olives, green peppers and pesto. A few minutes later my pizza was out of the oven and ready to eat!
I’m not sure which was faster, the amount of time it took my pizza to cook or the amount of time it took me to completely devour it, but it was pretty close between the two! Man, I really hope Project Pie opens up a Milwaukee location at some point!
For as simple as a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cone sounds, it actually took me a LONG time to get it just right. On my first try I put a pile of cookie dough in my waffle cone maker, pressed down the lid and expected to be able to roll it into a cone after it cooked. It didn’t quite work out that way however and when I opened the lid half of the cookie dough was stuck to the top grilling plate and the other half was stuck to the bottom.
For my second attempt I took a metal cone, wrapped cookie dough around it and stood it up on a baking sheet in my oven. After about five minutes the dough was running down the cone into a pile on the cookie sheet. On the plus side though, when you’re trying to make a cookie cone and it doesn’t turn out the way you want it you’re left with a bunch of cookie dough to eat, which isn’t a bad problem to have at all!
For my third and final attempt I decided to just bake one giant cookie in my oven and then roll it into a cone the second it was done baking, before it could harden. Well, I guess sometimes the simplest idea is the best, because this worked like a charm. To roll mine I used the cone-form that came along with my waffle cone maker, but any cone-shaped object should work just as well. Then, once the cookie cone cooled and hardened it was all set to eat!
Now, my Chocolate Chip Cookie Cone was awesome on its own, but do you know what really took it to the next level? The chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that I filled it with! I’m not normally a huge dessert fan, but this cookie cone was delicious and was ten times better than any other ice cream cone I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I think I might need to try making an Elvis Cookie cone next!
You may not be aware of this, but April is National Grilled Cheese Month, and to help celebrate that fact the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board is giving one lucky DudeFoods reader a gift basket filled with delicious Wisconsin Cheese as well as some bread from La Brea Bakery.
Which cheeses are included in the gift basket is a total mystery to me, but if it’s anything like the one they just sent me a couple weeks back you definitely won’t be disappointed!
Want to win? All you need to do is check out the Grilled Cheese Month issue of the Wisconsin Cheese online magazine, Grate. Pair. Share. and then leave a comment below letting me know what your favorite grilled cheese recipe from the issue is.
I’ve embedded the magazine below to make it easy for you guys, but you can also access it by clicking here. I’ll pick one random winner a week from today on Monday, April 15th. Good luck!
Oh, and if you’re wondering what my favorite recipe is it would probably have to be the Apple French Toast Grilled Cheese. Seriously, how amazing does that sandwich look?
Update: 4/15/2013 – Congratulations to Rene who won the gift basket!
A while back I discovered bread cheese, or Juustoleipä as its been known for over 200 years in Sweden and Northern Finland where it originated. It’s a pretty unique cheese in the sense that it’s baked during the cheesemaking process, which caramelizes the sugars on the outside of the cheese creating a brown crust.
