The Cooking Critic

Blue cheese has a big personality. He’s a little obnoxious, truth be told, but he does liven up a salad. Still, he can be so overpowering that not everybody likes him. I’ve found many people so strongly opposed to blue cheese, that I actually crumble it up in a bowl and serve it on the side rather than sprinkling it in the serving bowl with the salad. That way the blue cheese haters can go about their business. Navigating a salad with blue cheese present when you’re trying to avoid him can be tricky, indeed.

It took me a while to warm up to blue cheese myself, but I like him now. Still, a hunk of blue cheese goes a long way, and I’m only going to eat so many salads. This leaves me trying to find other uses for this pungent dairy product. Spinach with Blue Cheese and Pasta is one.

Adjustments: I like spinach, so I add 3 handfuls of it instead of 2. I’d even consider 4 handfuls!

Assessment: Quick and satisfying, and a good way to use your blue cheese. I don’t think I would purchase the product specifically to make this dish, but I’ll happily make it when I already have some in the house. It’s a good, hearty, easy pasta meal to eat before a night out on the town. But it doesn’t reheat very well—the sauce tends to take the form of its former crumbly blue cheese self once placed in the fridge.

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I’m supposed to like salads for a couple reasons. A) I’m a girl and girls like to be skinny. B) I live in Los Angeles and Angelenos like to be skinny. You would think this would produce strong salad longings deep within me, but I simply don’t gravitate toward them. I find most salads boring. That’s right salads of the world, BORING! If you were more interesting, I wouldn’t have to be so blunt and hurt your feelings like this. Not to say I haven’t met some really amazing salads before. Puran’s on Hillhurst makes an ahi tuna salad that I adore, and occasionally I’ll even find a salad recipe that has me saying mm-mmm out loud. But typically my response to a salad is: Why would I eat you, if I can eat something else?

Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to eat my Polenta Lasagna leftovers for lunch. As it turns out, this was not a good idea. Polenta Lasagna sat heavily in my stomach laughing loudly at the foolish notion that he was a lunch food. So when dinner came around, I wasn’t all that hungry, and Spinach Salad with Pears, Gorgonzola, and Walnuts was the only food I could imagine getting along with the polenta lasagna taking up way more than his fair share of space in my stomach.

Adjustments: For the dressing, since I didn’t have honey Dijon mustard, I used regular Dijon and real, live honey, and I had to play with the dressing quantities before I got it to my liking. Instead of walnuts, I used spiced pecans that I had on hand. And instead of Gorgonzola (a fancy blue cheese), I used regular blue cheese. And I threw caution to the wind and skipped the endive altogether. Don’t hesitate to substitute dried cranberries for the pears too.

Assessment: This version won’t have me singing the praises of salads in the streets or anything, but I found it tasty and enjoyed the combination of flavors and textures—it’s got everything: sweet, sharp, pungent, crisp, and crunchy.