Kerrygold Cashel Blue Grilled Cheese

With more Kerrygold coupons burning a hole in my pocket, and my discovery of Kerrygold Cashel Blue cheese, I thought it was time to make one more Kerrygold grilled cheese creation. With the sous chef and myself recently purchasing two different kinds of quiche, I thought why not try and make my own unique grilled cheese version of a quiche?! Quiche is delicious so a grilled cheese quiche had to be simply amazing. Or so I thought.

ingredients:

• Kerrygold Cashel Blue Farmhouse Cheese
• Fresh Asparagus
• Shiitake Mushrooms
• Frozen Spinach
• Egg
• Garlic / Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• Fresh/Bakery Onion Rolls

the cheese: kerrygold cashel blue farmhouse

Cashel Blue is a semi-soft, creamy Irish farmhouse cheese, distinguished by its round, full flavor and signature tang. Its buttery color is punctuated by characteristic blue veining. Lovingly crafted by the Grubb Family, Cashel Blue Cheese is made on the family farm with milk from grass-fed dairy cows that graze on some of Ireland’s most lush and nutrient rich pastures.

When I first stumbled upon the Kerrygold Cashel Blue Farmhouse cheese at Whole Foods, the cheese had been untouched and was still in its original wrapping. I asked the nice lady cheesemonger to cut me a chunk and we were on our way. I was a little worried because the cheese looked kind of messy and I wasn’t sure if that was how it was supposed to look. However, my concerns were unfounded.

Blue cheese is a very divisive cheese; you either love it or hate it. There is no in between. If you like blue cheese, you enjoy strong blue cheeses and therefore would love Kerrygold’s version. This cheese is a delicious, strong blue cheese that has its own unique flavor. If you don’t like blue cheese, on the other hand, you would most likely cringe when trying this particular variety. Overall though, if you are daring and want to try something different, you should definitely try Kerrygold’s Cashel Blue Farmhouse Cheese. It is definitely worth it.

the ingredients: shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes

Quiche was my inspiration for this sandwich. I wanted to start with a standard base, which I’ll talk about below, and then kick it up a little. That is why I added the asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. Take the quiche up to the next level.

In a sauté pan, using Kerrygold’s Naturally Softer Pure Irish Butter, I sautéed the asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, garlic and crushed red pepper flakes until they got happy. After a few minutes, the mixture began to smell amazing, a great mixture of flavors ready to be put into a grilled cheese sandwich.

the other ingredients: frozen spinach, egg

According to the sous chef, frozen spinach (that is thawed/drained) is a traditional ingredient in quiche so I needed to include it. Plus, it sounded good so why not? And how can you have a quiche without an egg? You can’t.

Once all the ingredients are done sautéing, put them in a bowl and mix with the drained/thawed frozen spinach, egg and as much crumbled Kerrygold blue cheese as you like. Remember it is a stronger cheese so don’t over do it, but also, don’t under do it.

Place in a small baking pan and bake at 375* for approximately 10 minutes or until the egg puffs up.

the bread: fresh/bakery onion rolls

Between the sous chef and I, we thought of many different ideas for “bread” for this particular quiche grilled cheese, including crescent rolls, croissants, pie crust, flatbread, various other types of rolls, and so much more. I wanted to recreate the crust used in a quiche, but didn’t want it to be literal. Somehow, these soft, flaky onion rolls is what I decided on. They were delicious and held more “stuff” than I expected.

the sandwich:

kerrygold cashel blue grilled cheese: B

For the first grilled cheese I had, I added the mixture onto the bread, added a tad more blue cheese on top and then the topped it off with the other piece of bread. Unfortunately, that particular grilled cheese simply had too much blue cheese which overpowered all of the other flavors and ingredients. Everything else got lost and I tasted the blue cheese and bread mixed with an interesting texture, nothing else. It was good but nothing spectacular.

There was some more mixture remaining so I went ahead and had a second grilled cheese, but this time I didn’t add more blue cheese and added a little more crushed red pepper. This sandwich was better than the first but unfortunately, it was still missing something. The amazing flavor that I smelled when sautéing the shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, garlic and red pepper flakes didn’t translate throughout the grilled chees. There were some bites where I got mostly blue cheese and other bites were just spinach/veggies. The sandwich was simply inconsistent and in no way reminded me of a quiche. Again, I still enjoyed the grilled cheese, especially the blue cheese, but it just didn’t turn out like I would have hoped, hence the grade.

If you have any suggestions on to improve this sandwich, please let me know in the comments below.