Inspiration Re-Creation

Last month, we visited the Cheese Days Festival in Monroe, Wisconsin.  Hubby's mother grew up in Monroe, so it's a bit of a family tradition to attend the event held every other year.  Cheese Days is a celebration of the Old World tradition of cheese making, and is all about, you guessed it, cheese.

This year I discovered (and how I've missed it all these years remains a mystery) the BEST grilled cheese sandwich ever, a Master's Grilled Cheese.  The gooey cheese oozed out of the crispy bread and I had to break off the huge strings because my arms weren't long enough to stretch any further.  It.  Was.  Heavenly.

Another treat we enjoyed was fried cookie dough.  Just the idea made my mouth water.  Cookie dough?  Fried?  How could that possibly be bad?  Um, yes, please!  I have to say, though, what I was served wasn't quite what I expected...

The cookie dough was inside a wonton wrapper.  Now, don't get me wrong, it was good!  Definitely good.  But when I have an idea of how something should look and taste and it doesn't quite meet expectations, I feel the need to create it myself.

Which is how I arrived at this...

Fried cookie dough BALLS, which is how I imagined them.  Googling "fried cookie dough," I settled on a recipe that I thought could satisfy my inner cravings (and FYI, self-rising flour is a combination of all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder -- see recipe here).  Using my own tried and true recipe for chocolate chip cookies, I substituted a half-cup of Egg Beaters for the two eggs to ensure the raw dough would safe to eat.  I dipped the dough balls in the batter, fried them up (outside on the patio in an effort to keep the house free of "fry smell," and yes, I'm aware that's kind of weird) and enjoyed.  The result was nearly exactly what I'd hoped for.  Warm and melted doughy goodness!  I'm glad I only made six, because I could have easily eaten more.  Way more. 

Keeping with the re-creation theme, I thought I'd try to make some grilled cheese sandwiches, too.  At the time, I wasn't certain which variety of cheese was used in the Master's sandwiches.  We had purchased some gourmet Muenster and some Monterey Jack from Brennan's Market in Monroe, so those were a given.  I also wanted to include American, because all good grilled cheese sandwiches should have American.  Just my opinion.  I figured the combination would get me where I wanted to go.

I started by making a loaf of artisan bread.

Which turned into this...

Admittedly, my version was not as good.  I didn't use full-fat butter.  I didn't have quite the right cheese (I later learned the original contained Brick).  But it was good.  And it did in a pinch, which is essentially what all cravings are!

Now if only I could recreate the fried cheese curds, I'd be in business.  I'd share a photo of my own, but we inhaled them so fast, I didn't get a chance to take one.  This is a Googled image, showing the actual fried curds from Cheese Days in all their glory...

(Source: followthecheesybrickroad.wordpress.com)

In case you'd like to attend the next one, Cheese Days will be held again September 19-21, 2014, and it will be the 100th anniversary of the festival.

On another note, I'm adding brick cheese to my grocery list...