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Food Thread: Cheese Powder - It's Not For Snorting (I Think) [CBD]

Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese -toasted, mostly.

That's from Ben Gunn, a character in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island." He is marooned, and has become fixated on cheese, which as food fixations go, makes perfect sense.

But what to do with cheese powder....

This came from King Arthur Flour Company, which is an irritatingly fine company that specializes in...yup...you guessed it...flour. My assumption has always been that flour is a commodity, but their products are simply better. And more expensive, so I don't use them for all of my baking. But when I make something complicated and special, I bite the bullet and buy their stuff.

Anyway, I saw this and was intrigued. Sure, I can make Mac & Cheese, but I think I will bake some sort of cheese bread. I am sure I can find an interesting recipe on their web site, which is worth a look as a baker's resource.

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Warm Hummus with Spiced Lamb, from David Liebovitz's interesting (but a bit verbose) site sounds like fun. Although the hummus is a bit strange...no tahini! I thought that was illegal, but I may be biased.
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From Delicious Magazine comes The 2016 delicious. Photography Competition finalists and winners, which includes a fair number of rather nice photographs, in addition to the typical food photos that we see everywhere.
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And from my favorite food-borne illness site comes a short skewering of the embattled Chipotle fast-food company. This article points out that Chipotle top cheeses make a lot of dough. To compare these two hacks' compensation, Jamie Dimon made $27 million in 2015, running the most successful large bank in America. JP Morgan Chase is probably 25x the size of Chipotle, and much, much more profitable for its shareholders.
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I wouldn't make this for a large crowd, but for those of you who are having more intimate Thanksgiving dinners, Butternut squash soup served in a squash shell looks great. It's about as perfect a holiday presentation as one can get.
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From Tyler Florence, a very nice side dish that would be fun for Thanksgiving. I wouldn't bother with fresh corn, since it won't really be fresh, and frozen corn is excellent. And I would fire roast the poblano until it is blackened, then toss it in a paper bag to let it steam. Scrape off the burned skin and then chop it for the recipe. He suggests serving it with chili, but maybe for Thanksgiving we can ignore that part of the recipe.

Corn Pudding with Poblanos

• 2 ears fresh corn
  
• 2 cups milk
  
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
  
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
  
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
  
• 1 medium poblano, seeds removed, finely chopped
  
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  
• 3 eggs, separated

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove husks from corn and put in a large pot with milk and cream, Set over low heat and bring to a simmer then shut off heat and cover to let corn steep, about 10-15 minutes. Remove corn from milk and cut the kernels off the cob with a sharp knife and set aside.

Strain the milk mixture and set back over high heat, add butter and pour in the cornmeal in a slow steady stream, whisking at the same time. Cook and whisk constantly until the cornmeal is blended in and the mixture is smooth and thick; it should look like porridge.

Take the pot off the stove and fold in the corn, chives, chopped poblano, and salt and pepper. Mix in the egg yolks, 1 at a time, to make it more like a batter.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites (use a hand blender if you have one) until they hold stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the corn pudding to lighten it.

Coat the bottom and sides of an 8 by 8-inch baking dish with nonstick spray. Spoon the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

When it's done, the corn pudding will look puffed and golden brown, like a souffle. Spoon into the bottom of bowls and serve chili over the top.