For blue cheese lovers

Sometimes one can afford to eat something heavy, right? Especially if you have had a rough day at work and you haven’t have time to eat lunch. When you finally get home, you obviously want something which does not demand a lot of work (chopping and cleaning the ingredients for example) and which can be prepared in the oven, so that while the food is cooking, you can make yourself ready for enjoying the evening. On an evening like this I decided to use up the Gorgonzola cheese I had in my fridge. Broccoli was also in the vegetable shelf, so that is how this casserole was born.

300 g chopped broccoli florets

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

200 g cream cheese

100 g blue cheese (I used Gorgonzola)

100 ml cream(20%)

200 g chopped bacon (optional)

About 3 tbsp breadcrumbs and some small  pieces of butter for the topping.

 

# Boil (in water seasoned with salt) or steam broccoli florets until tender. Drain and pat dry with paper towels. If you prefer firm broccoli, don’t bother steaming or boiling – it will soften a bit in the oven (but will stay crunchy).

# Melt 2 tbsp butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir.  Also add cream cheese, crumbeled blue cheese and cream. Stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Stir in broccoli florets.

# If you use bacon or some other kind of meat, fry it in a pan and stir it into the cheese mixture as well.

#  Pour mixture into a medium-sized casserole dish (I used an oval dish, 23 cm diameter). Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and place some small pieces of butter on top.

# Bake at 180 degrees C for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

I served it without any side dish as I did not want to ruin the lovely blue cheese taste with anything. It was rather tasty, but it was a bit difficult to get it out of the casserole dish - it was not firm enough. Kind of like eating some kind of stew. So maybe you should add one lightly beaten egg to the cheese mixture to get a bit more firm result.