Blue cheese dressing is my favorite. I generally have a bottle sitting in my refrigerator. I like it on many things, not just salads. One of my favorite non-salad uses is dipping the crust from an almost-all-eaten slice of pizza into blue cheese dressing. Yum!
Blue cheese is based on a mold to begin with, so it's an ideal medium for growing new molds. Because of this, it has to be treated in a way that will keep it as sterile as possible. In the past, my bottle of blue cheese dressing would go bad before I could use it all up. This happened so often that I came up with the solution. Here it is.
- Never put anything into the bottle. This means do not use any kind of silverware or spatula to remove the dressing from the bottle. (The exception is using a spatula to get the last remnants out of an almost empty bottle.)
- Pour out the amount of dressing that you will need.
- After you have poured out as much as you want, turn your wrist so that the remaining "drip" flows back into the bottle.
- Replace the cap without succumbing to the temptation to wipe the rim with your finger.
Do this without fail, and your blue cheese dressing will last far longer.
Once contaminated, all dairy products are subject to growing mold quickly. While blue cheese is already mold-based, and needs the extra precaution of never putting anything into it, most other dairy products will usually remain mold-free as long as you only put clean utensils into them. This is true for sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, and even regular sliced or block cheeses. To keep them mold-free, take all that you want with the first scoop. In the case of block or sliced cheeses, remove what you want all at once with a clean knife or other piece of silverware. Going back for a second helping, even with a utensil that you used only to deposit the first scoop is risky, and will usually start the mold-growing process....
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Author: Mark Stine