The Laughing Cow Blue Cheese Martini

YOU GUYS!  I totally have to tell you about my idea. Ok, someone else has probably already thought of it, but I felt like freakin' Edison while I was in the kitchen last night making myself a cocktail.

I've been pondering lately what to do with my blue cheese Laughing Cow wedges. Not that I can't just tear off the foil and nom it is as-is, but I was looking for innovation.  And lo, the vodka gods... they spoke to me. They got really close and whispered in my ear, "Blue cheese-stuffed olives..."  all seductive-like.

BLUE CHEESE STUFFED OLIVES, y'all.

So last night I broke out my best martini olives, sucked out those pimentos and started stuffing. It was messy, but since Laughing Cow is already so soft and pliable, it went in pretty easy (I just used my fingers. *stuff stuff stuff*).  One wedge gave me about  6 big olives with a bit left over (which I ate, of course). 

I skewered a few of those babies and plopped them right into my martini and yea, verily, it was delicious.

The cheese dissolved just enough to make my martini blue-cheese essenced, though stirring with your olives will  quicken the dissolution of your cheese. I was worried about it dissolving faster and giving me blue cheese-vodka soup, but it didn't... stayed tidy inside the olives just like straight-up blue cheese does. And when I was ready to munch them, the flavor was just right. Not too intense, but blue cheesey and I didn't feel as guilty about having cheese in a beverage.

Vodka Martinis with Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese-stuffed olives, my friends. I love you that much.

Tools:

• 1 chilled martini glass
• 1 martini shaker (with built-in strainer if you don't have a separate strainer)
• 1 cocktail mister (sometimes called vermouth mister or similar )

Ingredients

• 2 oz.* quality vodka of your choice (I like Grey Goose, Ketel One or Kirkland brand from Costco best -- rumor says it's really Grey Goose. For this I'm using Frost vodka -- it was on sale and comparable.)
• 1 tsp olive juice (you can go more, if you like it really dirty. I prefer my martinis more of a tease.)
• 1-2 mists of vermouth (I get Martini & Rossi. It's not expensive and it's the gold standard.)
• Fresh ice
• Quality green martini olives**
• 1 Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese Wedge

Directions:

• Fill martini glass with ice and cold water, set it aside. (Alternately, freeze your martini glasses in advance, if you have room in your freezer.)
• Fill martini shaker with ice to the top.
• Add vodka and olive juice. Do not add vermouth.
• Put the lid on and shake for 30-second or so. Not so hard you bruise the vodka (the most pretentious thing I've ever said), but enough to thoroughly incorporate the flavors.
• Dump the ice water/ice from your martini glass, strain the martini into the glass.
• Over the top of the glass, give the mister 1-2 pumps. Just a kiss of vermouth.
  
  (A word on vermouth: some people add it to the martini shaker, some people swirl it in the glass first and then dump it out before adding the martini. I prefer neither of these methods if Im making it myself. I almost always get too much vermouth, so the mister is my preferred method. But if you don't have one, I'd go with the swirl method:  add a splash of vermouth to your cocktail glass after dumping out the water/ice. Swirl it so it coats the sides and then dump it out. Shake it well, too so there's just a little in there. Then add your drink.)
   
• Skewer a couple olives (I like three, but that's me) on a toothpick or cocktail skewer and drop them into your martini.
• Drink. Act like those olives have no Points®

* 2 oz. is the Weight Watchers recommended serving size for a 2 Point martini. But let's not kid ourselves -- my martini glasses hold at least 4 oz, so just decide what works for you and what your Points allowance is. 

** Olives, sadly, are not zero Points. They can be up to one Point a piece! Fortunately, the Laughing Cow cheese wedges are only one Point a wedge, so that doesn't really add to your cocktail very much, if at all. Yay!

(As always, drink responsiby. I'm not yo' mama.)