everything is delicious with bacon and blue cheese

Bobby Flay lost another Throwdown, what a surprise... That guy never seems to win, even though he has a completely unfair advantage. He knows 1) there will be a throwdown 2) what the other person's specialty is and the recipe and 3) he can use better ingredients since he probably has enough money to get California out of debt.

This moules dish is from one of the guy's that kicked Bobby's ass in Throwdown... Chef Teddy at Granville Moore's in Washington D.C. I was recently in D.C. and am quite depressed that I did not manage to find this place. However I did find the Santa Monica Seafood Market and its mussels and now me and B are addicted to these things. It took us a while to find the recipe online, and I can't find it right now, but I have the recipe pretty much memorized... it's easy b/c you need 2/3 cup of everything but the mussels, blue cheese and lemons.

2lbs of mussels keeps me and the 6'3" boyfriend extremely content and perfectly stuffed by the time the last mussel is consumed. Make sure crisp skinny fries are at your side and some thick slices of bread for dipping in the broth. The broth is amazing by the way, we also did the same kind of broth with shrimp. Delicious, but the mussels still are the champions.

2 lbs mussels
2/3 cup applewood smoked bacon
2/3 cup shallots, sliced thinly
2/3 cup white wine (I think we used Chardonnay)
2/3 cup baby spinach
1/2 cup blue cheese
juice of 2 lemons


Heat 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 3 tablespoons canola oil in a pan. The recipe gave this weird ratio, so we are going with it... Dice the bacon and render the lovely pieces of pig and fat until kind of brown (we like it a little crispier). Throw in the shallots and mussels and mix it all around. Add the white wine and lemon juice.

Keep tossing all the ingredients together. When the mussels start to open, drop in 1/2 of the blue cheese. Some mussels are more eager to open than others, so put the stubborn ones deeper in the broth. When all the mussels are opened, add the spinach. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Dump everything in a really large bowl and sprinkle with the rest of the blue cheese.

Forget forks! Use an empty mussel shell to pry the meat from the other shells.