Costco Cheese Haul and Tips for Perfect Pizza

I love the cheese selection at Costco and have been going back to the one near us time and again to try and find one in particular that my grandmother always seems to have whenever I visit, but when I try to go back and find it there myself it's gone like some kind of cheese Brigadoon. I've been on a crazy smoked gouda kick, and in my opinion Yancey's Fancy Smoked Gouda from upstate New York is one of the best, though seemingly elusive as Costco has it in stock maybe once in a blue moon.

I sort of wish that it was appropriate to do haul videos the way one does on a fashion blog, but I think a photo will suffice. My entire haul from the shopping trip:

Just a cart full of my favorites, the successfully found Yancey's Fancy Smoked Gouda, Pacific Cave Aged Blue, Bulgarian feta and Balsamic BellaVitano cheeses, like 8lbs of goodness right there. The Pacific blue ended up on this pizza:

It's my usual bacon bleu cheese fig pizza with a minor upgrade of balsamic fig reduction drizzle. I know hypothetically I could have made my own reduction, but when I make pizza it's all about speeding things along so I used Blaze's Balsamic Fig Glaze, which would like you to know that it was the first one thank you very much:

Pretty damn good, and a little goes a long way. I've also been finding that I love it drizzled over some fresh mozzarella balls for a little appetizer:

I love me some good pickled things, olives, pickles and some rosemary pecans on the side.

My beloved Yancey's Fancy ended up on this glorious pizza:

This one used the gouda instead of mozzarella with caramelized onions, cut up chicken sausage, butternut squash cubes and ricotta on top. I broke my own rule of 3 toppings again but

Ir was amazing, I just wish that the butternut squash was a little more in season and in general I love the way that squash and gouda are the perfect bffs. However this pizza would not have been the same without the ricotta, which I think adds a little texture and sweetness to balance out how sharp and smokey the gouda is. It's definitely one of the more underestimated cheeses in my own opinion, and a favorite pizza topping.

Shoutout of course to Trader Joe's pizza dough, which is about the best stuff you can use if you don't want to make your own. Construction instructions can be found on my previous pizza post linked above or at my post on goat cheese, bacon and date pizza, but my primary tips are:

- prebake your dough to about half done on nonstick foil directly on the rack
- put a layer of cheese under and over your toppings
- put the pizza directly on the rack to finish baking and DON'T TOUCH till it's crispy and delicious
- rest your pizza 5-10 min before cutting

You end up with a perfectly crispy crust, bubbling cheese and nicely toasted toppings every time, plus the beloved sauce line on the dough that those of us from NYC miss so much. Now I gotta go start brainstorming what to do with the other 6lbs of cheese I have left!