For some strange reason, lately, I’ve really gotten into cheese. It all started a few years ago when I got bleu cheese dressing instead of ranch on my salad. I love cheese!
The new cheeses I’ve tried, in order of preference:
[ol]
[li]Gruyere - Used in fondue, this cheese is just scrumptious on a Ritz. ::drool::[/li][li]Stilton with Apricot - I need to get some croissants for this stuff. Rich and sweet and deelicious.[/li][li]Emmental - Swissy.[/li][li]Gouda - Tried a smoked variety for the first time. El yummo![/li][li]Greek Myzithra - The restaurant next to the building in which I work is a Greek one; they do the grated Myzithra/olive oil/yummy bread thing. [/li][li]Gorgonzola - I’ve only been eating this on my salad for about a year, so it’s new to me. Love it.[/li][li]Black Diamond Sharp White - Sassy.[/li][li]Jarlsberg - A mild one; I like it on crackers with moutarde.[/li][/ol]
I feel especially fancy when I have cheese, crackers, and wine… Anyone else into cheese? Any recommendations? I’ll try anything twice.
Halloumi. It’s a white middle eastern cheese that’s quite salty, but mild, and if you fry or grill it it gets crunchy on the outside, but it doesn’t melt! I like to cut it in thin slices, fry it, and eat it in pita with hummus and red peppers.
I had aged applewood smoked cheddar for the first time a little while ago. Yum.
I really like eating good parmesan, thinly sliced, on white bread. I only discovered ungrated parmesan a couple of months ago, and I’m being evangelical about it- it’s so much better.
My absolute favorite cheese is Havarti. I like plain Havartis, and I like the ones with things added, like dill, or herb and onion. It’s a great cheese.
I tried a cheese a couple of months ago that I thought was fabulous. It’s called Dorothea, and is a goat’s milk cheese with, of all things, potato peel in it. Very nice.
I love Stilton, but am afraid of trying the Stilton-plus-fruit varieties. I’m just a big chicken.
Brie and I have a weird relationship. There are times when I adore Brie, and other times I get a bit too much rind which I think tastes the way gym socks smell, and then I hate Brie for a while.
I had a Wensleydale for the first time last week, and really didn’t like it at all. I bought it because of “Wallace and Gromit” which is rather embarrassing to admit, but it was sour and very unappealing. Can someone tell me if Wensleydale has a very sour taste? Or did I manage to find a really bad example of the cheese?
The other day I made a quick snack of a slice of baguette that had been sitting in the special crustifying bag overnight, with a schmear of rhubarb jam sprinkled with fresh ground black pepper, and a slab of brie on top.
My god, I had to sit down. It was soooo good.
Also, real unadulterated parmesan or romano is so many miles better than the stuff you shake out of a can. We have invested in a wee cheese grater (a manual one, since the turny-cranky ones seem to break), and it was one of the best kitchen purchases I ever made. Don’t be afraid to slice a little hard cheese to nibble on, as well.
This is the second time I’ve heard of Halloumi, Lissa. I must try to find some.
My wife is a cheese fiend - the smellier, runny, and grosser (more gross?) the more she likes it. I’ll have to ask her for recommendations. I’m really sensitive to strong smells, and some of the stuff she puts in her mouth — I can’t even stand to be in the same zip code.
Me: Susan, that stuff smells and looks like pus. Are you sure you should be putting it in your mouth?
Gazelle -
Try out Amablu bleu cheese, made just south of you in Faribault MN.
I think some of the local stores are starting to carry it, and I know you can get it online.
Ooooh, I am passionate about cheese. I live next to a Farmer’s Market that has 4 cheese vendors. It’s like heaven every time I go.
I tend not to like the cheeses with fruit, but I found an English cheese called Orange Grove that had chunks of dried orange in it. Creamy and very tasty.
One of my absolute favourites is lancashire. I also like wensleydale - it has a nice honey finish to it. jsgoddess, you may have just had a bad sample, I’ve never found it sour.
If you like gouda, try to find the spiced (with cumin seeds) or aged versions. Both are excellent, especially the spiced gouda with a light ale or lager. I had a goat’s milk gouda that was truly disgusting (the dog wouldn’t even eat it). It was probably bad, but it has put me off goat cheeses for a while.
Stilton screams to be eaten with a nice port or sweet red wine. I had a very nice stilton last weekend.
A couple of things I learned recently: good cheese can make average wine great, but bad cheese makes great wine average or worse, and when setting a cheese plate, it is good to choose a variety of different types of cheese (different types of milk, soft vs hard, etc.)
Shropshire Blue is amazing, it’s like a fine English Cheddar with blue veins running through it.
Ewe’s Blues from Old Chatham in Vermont is one of my favorite blue cheeses, it’s creamy with an almost sparkly taste to it Ican’t really describe.
Aged gouda 5 years or more is some of the more intense cheese Ive had, in a good way.
I used to like Roquefort but the last batch I had had a bit too much of the ammonia smell to it and I’ve just been turned off.
My favorite lately has been chevre. Slice some baguettes thin, toast em with a brush of olive oil, smear a bit of tapenade or some chopped capers, tomatoes, garlic, and basil and a dab of chevre then broil it for a sec till the cheese goes brown and yummy…oh man is it good.
This was a wedge of very pale (like Brie rind colored), quite crumbly cheese. It was, to be frank, just awful. I’m glad to hear that it was just a bad cheese. Wallace is redeemed.
Are any of the above mentioned cheeses (or even some that weren’t) decent for use in mac-n-cheese? I get tired of the same-ol-same-ol cheeses in it (I generally use Velveeta or a box mix, like Kraft), and would like to experiment with other kinds.
So, how it melts would be an important consideration.
I so rarely get myself good cheeses, since I normally don’t eat them quickly enough and they’ll sit in the fridge until they turn into science experiments of some sort.
Any ideas of a cheese that goes well with the Viognier variety of wine?
You are a big chicken, girl! The Stilton I tried came in an eeensy package. Pick yourself up one and get a croissant or six to go with it. C’est magnifique!
Peter (Famliy Guy): “What’s that SMELL?!”
Brian (The dog): “It’s either BAD meat or GOOD cheese”
Not a cheese reccomendation per se, but since you mentioed blue cheese dressing I have to share my new guilty pleasure;
Totino’s pizza rolls dunked in Marzetti’s blue cheese dressing! FANTASTIC!
