Grocery Store Score!

I love going to the cheese store.  All the samples, exotic smells, shapes and tastes.  I always enjoy chatting with the cheesemonger, learning a few weird cheese facts - about the animals, cheesemaking or even cheese distribution.  But sometimes, I just don't have time to get to the store after work, and I still need to get my cheese fix on!  (Though, to be fair, last night was all about tofu, brown rice and veggies - gotta get that fiber in!)

What to do, what to do?  Well, duh!  Head to the local mega mart.  Just shop smart.  Look for flavor and meltability.  I did bypass the giant orange chunks, but did think about extra sharp cheddar before settling on Kerrygold Irish Cheddar.  Creamy, with a nice flavor that explodes on your middle tongue and a rich finish.  

A little roux of butter and flour, milk and the shredded cheddar melted right on in.  To make it "healthy," I added some frozen peas to the noodle water.  25 minutes in the oven, and badabing!  

You have probably all made mac and cheese this way more than once, but man o man, when it gets made this way instead of the "box" way it is always kind of a revelation.  When I was a kid, my mom never gave us "box" mac and cheese.  It wasn't until I was on my own that I got lazy.  Time to get back to the home made place!  

I actually owe y'all a blog about cheese powder, but that's for another night. I'm off to bed, with plenty of carbs in my tum.  Wonder what dreams that'll bring?

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 10

Here we are again.  A Wednesday night - the least exciting day of the week - always in need of a little bit of a perk-up.  Tonight we are featuring aged sheep's milk cheese from Spain named Ombra.  The rind on this is hard as a rock, but such a warm brown color, that I had to bring it home.  And, did I mention that it smells amazing!  Rich, salty, nutty.  Yum!

Because this cheese is aged at least 4 months, it is beautifully crumbly (more time aging = more moisture loss = crumbles!) with little air holes throughout the paste.  But even dry, it sports the oily sheen of a good sheep cheese.  It is so light and delicious, though.  Not a bit oily on the tongue.  It isn't overly salty, and I swear I can taste the fresh spring grass that the sheep were grazing on in beautiful Catalonia.  I can't tell you how much I need to go there!

Anyway, this cheese is subtly complex.  There is a sweetness to it - butterscotch maybe?  And near the rind, I swear I could taste a little citrus - grapefruit?  Further research was necessary - a few more bites.  Yup, a definite sweetness at the end, and it smells of the meadows.  Sigh.  I really likes this cheese - just don't eat the rind.  To hard.

This cheese would be amazing on a cheese plate - a little cube of surprise to enjoy with a Zinfandel. (Which I did!)  I also ended up grating a huge amount of it to put on a dinner of ravioli, broccoli, peas and a little olive oil infused with garlic, salt, pepper and basil.  A great alternative to Parmesan. Yum!

I'm dreaming of a cheese trip to Spain!  How about you?

One Cow, One Cheese

Yes, "Wrapped and Covered Week" was officially over last week, but this one is just to special.  It comes from the Jackson Farm in Oroville, WA and expert cheesemaker and farmer Sally Jackson.  And this cheese is so special that the milk to make this cheese all comes from a beautiful Brown Swiss cow named Renata.  The cheese is, of course called Renata.  How great is that!  When Renata is sick, there is no Renata cheese (which happened a while ago when she nibbled on a wire and got a case of "hardware disease).  Luckily, Renata is doing well at the moment, and her amazing cheese is available if you know who to ask.  I asked my friend Andrew over at Andrew's Cheese Shop for a chunk to try.  I'd been wanting to try it, and since it is wrapped.

Anyway, Renata is one heck of a cow.  Whatever she's snacking on in the fields is amazing.  I swear she's eating herb salad rich in parsley and sorrel.  According to the website, all the cows graze in the farm's aspen pasture every day.  How dreamy!  This cheese has a bit of the tang that comes from a washed rind cheese, but none of the sticky-ness.  Darling Husband thought it was strong enough to compete with "the white part of a blue cheese."  I didn't think it was quite that strong, but it was really creamy, nutty, tangy and herbal.

The leaves certainly keep the cheese moist, which I think helps make it so creamy.  You can't eat them, though.  In fact, if you've ever rolled your own cigarette or smoked an unfiltered cig, picking out the leaf bits out of your teeth  whilst eating cheese reminds one of picking tobacco leaves from your teeth during your smoke.  A gross analogy, I know, but it's what came to mind.   (Yes, I used to occassionally indulge.  No more - clouds the ability to taste cheese!)  The mold layer under the leaves isn't really that tasty, and the texture is a little mealy.  Not for the faint of heart, but not terrible.

I think I might really enjoy Renata as a bit of cheese toast, but at $38/pound, it would be a little more extravagant than my current budget will allow.  For now, I'll enjoy it with a little Cabernet Franc and a cracker.

Packed in Rosemary, Flown in from Spain!

Continuing on the theme of wrapped and packed cheese for this week, for your drooling pleasure, Romao!  This sheep's milk cheese from Spain is rubbed in olive oil and rosemary during its eight months in the cave.  This cheese is 27% milk fat!  It is definitely a bit on the oily side, or at least the chunk I got from the end of a wheel was.  But you'd be oily too if you were marinated in olive oil  for eight months!  It looks really shaggy with all the rosemary stuck to the oil and cheese.  Romao comes in one pound wheels from the region of Cuenca, Spain in the center/east of the country.  According to Wikipedia (I know, I know...), this region is full of gorges, which I'm sure create a very exciting climate for the sheep!  This is definitely a sheep cheese.  Full of its own oils and nuttiness, it has a complexity beyond the rosemary.

Anyway, the rosemary flavor doesn't permeate the interior of the paste, but like the other cheeses this week, the flavor does go at least 1/2 inch in.  Because it is aged for as long as it is, it has that crumbly, almost crunchy texture.  The oil bath does reduce the crunchiness a bit, but it doesn't drown it out completely.

Perhaps the thing I was least expecting is that the shaggy rind wipes right off, due I suppose to the olive oil mixed with the rosemary crust.  Originally, I cut the rind off, but after the Darling Husband swiped the last TWO pieces at the same time, I needed to figure out a way to feed my own cheese hunger, successfully wiping it all off, and munching down on the completely edible rind dimpled with impressions left by the rosemary leaves.  Sigh.

Oh, and very tasty with a Cabernet Franc from the Santa Ynez Valley, though I'm sure a Spanish red wine would be perfect! Ole.

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 9

This week has become "Wrapped and Covered" week. Everything I've brought into the house, shared with Darling Husband and tortured Perfect Dog with has been packed with something - peppercorns or grape sediment. Tonight, I visited with Andrew's Cheese with a very specific goal in mind - wrapped cheese. Cheeses wrapped in leaves during aging get a lot of flavor there, and I'm pretty sure the leaves help keep some moisture as well. Beyond my requirement for having wrapped cheese, I didn't have anything in mind. Goat cheese, blue cheese and many other cheeses come wrapped.

So I tell Andrew of my quest, and without blinking he says "Rogue River Blue." And with good reason! This award winner from Oregon was created by Tom Vella's son. Which didn't mean anything to me either until I learned that Tom Vella invented Monterey Jack! So we're dealing with cheese royalty here. This cheese is also the big brother of the Smoky Blue that I shared with you a few Wednesday's ago. It was, in fact, listed as one of the Best of 2009!

And here's why. This amazing blue cheese is wrapped in Syrah grape leaves and macerated in pear brandy during the aging process. It is so creamy, with just the right amount of tang. It just melts on your tongue. The blue and grey green streaks running through it are beautiful, you can definitely taste the pear and a little bit of sweetly salty nuttiness. With a little glass of port, this was the perfect way to end the day!

This grape wrapped blue isn't what I was expecting to walk away with this Wednesday, but I'm so glad it came home with me!

Sleep tight, wrapped in grape leaves and sweet dreams!

Wine and Cheese - On a Cracker!

This week seems to be about how cheese can be influenced by what it's wrapped in during the aging process. Yesterday, peppercorns, today grapes! Beppino Ocelli's Piedmont dairy makes butter and cheese from cows, goats and sheep who graze on pastures full of wildflowers and herbs, and it really shows in his cheeses. In fact, according to his website, Sr. Ocelli is actively involved in research at the University of Turin to improve meadows for grazing.

The cheese I picked up at Say Cheese is one of Ocelli's "grand cheeses." My cheesemonger was so excited to give me a sample of this one, the Testun Ocelli al Barolo. This cheese is a combination of cow's milk and goat's milk cheese, and you can really taste the goat, and you can see it in the chalk white center. In this case, however, the milk is not even remotely the most exciting thing about the cheese. If you speak any Italian, or ever drink wine, you've heard of Barolo. Yes, dear reader, this cheese is covered with Barolo grape "must" during the last two months of the aging process. (After the grapes are crushed and the juice extracted for wine, the skins, seeds and pulp is left over. This is sometimes called the "must.")

If you look closely at the picture, you can see a pretty incredible cream line just under the grape encrusted rind. The grape flavor really, really infuses the cream line section of the cheese. It's unbelievable. I kept thinking of grape Kool-Aid, but in a really up-scale, mouth popping way. The interior paste of the cheese belies its goat's milk origins, but it is also very much an Italian cheese, with a bit of the crunch that comes from a cheese that is aged for seven months, and the richness of a cow's milk cheese.

This cheese is so much fun. There are layers of flavor and texture, from the creamy inner paste to the grape flavored cream line, to the grape must itself. Watch out for the seeds! If you are really OCD, you could probably save the seeds and grow yourself a vineyard of Barolo grapes!

If you can find this one, give it a try.

Sweet dreams of amazing cheeses eaten in a vineyard!

That's a Spicy Cheese-a-Ball!

I went on another urban cheese field trip this weekend and ended up at a great little cheese store called Say Cheese. The cheesemonger and I almost got my goat cheese hating friend to like goat cheese. And by almost, I mean that we got him to try a sample of a less goaty goat cheese and not spit it out. Whatever. more for the rest of us!

Just to spiteful (and because I honestly think goat cheeses are both tasty and adorable), I bought one of these little peppercorn covered goat cheese, wrapped up in raffia, with its own doily. Take that goat cheese haters! The little tag says Pevrin, and it hails from Piedmonte, Italy.

After reading the incredibly fine print on the back of the tag, and using Google translator to make sure I had read the Italian correctly, I realized that this spicy cheese-a-ball is actually a combination of goat, sheep and cows cheese. Not sure of the percentages, but interesting none the less. The cheese was crusted in red peppercorns and red pepper. I was a little worried that it would be too spicy (having blown out my spicy meter the night before on Southern Thai delicacies). Luckily, while there was a pleasant bite to the cheese, the soft creaminess of the inside paste really balanced the peppery crust. The peppercorns also added a nice crunch, which was fun!

The paste was definitely goaty, but the blend of milks kept it from being too tangy. The interior didn't taste of pepper at all, but it definitely permeated at least 1/2 inch. The thing that really struck me was the texture of the paste. While Darling Husband enjoyed the spreadability, I kept being reminded of a facial mask I bought once at a beauty supply store. A little sticky and very thick, almost like a beautiful chalk white clay.

Sadly, I have to say this wasn't one of my favorite cheeses. The flavor wasn't overly exciting, but it was very fresh and clean tasting, and the peppercorn crunch and spice was a great find. It was also completely adorable! I would absolutely get it again to add to a cheese plate for a holiday party. And now, I'm a little obsessed with cheeses rolled in other things. Stay tuned for tomorrow night's coated surprise!

Sweet cheese dreams all.