Coconut gouda

Okay, okay, I'm not dead either. Just swamped with school. And unlike T, I haven't been cooking much lately. We've gotten to know our local takeout/delivery places even better in the last month or so than we did before - which is saying something.

But one good cheese recommendation deserves another. Especially since it doesn't look like we'll be able to get a hold of that Monocacy delicacy without heading East. But this one is widely distributed, it looks like: Kokos Coconut Cheese. It's actually a gouda, if you can wrap your head around that. Made in Holland and everything. If you're like me, you read that and went, huh?, but then immediately went, hmm...

It's awesome stuff. Has the heaviness, the thickness, the chewiness of a gouda, but instead of the creaminess coming from butter it comes from coconut. It's not an overpowering coconut taste, but it's unmistakeable, and it's perfectly balanced with the gouda-ness. Just a wonderfully weird but tasty cheese.

After a long, long hiatus!

Hello! I am alive and still cooking :) Joanna knows this but my gmail stuff got all screwy and I lost access to the blog for a little while there. In addition to that I am crazy busy with school and tickling Veda as often as possible! This evening's discovery was too fantastic to procrastinate though so I am posting within 15 minutes of eating all of it....NEW CHEESE:

Cherry Glen Monocacy Chipotle Soft-Ripened Goat Milk Cheese

It's a local MD cheese made with "100% American Ingredients"

(Please see cheese above)

I love cheese. Cheese is a food group to me. It is a purpose for living. That being said, I have had a lot of cheese and really will eat almost any kind. I am pretty much an equal-opportunity cheese eater. This cheese however, is pretty darn remarkable for a few reasons. It's goat cheese and therefore has that familiar smokiness to it but in addition to that it has a nice chipotle heat that translates into a deeper smokiness. BUT there is a really surprising bleu quality to this cheese. Yes, it is stinky :) If you look at the picture you can see that there are two really distinct textures here: the familiar crumbliness of a goat cheese and the silky cream-texture of a brie. How awesome! The brie-like section has most of the stinkiness and has a nice oily-spreadable quality to it that yields to the creamy crumbly texture. Anyway, I am clearly waxing poetic on this cheese but it really is fan-freaking-tastic. Fellow Marylanders: go forth and eat. Westerners: find an analogue? Sigh... I don't know if you can.

New cheese!

They were handing out samples of this at the marke the other night, so we bit. It's amazing stuff: Dorset Drum English Farmhouse Cheddar. Pricey for a cheddar, but worth it for a splurge. It's basically your Platonic ideal of a cheddar: perfect balance between creamy and crumbly, with a sharpness that keeps building in your mouth as you eat it. Plus it comes in a nifty thick black wax rind.

That is all.

Thanksgiving Cheese

So we had an excellent Thanksgiving feast, with Glynne's pork ragout, Eric's fabulous family rolls, a nice green salad, green and black olives (we have pictures of olive fingers as soon as we get them on the computer), yam and apple casserole (another Eric favorite), and some lovely cheese and crackers.

Someday Eric will post roll pictures and recipe, but this time they turned out super fluffy and therefore less crescent-y than usual so he feels this batch isn't good enough for pictures. Meh.

So I really wanted to mention the cheese. We had Masdaam smoked gouda and Beehive cajun cheddar, which I'm pretty sure I've written about before. Our third cheese was Carr Valley crema kasa--I picked it up the night before Thanksgiving to round out our cheese plate (leaving Eric to continue my online scrabble with mom--she destroyed us! *sigh*). I'm pretty sure it's this but ours had bright blue wax that really impressed the kids. This was really good eatin' cheese--if you've ever had butterkase it's like that but creamier. If you've never had butterkase, itls like a cross between creamy havarti and edam. Great for munching with crackers.

Mimolette

Got a hunk of mimolette at the cheese counter the other day.

Me and mimolette go way back. Akiko and I together have developed a taste for good cheese since getting married, and one of the things we discovered when we lived in Japan a few years ago was that you can't get good cheese in Japan.

Not very easily, at least. Cheese is eaten in Japan, widely, but for the most part it's a cheese so mild that it makes Velveeta taste real in comparison. But a few hoity-toity supermarkets carry a few reasonably flavorful imported cheese, in miniscule quantities at gagworthy prices to be sure.

It so happened the neighborhood we lived in had a couple of hoity-toity supermarkets within walking distance, and so every once in a while we'd splurge on some real cheese. And that's where I discovered mimolette. The bright orange, almost red, color made it look like the most potentially flavorful cheese on the shelf.

The wiki says it tastes like parm, maybe with a hazelnut sheen. I guess. I always thought of it as a really dry, really sharp cheddar - but that's probably the color playing with me. Maybe imagine a really dry sharp cheddar crossed with a gouda, and divided by parm? Anyway, it's a good muscle-y cheese.

Chèvre to the rescue

I <3 cheese. All kinds of cheese- I even like some blue cheese on the occasional salad.
I also <3 Mexican foods. This often involves Mexican blend cheese and all of their amazing melty, gooy wonder. This works out well for Cherilyn, who is all about the easy quesadilla or nachos, my problem is I really ought to avoid lactose. This is easy for me when it comes to milk as I have never enjoyed it. I drink Almond Breeze almond milk and life is good. Lactose free ice cream and almond or rice based ice creams are tasty as well. However cheese is my Achilles' heel.

Recently I decided, on a whim, to melt some Chèvre w/ basil I had on my tortilla and then add my salsa and see how it worked... It was AMAZING! The tartness of the Chèvre went so well with the salsa I was amazed! Since then I have obtained some Chèvre with pimentos in it & that is also very tasty! It melts well (though I find I have to use a knife to smear it around) & I love the blend with the salsa!

Does anyone else have any suggestions of tasty things to do with Chèvre? I eat it on crackers and salad and tortillas now. Anything to help me get my cheese fix, and stay out of the yummy sharp cheddar also in the fridge would be good!

New Foods! Yay! At Long Last!

Okay, most of these new foods are from Target, but I can't help it if they make interesting food.

1. Basil noodles (I think it was linguine) from Target--these were pretty fun. They definitely taste basil-y, and they're also a nice green. I think we had them with a mediterranean stew, which was nice. I think they'd be good with all sorts of Italian sauces.

2. Chili noodles from Target--I used these with a peanut sauce, which was probably not ideal but it went fine. These have some heat but not a ton of flavor. They're interesting but I'm not sure what to really use them with.

3. Archer Farms Roasted Tomato and Chipotle salsa--I like this a lot. It might be my new favorite salsa, sweet and not-too-spicy with a nice roasted flavor. And I'm partial to smaller salsa chunks rather than big, so these are a good size for me.

4. Archer Farms Traditional Picante Style salsa--also a good one, mild with a good flavor. Who'd have thought that out of all the fancy brands I've tried I'd settle on plain old Target salsa?

5. Denmark's Finest havarti (finally something not from Target)--our store has plain (nice and rich), caraway, and jalapeno. Plus I think they make the dill flavor I tried a while back, which was nice but a little too dill-y for me. I was worried the caraway would be overpowering but it was really nice, and a totally new flavor with cheese for me. The jalapeno is Denmark's answer to pepper jack, I guess, and I think I actually prefer it to pepper jack. It's got a nice kick to it which blends nicely with the richness of the havarti. I highly recommend both the jalapeno and the caraway.

Thankful for...a new cheese?

We went over to friends' for T-day, meaning that for what must be the fourth straight year we didn't have to do any cooking. Well, Akiko made a pie, but I'll let her write about that if she feels like it.

Which meant no new recipes tried out. We ate a lot of things that I want to try someday, though, so blogwise there might have been something in it. In the meantime, we did discover an awesome cheese that somebody brought to the party.

It's a Spanish cheese called Idiazabal. Made from sheep's milk, although I don't think it tastes sheepy at all. In fact the person who brought it said it was cow's milk (or I misremembered), and I believed it until we bought some tonight.

The only Spanish cheese I knew about previously was manchego, and I'm wild about that. This is maybe a little milder, and the variety we have is smoked, so it almost tastes like a gouda, but without the gouda flavor. Like, it's sharp and dry but not nutty. Buttery? I need to develop a pretentious cheese vocabulary, obviously. In any case, it's real good. A new fave.

New Food November

So I've eaten new foods in the last while but I didn't write them all down. Sadness, truly. But here are a few for November:

1. Brianna's Chipotle Cheddar dressing, which is pretty interesting. The chipotle gives it a nice kick and the cheddar part is a little weird for me but good. I mean, it actually has a slighly cheddary taste, and I've never experienced that in a dressing. I was expecting a little more ranch-like, I guess.

2. Leicester red cheese--the particular one I bought was Kerrygold but I've seen a couple different brands around. It pretty much tastes like cheddar (medium sharpness, I'd say) but it's definitely more red. If you something exciting for a cheese platter or garnish this would be cool.

3. Bundaberg root beer from Australia, which is pretty good. Definitely on the sharp and gingery side, but that's not a bad thing in my opinion. Root beer is pretty much the only soda Eric really loves, so when I spot an exciting one I bring it home to try.

4. Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce--this isn't exactly a new food, but it's become my favorite barbecue sauce. I like the hot and spicy one, but Eric's partial to the hickory and brown sugar, which I must say is quite nice. The flavors I've tried have been more sweet than smoky, though, so it depends on your taste.

More cheeses

We had a party this past weekend, and at it we tried a couple more cheeses.

1. Beemster. I think it was Beemster "Classic." This is a gouda (but from a different region of Holland, thus the different name). It's a really, really strong gouda, very cheddary. Akiko thought it was too strong to eat straight, but I couldn't stop eating it. It has that nice faint crunch a gouda can get from the salt crystals.

2. Morbier. This is weird but good. It's a soft cow's milk cheese - not soft like brie, but soft like Velveeta. It has a streak of vegetable ash running down the center, which I think is responsible for the slightly bitter aftertaste. That's not a bad thing, because it lends a little complexity to the otherwise very straightforwardly creamy flavor. I'm not as wild about this one, probably because it reminds me too much, again, of Velveeta, but it tastes much better, and Akiko and our guests really liked it.

sandwich = awesome

It seems that I have lately been inventing AWESOME sandwiches. Today I used random leftovers and created this:

two slices of whole wheat bread spread lightly with sun dried tomato cream cheese,
one slice of hard white cheddar cheese, leftover turkey pepperoni arranged in a single layer. close sandwich, cream cheese side in. heat up a drizzle of olive oil in a pan, and sprinkle the pan generously with pepper. grill the sandwich in the oil. my cheese didn't melt before the sandwich was properly grilled, so i microwaved it for 15ish seconds.

This was a super super super delicious sandwich. amen.

Cheese reviews

We tried a couple of new cheese today, and here's what they were and what we thought.

1. Maidservant of the Monster was in the mood for some brie, and we found some called Coulommiers that looked good. It turns out it's a "cousin of brie" and I don't know exactly what that means, whether it's just a geographical distinction or if there's something about the way it's made. And I'd want to sample this side by side with some brie in order to tell the difference. Anyway, it's good: a good basic brie, nuthin' fancy (if brie can be described that way), creamy and salty.

2. Black Mountain. This is a Welsh cheddar; it looks like they sell it in small packs, but we got a wedge, complete with the black wax rind. It's flavored with garlic and herbs and white wine, and it's really good. Quite soft for a cheddar - almost creamy - and very, very flavorful. We just had it plain with crackers; I'd love to try it in other ways. Highly recommended if you're into cheddars.

New Food! Yay! (second installment)

I've had five new foods recently, some of which were pretty interesting:

1. Masa's miso sesame dressing (Glynne's recommendation), which I had on Glynne's cabbage salad. I highly recommend both the salad recipe and the dressing.
2. Sylvia's honey mustard--not my favorite, to be honest. I like my honey mustard on the spicy side, and this one is fairly sweet and a bit vinegary for me.
3. Beecher's Marco Polo cheese (tastes like a jack with peppercorns). This is by the same people who make that No Woman jerk cheese Glynne recommended, and I like this one, too. The peppercorns are good without overwhelming the cheese.
4. Black spaghetti from Target. It's black because it's made with squid ink (which I realized later is probably not very vegetarian, oops). To me, it tastes like regular white spaghetti, but it stays totally black even when you cook it so it looks really dramatic.

5. Mahjoub family harissa sauce, which I ordered from http://www.thespicehouse.com
I have this one Moroccan-style soup recipe (which I will post sometime) which uses harissa, but there's no good place to get it around here. Many Lands down in Provo has had one brand in the past that I didn't like much, and when I made my own it didn't turn out that great. But this stuff is really good, though fairly spicy. The main spices in harissa, from what I can tell, are garlic, coriander, and caraway, and this brand has those in a base of olive oil, pimentos, and sundried tomatoes. So it has this great sweet-and-spicy thing going on that makes me want to experiment with it in other recipes. I think I'll try adding it to bruschetta one of these days. Yum.

New Food! Yay!

So normally we're pretty thrifty at our house, but there are two things I can't resist: new and exciting books and new and exciting food. I've curbed the book problem by (mostly) staying out of bookstores unless I'm really out of new books, but I still go grocery shopping once or twice a week. (Once if I remember everything the first time, twice if I don't). So while walking the aisles picking up things I actually need, I usually find one or two things I don't need but suddenly really want.

I've decided to justify my zest for new flavors by starting a semi-regular feature based on what I buy and whether it tastes good. Everyone else is welcome to record their new and exciting purchases in the comments or as totally separate posts or features. Obviously. ;)

This first “New Food! Yay!” will be mostly inspired by the excellent cheese suggestions and my resulting indulgences, but I don't really buy new and exciting cheese every week. It just seems like that lately.

I actually bought seven new things this week and last, but I've only tried six so far. Here they are:
1.Beehive Cheese Cajun Cheddar—this is now hands-down my favorite Beehive cheese. The cheddar flavor really works with the cajun spices to give you a nice rich flavor with a nice heat left behind. But if you're not into spicy I'd skip this one.

2.No Woman jerk cheese. This was Glynne's recommendation, and Harmon's had a nice little piece for sale. He's spot on about the complex flavor. There's definitely a strong jack vibe with a smoky and surprisingly sweet taste to it. Very enjoyable.

3.Da Vinci Goa from Holland (this is what is says on the package), a nice mild cheese with tomato, olives, and herbs mixed into it. It's got a nice savory flavor without being spicy.

4.Havarti Cream Dill from Denmark. This is exactly what it sounds like—some bites seem a little overwhelmed by dill, and some bites seem like the perfect blend of mild, slightly acid havarti with bright dill flavor.

5.Private Selection Arrabiata pasta sauce—I mostly hate jarred/canned pasta sauces because they're way too sweet for me, but for various reasons I've been looking for a jarred sauce I can agree with. I think this one might be it—it's nice and spicy and thin-enough-but-not-too-thin, and even though we had it more or less plain this time I think it would be great for adding my own veggies and such. Private Selection is actually Kroger, so I don't know where-all sells Kroger stuff where any of you live (if anyone does), but that's where you'd find this.

6.Archer Farms (Target) sesame orange dressing—we actually bought this because I'm going to make Glynne's cabbage salad thing and we didn't have any real sesame dressing on hand. I had some on regular salad last night and it was quite nice. Sometimes I find sesame stuff too bitter, but the orange sweetness offsets that nicely. We actually found the Masa's brand that Glynne recommended but I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell you if I like it better than the Target one. So I'll have to save that one for next time.

So this is a lot more new stuff than I get in a normal week. This is even slightly much for the two weeks I'm covering here. But the bigness of the list probably makes it a good kick-off for a semi-regular but much shorter feature.

Gjetost cheese

On the left is brie, on the right is gjetost cheese. I got this on cheese clearance at Smiths because I'd never tried it before. The picture doesn't really do justice to the surprising (alarming) brownness of this cheese. In its native Norway it's apparently called brunost, meaning brown cheese. It's made by boiling down milk products until they turn into what essentially is a block of caramel cheese, and that's pretty much what it tastes like. Sweetest. Cheese. Ever. I don't see it becoming my favoritest cheese ever, but it's pretty darn interesting.

My favorite cheese right now is Kerrygold aged cheddar, by the way. Best sharp cheddar I've ever had. A little expensive to cook with, but great for shredding on top of stuff or just eating on crackers. Yum.