Colby, Week 19

Happy Mother's Day!

Before I begin with this week's posting, I want to take a moment and grieve over Snofrisk.  I brought a croissant and Snofrisk in to work for breakfast, and it was just delicious.  When I returned home, I was caught up playing with my favorite dog and quickly forgot about my precious cargo.  The next day, I went to pack my breakfast again, but there was no Snofrisk in my fridge!  Where did it go?  My handbag!  You know it's been excellent week of cheese when it upsets you days later that your cheese spoiled.  Dear Snofrisk: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Today, however, another letdown.  My computer does not particularly feel like recognizing my photo card.  I have Googled my way to "reset your computer and try again," but no luck.  Perhaps my PC knows I've been looking for another...and browsing the Apple Store.  I am finally free of some stress for awhile, and it goes and stages revolt.

When my PC decides I'm worthy, I will post photos of the cheese of the week, Colby.  It was rather rainy and gloomy last week, and I just had a craving for macaroni and cheese.  Yes, there was an entry about Cheddar Mac & Cheese all the way back during Week 8, but this is different, I swear.  

I took the basic Baked Macaroni and Cheese I recipe from AllRecipes.com and traded the Chedda' for something betta'--- Colby.  I also doubled the bacon, which was seasoned with red pepper while it was frying.  There is definitely a trick to making the cheese sauce.  Between melting the butter just so and intense stirring with heat resistant spatulas for the flour and milk, it's much more of an art than it seems.  I've learned the hard way about thickening creamy sauces and soups with too much flour at a time (endless straining and Cuisinarting is just no fun).

I wish I could show you my Colby photos.  That macaroni and cheese was the best I've made in years.

Verdict: Colby just happened to be a cheesier and more delicious alternative to Cheddar than I thought possible. It was so soft and melted wonderfully. I'm rating it higher than Vermont Cheddar because of this, but lower than Irish Cheddar because it wasn't as distinctive.

End tally: Midnight Moon > Lamb Chopper > Manchego > Paneer > Comte > Irish Cheddar > Colby > Vermont Cheddar > Emmentaler > Bucheron > Delice d'Argental > Brie > Snofrisk> Oaxaca/Asadero > Red Square > Port Salut > Stilton > Pecorino Romano > Monterey Jack

Vermont Cheddar, Week 8

I'm betta', so here's my post about chedda'!

Thank you for your well wishes, I am feeling a lot better now and happy to be back to blogging.  Last week, I tried out a new shop for cheese, Roots.  I had been to Roots before, but only because I had tried out the neighboring yummy organic restaurant, Great Sage.  After the cheese blog was mentioned in another Maryland blog, HowChow (all food Howard County), I decided to give it a go for cheese.

I was craving comfort food, and nothing says comfy cheese like Mac & Cheese.  Especially when a new recipe is involved AND there are amazing root beer and sarsaparilla floats for desserts. (Especially then!)

That being said, there really wasn't that much Chedda' at Roots.  I will definitely be back for local Maryland cheese and arguably the best root beer on Earth, but I was glad to snag some Vermont Cheddar for my Mac.

Vermont Cheddar

Price: $13.98/lb

Smell: Waxy, like a red chedda' wrappa'.  (Or, nice and sharp)

Step One: Surprise! Cheddar cheese is not all orange and Kraft-like.

Step Two: Back to the shredda'!

Step Three: Badda' bing, badda' boom!  I tried using De Cello's Orecchiette (pasta by number=91), and it was delicious.  I would definitely use it again in any dish in need of sauce-grabbing noodles.

Step Four: Bake it! I used double the garlic (like any respectable member of the Cheesekate clan) and bought bread crumbs.  The idea of crumbing my perfectly good bread in my food processor seemed a little ridiculous to me.  However, The Martha's idea to use egg, rather than flour to thicken the cheese sauce was great!

Step Five: Enjoy!

Last week's blog mentioned a salad with pears.  It was so tasty- d'anjou pears, red onion, and slivered almonds covering baby spinach with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Mmmm happy dance in my stomach.

End tally: Midnight Moon > Manchego > Paneer > Comte > Vermont Cheddar > Delice d'Argental > Stilton > Pecorino Romano > Monterey Jack

The Vermont Cheddar was tasty, but it wasn't as exceptional as the Comte.  I rated it higher than last week's Delice only because the Delice tasted oddly like a strong blue cheese when I had it later in the week.

Pecorino Romano, Week 4

Hiya folks! I can't believe it's been a month of cheese already!

Follow-up question from last week: What's up with the non-melting cheese and melting spatula?  Does that defy the laws of thermodynamics, or something?

Answer: I don't know. Wikipedia doesn't know.  The first couple of google results for "Why doesn't paneer melt?" don't know.  The best guess I've got re: paneer melting is its low fat content.  It's texture is more like semi-firm tofu. The spatula melting beats me, too.  Unlike the rest of my spatulae, the blue one didn't even bend. I don't know where I got it, but it's use may be relegated to tossing salads, or something.

I had planned on a dessert cheese this week, but when I went to find Lisa's suggestion, Brebis, there was none! So, this week's cheese has special inspiration from the National Gallery of Art. I went there yesterday and caught the second-to-last day of the Pompeii and Naples exhibit!  It was so cool!  In the summer of 2004, I went to Pompeii and the same museum they borrowed much of the collection from. Photographs were not allowed in the exhibit (probably because of the frescoes?), so I've got this one taken of me posing by the fountain right before being shooed away by security (closing at 5:00 is so sad).

I read some more about the exhibit online, and it turns out the Gallery's cafe has some of its recipes inspired by the exhibit posted!  As much as I wanted to make a dessert, I figured the Tomato Tart was close enough-- it is a tart, after all. 

The last January cheese of the week:

Pecorino Romano

Price: 19.99/lb

Smell: Sharp and salty. Kind of like Parmesan, but with a salt BAM!

Step One: Prepare crust.  This used 1/4 cup of Thyme for two crusts!  Whoa! 

Step Two: Bake crust.  But don't "bake-bake" it.  I don't have pebbles or beans not for eating, so I just put a plate on each tart crust and crossed my fingers.  It worked!

Step Three: Leeks. I have a new appreciation for leeks now.  Actually, I think they won over the cheese.  I had no idea how to "half moon" the leeks.  Google to the rescue!  My taking on the half-mooning process:

Step Four: Shred it, and forget it! 

Step Five: Layer it.  Leeks-tomato-oregano-cheese.

Step Six: Take out when golden brown, and enjoy!  This was problematic for me. This thing refused to be golden or brown.  Fifteen minutes turned into much more than that, and eventually I just took it out because I was hungry.  End result? Good idea...but I think I didn't need to put as many "dashes" of salt as I did. When Pecorino Romano is matured, it is dry-salted for 6-8 weeks.  Winner: Leeks.  

End tally: Manchego>Paneer>Comte> Pecorino Romano

Next week: Super bowl cheese!! 

Shout-outs to: Annie and Pete-- Italian cheese, Italian friends!  Erica-- Love your new blog about tea! Hope the cheese readers check it out. 

Paneer, Week 3

What a week for the cheese blog! Check out the new additions on the right.  I added a world map of cheeses that highlights the regions of the world where my cheeses originate.  Also, I've begun a table to try to quantify the results of each week of cheese.  The long-awaited bracket o' cheese is in the works.

I think the main follow-up question to last week's entry-- "What is in your coffee cup?! What IS your coffee cup?? ...atigulosity??" The answer is....meticulousity. I got that mug, along with "pococurante" and "logorrhea" from Starbucks a couple of years ago as promotional swanky mugs for "Akeelah and the Bee." I never saw the movie, but I am a huge word nerd.

I also got a few cheese suggestions-- Brebis,  Sfingi (with Ricotta), Chevre, Rembrandt (kind of Gouda)-- and requests for dinner or dessert cheese.  Lastly, a request for cheese origin came in!  When I said it had been a week for the cheese blog, I was not kidding!  

This week, we ventured to India.  After being tipped a recipe for Cashew Nut Biryani from the really neat mediterrasian.com, I remembered this recipe for Absolutely Perfect Palak Paneer.  I also had been wanting to make this Moroccan Lentil Soup...and decided to make an event of it!

I present you with... 

Paneer

Price: $5.703/lb

Smell Factor: Milky and plain.  The "wonderbread" of cheese smell.

Step one: Slice cheese.  This was easy to do, and absolutely not the first step.  The cheese fresh out of the package was great!  Here's the first photo of cheese I took.

Step two: Fry cheese.  This was fun.

Step Three: Avoid melting spatula in frying cheese. I can't emphasize this enough. It is not a good idea.  I was in a bit of blue-goo-cheese-shock, so the photo is a little sketch.

Step Four: Spinach. I just wanted to point out how messy this was. I used three pounds of frozen chopped spinach...for three people!  I drained the water out with a nuke-it-and-paper-towel-it process.  

Step Five: Eat. Here's the final product-- I took more in-process photos, but there were so many, I didn't want to dull down the blog.

Enjoy!

One final note: the dessert on the table was a "special" mix we got at the really neat Indian grocery store conveniently located in an industrial parkway near the apartment.  We played dessert roulette and tried all of them.  Here's my ranking, from "eh...maybe I could eat this" to "pass the naan, I don't want to ever taste this again" to "excuse me while I go lick some concrete to see if my tongue can still taste."

"Special" is right.

I almost forgot-- new cheese ranking: Manchego>Paneer>Comte!