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Cheeseaholic

My name is the Happy Foodie, and I am a cheeseaholic. I have way too much cheese on hand for any normal human being who's not running a restaurant, sometimes ten or fifteen pounds. Can't help it. I love the stuff. It's my favorite substance to cook with or snack on, and it comes in so deadly many wonderful varieties.

At the moment, my fridge is stocked with multiple cheddars, monterey & jalapeno jack, parmesan, ricotta, mozzarella, blue marbled cheddar, apple smoked gruyere, asiago, smoked chili cheddar, paneer, goat cheese log with rum and raisins, and haloumi-type, among others.

A good grilled cheese sandwich is a reliably lovely thing, whether traditional, or with a slice of genoa or hard salami or some crisp bacon in the middle, or (my personal offbeat variation) raisin bread with provolone. To save calories, though, I've discovered that simply carefully covering a slice of good bread with sliced or grated cheese and baking it in the toaster oven till lightly browned gives very acceptable results without use of butter. A nice accompaniment to soup.

Fryable cheeses are a particular favorite lately. Almost any hard cheese can be grated or sliced and placed in a nonstick pan for a direct hit of browned cheesy goodness, but ones that are designed to keep their shape, like Yanny Grilling Cheese (with or without jalapenos) and Carr Valley Bread Cheese are incredibly simple to prepare, and bypass the usual carb middleman.

Sonoma Creamery has a line of snacks called Mr Cheese O's, crunchy real cheese snacks made from cheddar or parmesan, plain, Zesty BBQ, French Onion, Tuscan, or Sweet Chili. And the new Parmesan Crisps, which are square crackers made entirely from fried Parmesan. They're a far cry from Cheetos, that I can tell you.

Lotito Foods has developed Folios, flexible round sheets of lightly baked parmesan, Jarlsberg, or cheddar, that can be shaped into rolls or bowls and filled to your liking.

And, of course, there are tons of great packaged prepared appetizers and entrees incorporating generous amounts of the stuff, of which my recent Fancy Food Show favorite is probably the Arteos Authentic Greek Bakery Filo Spinach Twist Pie and its smaller cousins, cheese or spinach & cheese mini filo pies. Sadly, these don't seem to have a distributor in the US yet, but I hope they soon will.

I feel sorry for vegans, I really do.

Some longtime favorites:

Grafton Village Cheese for their maple smoked cheddar and smoked chili cheddar.

Cypress Grove for magnificent goat cheeses, including the Humboldt Fog, Purple Haze with lavender and fennel, and the perennially phenomenal Truffle Tremor.

Sartori Cheese for their Balsamic BellaVitano hard cheese, and really every other variety too, right down to the Chai-flavored one. No kidding.

Sincerely, Brigitte for blue marbled cheddar, white cheddar w/chipotle, and even an unusual monterey jack with tarragon ginger.

Cheeseland Inc for Ewephoria (sweet, nutty 1-year-aged sheep-milk cheese), Fourmage (made with a combination of buffalo, sheep, cow, & goat milks!), Two Sisters Rosalina super-aged gouda, and Truffe Noire.

Emmi Roth for Grand Cru Surchoix, Grand Cru Reserve, and Kaltbach Goat Gouda, made in WIsconsin. Their sriracha gouda & 3 chile pepper goudas are good too, but this is one company that excels with the simple and straightforward hard cheeses rather than the flavored and spicy ones.

And, of course, the best cheeses readily obtainable at supermarkets: Cabot , which is spectacular across the board, including plain and chipotle and horseradish variations. Even the 50% less fat cheddars taste like the real deal. Love their smoky bacon cheddar. Yum!