Say CHEESE!

[jswordy]

What cheeses are you nibbling on with your wines? For my everyday cheese fix, I really like this Boars's Head Smoked Gouda. Hope to post some more of my cheese finds as they come up. I have had some really good ones from Whole Foods and The Fresh Market. What's your favorite?

 

[Rocky]

My "go to" cheese with red wine is Gruyere. It is a Swiss cheese with an attitude that works well with reds.

 

[Boatboy24]

I love a good Manchego (well almost any Manchego, really). Also very fond of simple block of parmesan, pecorino or asiago.

This stuff is deadly addictive:

 

[Cynewulf]

These cheeses from Meadow Creek, one of our Virginia dairies, are some of the best I’ve had in the US. The Grayson is a wonderful soft cheese, a little like a good Camembert and the Mountaineer is a beautiful alpine style hard cheese like a Beaufort. I happened upon them at a Wegman’s near Charlottesville and was super happy to find them closer to home as well.

 

[ibglowin]

For me its a good Brie. You have just enough nutty flavor to let you know it's cheese but not enough to compete/overwhelm the wine plus all that milk fat that helps to take the edge off the tannin bite..........

 

[heatherd]

I like to make my own caprese with homegrown tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella.

Additionally had a lovely smoked cheddar with ritz crackers in a winery in Charlottesville VA.

 

[Sailor323]

Supper at our house usually consists of a variety of cheeses, sausage and olives. The cheese selection usually has a white mold cheese such as Camembert or St André, a Roquefort, aged Manchego (one of my faves), a smelly cheese such as French Meunster (Willoughby is an excellent American red rind cheese), Mimolette, a good aged (7yrs or more) NY cheddar if we can get it . I'm especially fond of Humboldt Fog. We have to order cheese on line since there are no good cheese mongers near us. We order from iGourmet and Murrays

 

[BernardSmith]

Great question. I like to make my own cheese and there is something quite magical about drinking a glass of your own wine with a slice of your own cheese with perhaps a slice of your own bread.

 

[Cynewulf]

Great question. I like to make my own cheese and there is something quite magical about drinking a glass of your own wine with a slice of your own cheese with perhaps a slice of your own bread.

I received a cheese press for Christmas last year but haven’t started yet. Are there resources/books you can recommend?

 

[BernardSmith]

I have three books (authors) I like - in no particular order
Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making
David Asher The Art of Natural Cheese Making
Gianaclis Caldwell Mastering Basic Cheese Making

Carroll is a very good basic first book about cheese making. Her approach is simple and down to earth. she focuses on recipes and holds your hand as you make the cheese
Asher is a professional cheese maker but his approach is to explain the principles and he basically uses kefir as his cultures for the cheeses he makes (I follow his approach). He is the Sandor Katz of cheese making.
Caldwell teaches cheese making and her approach is more science focused and deals more (I would argue) with understanding and controlling the processes. With her approach you develop your skills and so recipes begin to make far more sense

 

[BernardSmith]

I received a cheese press for Christmas last year but haven’t started yet. Are there resources/books you can recommend?

Hard cheese needs to be pressed but soft (unaged) cheese doesn't. You simply drain the whey. And even if recipes suggest that you use say 2 -4 gallons of milk you can make good cheese using a) supermarket milk (the fresher the better but that milk cannot be ultra pasteurized (that damages the protein molecules) and if you use regularly pasteurized milk you should add Ca Cl (calcium Chloride (food grade) to repair the damage AND you can make hard cheese with a gallon of milk. A gallon will give you about a hefty pound of cheese and about 7 pints of whey.
You may know this already, but hard cheese can take about 4 or 5 hours (sometimes more (overnight) so it is a lot like brewing beer in terms of the amount of time you need to be around BUT you may need to pay attention every ten minutes for two minutes or every 30 minutes for a minute so you can multi-task without too much difficulty. You just need thermometers with timers with alarms.

 

[JoP]

I love a good Manchego (well almost any Manchego, really). Also very fond of simple block of parmesan, pecorino or asiago.

This stuff is deadly addictive:
View attachment 78313

I like to nibble on Manchego from Costco, real Spanish product, perfect for red wine

 

[winemaker81]

 

[jswordy]

Figuring everything is better with bacon, my wife bought me two wedges of this. But after a taste test, well no, everything is not better with bacon IMO, and now I have to figure out what to do with them. I'll use them up somehow.

 

[Cynewulf]

Hard cheese needs to be pressed but soft (unaged) cheese doesn't. You simply drain the whey. And even if recipes suggest that you use say 2 -4 gallons of milk you can make good cheese using a) supermarket milk (the fresher the better but that milk cannot be ultra pasteurized (that damages the protein molecules) and if you use regularly pasteurized milk you should add Ca Cl (calcium Chloride (food grade) to repair the damage AND you can make hard cheese with a gallon of milk. A gallon will give you about a hefty pound of cheese and about 7 pints of whey.
You may know this already, but hard cheese can take about 4 or 5 hours (sometimes more (overnight) so it is a lot like brewing beer in terms of the amount of time you need to be around BUT you may need to pay attention every ten minutes for two minutes or every 30 minutes for a minute so you can multi-task without too much difficulty. You just need thermometers with timers with alarms.

Very cool. I’d love to see a thread of you documenting your process.

 

[cmason1957]

Figuring everything is better with bacon, my wife bought me two wedges of this. But after a taste test, well no, everything is not better with bacon IMO, and now I have to figure out what to do with them. I'll use them up somehow.

View attachment 78574

Mixed with other cheese into a question? Maybe melted and mixed with some other cheeses for eggs?

 

[ibglowin]

Figuring everything is better with bacon, my wife bought me two wedges of this. But after a taste test, well no, everything is not better with bacon IMO, and now I have to figure out what to do with them. I'll use them up somehow.

View attachment 78574

My “City Grits” calls for smoked Gouda and bacon mixed in and it is to die for good!

 

[Boatboy24]

Figuring everything is better with bacon, my wife bought me two wedges of this. But after a taste test, well no, everything is not better with bacon IMO, and now I have to figure out what to do with them. I'll use them up somehow.

View attachment 78574

Grilled cheese sammy? Mac-n-cheese?

 

[jswordy]

Grilled cheese sammy? Mac-n-cheese?

Might work for the sammich. Thanks. It is not a wine and cheese candidate, IMO. Just doesn't work.

 

[BernardSmith]

Very cool. I’d love to see a thread of you documenting your process.

Cheese making is a lot like brewing beer. It can take about 5 hours at a stretch to make some hard cheeses that then need to be aged and can take that amount of time AND overnight to make other varieties and for hard kefir cheeses it can take three or four days of pressing before you can air dry the cheese.. Better than anyone "demonstrating" such protocols you might look for trade published books on cheese making. Those books have gone through editorial offices, fact checking AND many , many, trials of making those cheeses so that what you read you can rely on as being "authoritative". The authors I cited above are among the best in the USA. But like wine making, and cooking, the secret is always in finding and using the very best ingredients. Processes (for the most part) are forgiving, though one or two ARE very critical (eg when to cut the curds in order to obtain what is called "a clean break" , and how large curds should be to ensure that the appropriate amount of liquid (whey) is held by the curds for the kind of cheese you are making. For some cheeses the paste needs to be more moist and for others, that paste needs to be much less moist. Think the difference between say, Gouda and Parmesan).