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Trio of goat cheeses by ecological goat farmer "De Levende Aarde"

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Red wine and gourmet cheese

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[becheese]

Hi dude! How the hell are my teeth gonna react to the canadian one if your knife looks like that?! Cheers, Y

Oh it just melts in your mouth, no teeth required! They are safe. Its recommended for sure. Thanks for the reply, you a cheese fan too?

[becheese]

2. Sylvan star 'Grizzly' cheese

I find myself in Canada right now.

Canada is not exactly known for his cheeses. Coming from Belgium, close to France and Switzerland, we have few reasons for grasping across the ocean for cheese. In fact I don't think I've ever had any in ole Belgium. Therefore I'm superexcited when I come across true Canadian cheeses. A chance to truely try something new.

I stumbled across my first artisanal cheese farm on a farmers market in Edmonton, where I'm staying for a few months. At first I wasn't really impressed with his different kinds of pre wrapped gouda's and cheddars, nothing new I thought. But the owner saw our interest and lured us in for a taste of his award winning Grizzly cheese. Man oh man what a ride. He had me sold at the first bite, the friendly and witty manner the man talked about his products was just a little extra.

Lets talk about this 'Grizzly'. An extra aged gouda, riped for 14 months, ending up in a cheese that is hard, legitly hard. In fact see what happened when I tried to cut my bought hunk of Grizzly (with a steak knife).

Wow! Cheese 1 - Knife 0!

Not an easy girl this grizzly. But as soon as it hits your mouth the rough animal becomes a silky sweet angel. Try imagining a hard lump of gold that just melts away in your mouth, with a creamy nutty flavour. Honestly this reminded me alot of a salty dark chocolate, the same hard texture with an intense rich flavour. It even had some crystals in there for a bit of a crunch while you're enjoying. Oh I could just eat this baby everyday! Big kudos to Sylvan Star Cheese out Red Deer, Alberta, for creating this award winning masterpiece!

[becheese]

1. Belgian beauties

Belgian cheeses keep on surprising you. Belgische kazen blijven verbazen. 

Thats the slogan used in Belgium to promote the classic Belgian cheeses. And it's a quite clever line really. See most of the cheeses date back to a simpler time, centuries ago, when they were still made by monks in abbeys. Those same cheeses have been around for ages and for them to promise surprise is a big feat.

Truth is that Belgian cheese didn't even need this 'extremely clever' marketing. The monks have perfected their techniques and passed them down for centuries. After all these years, most cheeses are still made the way the monks did it, sometimes even in the very same ancient abbey as them.

Today I wanted to share with you two gems of Belgian cheeses. The makers of these beauties are not the well known big abbeys such as Affligem, Grimbergen or Passchendaele. Rather, they are people inspired by the monks of old, with a passion for cheese traditionally made with pure products. People who made their own little cheese factory with their family to have a shot at making gold. Round, delicious cheesy gold.

I picked these baby's up in my favorite cheese store, Elsen in Leuven. Who am I kidding, it's everyones favorite cheese store, and probably one of the best in Belgium. As I will definitely talk lots more about it, so I wont bug you with it now. Too much blabla allready, onwards, TO THE CHEESES!

Pas de rouge - Cheesefarm Het Hinkelspel, Gent.

Het Hinkelspel is a cheesefactory originated in 1981 in the very west of Belgian, near the sea. A quick gander at their website tells me their pillars are flavor above anything, health and integrity with environmental considerations. Sounds good.

Honestly I did not know them yet but what an introduction they gave me with this wopper of a cheese. Pas de rouge is a typical abbey cheese, made with the traditional method.

Its from the family of the redbacteria cheeses. They gave it that (untasty) name since a bacteria from the coryne group helps aging the cheese. This bacteria needs a lot of moisture to survive, which is why these cheeses have to be washed during riping. 

The result is a strong flavoured full bodied cheese with a surprisingly soft texture. The crust makes it seem aged but its taste is actually quite young. It's creamy and has fruit aromas, but still packs a little punch. I enjoyed this guy so much me and my friend destroyed a huge chunk in 1 meal. I usually try to spread the enjoyment over multiple days, mission failed.

I really loved this cheese, and with absolutely no point of reference I'm gonna rate this guy a 9/10. Is that good? Who knows maybe I'm just generous for the first point ever. Or maybe I should give em 4.5 stars? Or an A-? Im not yet decided, either way, it's a damn good cheese.

Li P'tit Rosse - Bioferme, Werbomont. 

As the name suggests, Bioferme is a company that takes pride in producing the finest biological dairy products. Located in the french speaking south of Belgium, it collects fresh milk from the local farmers who graze their cows on the green slopes of the Ardennes. 

Through strict controlling of quality and purity of their products, combined with traditional knowledge, Bioferme has won many awards for its fine cheese. This is no different for the little cube of heaven called Li P'tit Rosse, who won the 'coq de crystal' of Libramont in 2001 (thats a crystal rooster FYI).

I can see why someone would give something crystal for this.

When you unwrap the little packet the cheese resides in, immediately a strong aroma rushes towards you and takes hold of you. Its like standing in an old musky abbey basement on worn out leather sandals. The sticky orange crust completely surrounds the creamy golden treasure inside. And when you do cut off the corner and creamy white cheese is slowly oozing out, well, the world just seems a little bit nicer all of a sudden.

The taste of the the cheese is as strong as the smell is, and is not meant for little girls who like roses and perfumes. If you ever need a smelly cheese, this is a good one. I however, love smelly cheese and feasted upon it with great joy and vigor. 

The tangy crust is quite sticky and has a really strong flavour compared to the soft creamyness of the inside. For me this was kind of a tough decision to eat or leave the crust since they both made for different sensation. Either it was super silky soft and creamy, or rich full of texture and flavour. And the choice is up to the eater. (Ofcourse if you're economic like me, you eat that crust and you darn well love it!)

Eat these belgian beauties with a crispy baguette, and a good friend. Many thanks to Flor for company, opinions and good advice on cheese photography angles. 

[becheese]

Lazy Sunday Chicken Pasta with Blue Cheese

The smell in here is unreal.

I sit here writing while a fresh free range chicken is simmering in a bath of herbs. I'm gearing up for my first real blog post ever. Ive been thinking about how I should start, and what would be the 'perfect' starting entry. Not finding what I wanted I kept putting it off. Either I had the cheese, but not the courage to write, and when I wanted to write, I found I ate all my cheese (again).

I'm done with waiting, I figure any start is a good start for a newb like me. Discipline and perfection are for later, I need to get goin! 

The cheese

So what has a chicken to do with all of this you're wondering. Well hes going to be the star of the show tonight. And he will be accompied by the very first cheese in this blogpost: (drumroll) Blue d'Auvergne

This beauty of a cheese has its origins on the slopes of old vulcanic mountains in Puy-de-dôme and Cantal, in the center of France. The soil is rich with minerals and cows benefit from the ever present green grass, producing the excellent milk needed for this cheese.

We can clearly see this is a mouldy cheese, more specifically a blue moulded cheese. It's a relatively recently developped cheese, originating in 1850. Stories say a man left his old bread next to his cheese and noticed the mould created a very soft and creamy cheese. A few experiments (read: a lot) later the man perfected the process and mouldy cheese sprouted along through the region.

But enough history, lets talk food! And this baby is an real treat for foodies. Its wild and stong flavours make it a perfect counterbalance for salads combined with sweet fruit. Just served as a dessert accompied with a sweet Riesling or some port, or with a stong robust red wine. Today however we'll be using it hot in a pasta dish.

The recipe

Tonight i'm preparing myself some pasta. As i'm on student budget I usually go for minced meat or bacon bits for meat, but today I found out buying a whole chicken is pretty cheap too (€3.50 for a 1 kg chicken). So today it's Lazy Sunday Chicken Pasta with Blue Cheese. What a mouthful.. And why lazy sunday? Because its cooking with stuff I still had and needed to eat before they went bad, and because its almost no work.

You need: 

- 1 Chicken  - Mushrooms - Pasta (I took tagliatelli, its what I had) - Cup of cream (had 2 open packages left) - A bell pepper (or another veggie, spinach would work nice too. I just had a bell pepper lying in the fridge) - Herbs (go crazy with this one: Thyme, bayleaves, salt & pepper, curry, nutmeg, paprike, or whatever the bleep you want. Just go crazy!) - Garlic  - Some sort of stock - Can of concentrated tomatosauce (those little small ones)

First you start of dumping that chicken in some stock with all your herbs and garlic. Make sure the water smells like something you would allready happily gulp down. Then let that baby simmer for two hours. If you're anything like me go write a blog in the meantime and enjoy the scent taking over your house.

After that pop the chicken out, or try, since it will likely fall apart allready. Keep the stock, theres way too much flavour in it to go to waste now. Put it aside so you can skim off the fat after it cools. (This is optional offcourse, if you like fat, don't do this step.) 

Meanwhile comes the most fun job you can have cooking, and one of my most favorite things in the world: picking warm juicy meat off of a chicken. I encourage you to do this by hand, and to snack on little bits and pieces as much as you can. Try to leave some chicken for the actual dish.

Then we can finish this up real quick. Were gonna use that stock completely in our dish, which means cooking our pasta in it, and not draining the pasta. I know, it's crazy, but trust me. It works if you give your pasta a good rinse before boiling it. So get that stock boiling again and then chuck in your veggies and pasta. I noticed that with tagliatelli it was pretty easy to stir them through a low amount of stock, letting them absorb the flavours evenly.

When the pasta is cooked, just pour in the tomatoconcentrate and cream, and take it off the fire. Now stir in some of that brilliant blue cheese Bleu d'Auvergne and the whole should thicken to an extremely smooth, rich creamy pink sauce. Stir the bits of chicken in, or keep em on the side and enjoy.

This was actually the first time I made this dish, or even made pasta without draining the water, but I have to say, I am really pleased. The pasta came out so perfect, full of flavour and silky soft texture that melted on your tongue. The chunks of bleu d'auvergne create veins of creamy smoky flavour, giving an extra dimension to the chicken and mushrooms. This is a success, and I'm stoked I have leftovers for tomorrow. And since I chucked everything in one bowl, I've got almost no dishes, and no flavours were lost during cooking. I highly recommend this way of cooking for a lazy sunday.

So this was it, my first real entry. I'm counting on everybody to be as critical as possible when replying. Don't be afraid to tell me that 'it sucks' or 'this shit is way too long'. Only honesty can help me get better.

[becheese]

Hi everybody,

And a hoppin welcome to Be Cheese, the site for all the cheese lovers. I plan to submit and review a cheese every week, with theme from month to month, along with special cheese - challenges. More information will definitely follow!

BeCheese - Live on the cheese side of life!