Cheese Choices for your Macaroni and Cheese

Cheese is my thing. I jumped into the cheese world in 2009 and haven't looked back. I've spent time sampling, selling, portioning, labeling, talking, writing and eating all types of domestic cheeses. I consider myself a domestic cheese evangelist. I work with local wine shops (as QuesoBeso) to help stock their coolers with only the very best cheeses. 

Recently a few of the ladies at Mom.me did a quick interview with me (at Camp Blogaway!) asking about my kid's favorite foods. My kids don't really have a true favorite as I rarely cook the same thing twice! But as a favorite comfort food, macaroni and cheese is always at the top of our list. 

At it's most basic, macaroni and cheese is a comfort food. In it's most creative forms it becomes a decadent indulgence worthy of a special occasion. Doing a quick google search will give you over 8 million macaroni and cheese recipes! Rather than simply point you to a few recipes, I thought I'd help you choose your cheeses which will steer you towards the perfect recipe selection for you and your family. 

All About the Cheese

The cheese is the most important choice you will make for this recipe. Do not make your decisions without careful consideraton. Balancing the cheese choices for taste and creaminess is ideal. 

Cheddared Cheese (yes, it's a verb)

I love a good cheddar cheese with a nice acidic bite. And cheddar is the classic choice for macaroni and cheese. However, the more the cheddar is aged, the less creamy and more crumbly the cheese will become. For these reasons, it is best to either pair an older cheddar with something more creamy (Havarti, Jack, Colby, Fontina, Ricotta) or use a cheddar aged less than two year (no need to seek out Hook's 5 year cheddar!).

Fondue Flavor 

Rich, creamy and winey, fondue cheeses make a delicious macaroni and cheese. Traditionally, Gruyere, Comte and Emmental are used in fondue. Add a little cherry brandy (Kirsch) and white wine to your cream sauce for a true fondue taste.  However, you need not go full-on fondue to enjoy the nutty flavor of these large Swiss cheeses.  Adding just one to your mix can give a bold punch to a basic cheddar mix.

Truffles for an Elevated Approach 

Truffled cheese adds a heady sexiness to your mac & cheese. Many recipes use truffle oil as an easy way to impart truffle flavor. Most truffle oils have an over the top manufactured truffle flavor that is quite distinctively not the seductive subtle essence of the truffle. I believe in the power of true truffles as found in truffled cheeses. 

A few examples are: Tartufello (truffled cow milk cheese by Pedrozo Dairy in California), Boschetto al Tartufo (truffled sheep milk from Italy) or Trufusion (truffled cow milk cheese from Independence Cheese in Oregon).  It's best to pair truffled cheeses with milder selections, such as Fontina, Ricotta, Colby or a mild Cheddar.  This will help let the truffle flavor come through in the final dish.

Go for the Goat

For creative flair, macaroni and cheese made with fresh goat cheese is an excellent choice. Fresh goat cheese has a creaminess similar to ricotta but will definitely have a chevre bite which needs to be embraced. By adding ingredients which pair well with goat cheese (fresh bright herbs, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers or roasted garlic cloves) you will enhance the entire dish.

Goat cheeses with more age have a more mellow and nutty flavor similar to the fondue cheeses listed above.

For those with cow milk sensitivity, an entirely goat mac & cheese could be made creating a unique twist.

Blasphemy but Reheats Beautifully

Often you will find Velveeta listed in a mac & cheese recipe. Although it's not really cheese, I do understand the motivation to add this bright yellow cheese food product to the dish.  The reason is stability. When you make a cream sauce for your mac & cheese it will bake up creamy and lovely. But when you reheat that bechemel/mornay sauce the next day, it's going to break (the oils will separate from the milk solids) and lose it's creamy texture. Velveeta acts as an emulsifier and keeps the sauce together.

If you know you'd like to reheat the leftovers, you can use the Velveeta trick OR find a recipe that adds an egg to the sauce (like this one from the Pioneer Woman). Adding an egg creates a loose custard texture to the sauce. Custards are stable; meaning, they won't break when you reheat them.

Add Some Cheesy Crunch

A crunchy cheesy and sometimes even spicy crumb topping is perfect for baked mac & cheese. Be sure to choose a salty, tangy cheese (parmesan or aged cheddar) to mix with the crumbs for your topping. You want this crust to have lots of cheesy good flavor as it hits the palate.

More Than a Side Dish

As a mom, I am quite tempted to make macaroni and cheese into a one dish meal. And really, you can put just about anything savory into your macaroni and cheese. So if you are looking for some ideas on how to create an amazingly hearty dish,  no need to look further than this fabulous chart from Food Republic which uses the shape of the pasta for inspiration.  

Using your cheese choices as your guide, you are sure to create a warm and comforting dish your family will love!

Now let's get to the kitchen and start cooking!

Fig Jam - The Delicious Glue

   Friendship is a good thing. The best of friends are those who can expose you to wondrous things you never thought possible. And when those things are related to food they can create delicious memories.

   Lars and Lena are friends of this caliber. They helped trace my Swedish heritage and exposed me to a culture which runs through my veins. In addition they opened my palate to phenomenal, culinary adventures.

   One of the most unique of these tasteful discoveries is the combination of blue cheese and ginger cookies. This is a classic Swedish pairing usually enjoyed at Christmas time when there are plenty of delicate little ginger snaps in every household.

Much has been written about this odd duo, including a discussion on Reddit about choosing the perfect blue cheese partner. 

   During their most recent visit, Lars and Lena brought a few jars of fig jam. 

   I had recently portioned out a wheel of a Echo Mountain Blue made by Rogue Creamery in Oregon. Lena put two and two together real quick and firmly requested a Ginger Snap, Blue Cheese and Fig Jam dessert.

   Years ago Lena and I made Swedish ginger cookies during the Christmas season. This was before we both had children running around our households; taking up our time. The process of making delicate Swedish ginger cookies is quite laborious. It also requires some skill to roll them out thin enough for a Swedish cook's liking, yet thick enough to pry off the cutting board and transfer to a baking sheet without them breaking. 

   This year we decided store bought was a fine idea. And so it went, Oregon Blue Cheese, a box of American Ginger Snaps and Swedish Fig Jam devoured by our two families one evening during their visit.

   A schemer of fig jam is the glue which holds the two together; bridging the flavor gap between the sweet and savory. Just as shared memories tie our two families, no matter the distance. 

QuesoBeso Cheese Tasting Events - Winter 2012

QuesoBeso - Bringing Holiday Cheer with Cheeses! 

Fondue Potatoes - easy genius!

How to make potatoes interesting.  This is constantly my dilemma as, in general, I'm not a big potato fan. I can however appreciate them as a gluten free carbohydrate that balances out the plate.  Besides, other people seem to really like them. 

I was shopping in Whole Foods and hoping to find potato inspiration with the beautiful heirloom varieties on display. In the middle of the potatoes, was a large pile of pre-wrapped chunks of Emmental cheese. If you know me, you know I went for the cheese.  If you know Emmental cheese, you know fondue was on my mind.

I was pretty sure I had a big jar of Cornichon pickles at home and my mind kept spinning with how to make it all come together.

A glass of wine and these beautiful red swirled beauties as inspiration and voila! Fondue potatoes.

Fondue Potatoes

Serves 4 as side dish

Ingredients:

10 Small potatoes, delicate small heirloom variety if possible

15 Cornichon pickles, thickly sliced

6 oz Fondue cheese (Gruyere, Emmental, Comte) grated

Juice from the cornichon

white pepper & salt

Method:

Preheat the broiler to 450F.

Steam the potatoes in a metal steamer over boiling water until just tender.  Time will vary depending on the potatoes you choose.  Use a tooth pick to test doneness starting at 7 minutes. 

Thickly slice or cut into large dice the potatoes and put into a broiler safe dish.

Lightly salt and pepper the potato slices.

Sprinkle 3 Tablespoons of the liquid from the cornichon jar onto the potato slices. Be sure to stir up the jar to capture the mustard seeds in the liquid.

Toss in the cornichon slices.

Cover with the grated cheese. 

Place the dish under the broiler for 5 minutes. Check ever minute until it reaches your desired melty, gooey, cheesy brown, goodness.

Enjoy!

Stumbling into the pairing world... wide eyed.

     I know a lot about cheese, maybe not as much as the big experts who make cheese or run big cheese shops, but I have done my research, read up and played cheese monger at a farmer's market for two years. You'd think with all my experience cutting, slicing, sampling and selling cheese I would know a bit about pairing it with wine, but nope, I had yet to dive into the pairing world, until quite recently.

     I hosted a kick-off party to celebrate QuesoBeso's new relationship with a wine store here in Manhattan Beach. I am now stocking them with American artisan made cheeses that are unavailable anywhere else in the the South Bay of Los Angeles county. Ten cheeses had been chosen as the initial selection for the store and include: 4 chevre, 3 cow, 1 sheep and two with all three milks combined.

     To get wines paired with the cheeses, I asked Joe at Manhattan Fine Wines for help. He went right to work. Some cheeses made the choice of red vs. white wine easy (the Cape Foulweather chevre was begging for a sparkling white). While others really surprised me (Pedrozo Dairy's Peppered Northern Gold with a rose?). By the end of our whirlwind of pairings, Joe had chosen 10 very different wines to go with the 10 very different cheeses.

     For me, the unreal magic of the pairing world came when we arranged the wines into tasting order and placed the cheeses with their matching wines  It wasn't at all what I expected, peppered and mineraly cheddar at the beginning with the whites, a big goat in the middle working up to the mixed milk and truffled sheep cheese? It defied my cheese logic.  But WOW! Was my cheese logic wrong! What's needed is a trust in traditional wine / food pairings, using the flavor profile of the cheese as your guide. I'm convinced that this is a great starting point which will ensure you are on the right track of a great cheese and wine pairing.

     The tasting event was a huge success, everyone was amazed at the synergistic flavor experiences of each of the pairings.  Each on it's own would make a meal more special, choose two or more pairings and they become a cheesy event on their own!

Here is a list of the pairings of wines and cheeses available at Manhattan Fine Wines in Manhattan Beach, CA. The wines are all under $15 per bottle!

Enjoy!

• River's Edge Chevre's: Cape Foulweather & Graham Beck Brut Sparkling (South Africa)
• Pedrozo Dairy, Peppered Northern Gold & Touraine 2011 Rose Val de Loire (France)
• Pedrozo Dairy, Northern Gold & E. Guigal 2009 Cotes du Rhone (France)
• Carr Valley's: Mammoth Cheddar & Pere & Files 2009 White Bourgogne (France)
• River's Edge Chevre's: True Love & La Yunta, 2011 Torrontes (Argentina)
• Carr Valley's: Gran Canaria & Jack Hammer 2011 Pinot Noir (California)
• River's Edge Chevre's: Silt Coos & Tres Picos 2009 Garnacha (Spain)
• Carr Valley's: Caso Bolo & Perrin & Fils 2009 Cotes du Rhone Village (France)
• Soledad Goats "Oh My Goat!" & Masi Capoflorin, 2008 Rosso Del Veronese
• Carr Valley's: Black Sheep Truffle & Oberon 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa)

Special Cheese Delivery!

I am so torn about our very good friends' upcoming move to Oregon. I

will miss their proximity, but I so look forward to the gourmet

adventures that await us!

On a recent visit to their new home they were kind enough to offer to

pick up some cheese to deliver back to me here in Manhattan Beach.

The Rogue River Blue was sold out, but my number two choice was

available - Caveman Blue. Creamy, meaty blue cheese with a lingering

finish.

I brought it out at the recent QuesoBeso tasting event and the 1/2

wheel sold immediately! That's good cheese!

QuesoBeso is supplying cheese!

My cheesy venture to bring artisan American cheeses to Manhattan Beach
is happening now! I'm stocking my favorite wine shop with cheese!

Now available for cheese catering, cheese parties, private cheese consulting...

Be sure to 'like' the QuesoBeso Facebook page to be invited to future
tasting events!

Enjoy!

Sharing my cheesy knowledge over at the Lybations blog - LybationNation.

Quick little post about labeling the cheeses you are sharing this holiday season: Chalk it up to Great Taste

Happy Holidays!

A cheese kiss to you! QuesoBeso

As you may know, I really like cheese.  I've always had an affinity towards savory foods more than sweets but cheese itself has always held a special place on my palate.  A few years ago I had the opportunity to sell cheese at a farmer's market.  For two years I sampled, bought, sold, cared for, cut, packaged, served, & read about CHEESE!

My newest (and cheesiest) endeavor is writing a cheese app.  Yes, a program for your mobile device. A little something you can carry with you and use daily - when you REALLY need to know more about CHEESE.

The app will be called QuesoBeso.  Bruce (my husband) came up with the name as a way to describe the database I created which describes all the cheeses I have encountered.

QuesoBeso will be a regional, local guide and the first version will be QuesoBeso, CA.  It will cover all things good and cheesy about the state of California, my home state.

The Culinary Vixen blog will continue but with a decidedly pro-dairy bent.

I'll be tweeting @CulinaryVixen as I do my cheese research around California.

QuesoBeso has a Facebook page which is here: QuesoBeso's FB Fan Page  I'll be posting lots of cheesy pictures and comments as I taste my way across California's cheesy landscape.

My first big research trip is a boondoggle to San Francisco in two weeks.  I would love suggestions from anyone who knows of a good place in San Francisco to get a good cheese fix!  Email, tweet, comment, love your cheesy ideas...

Follow @QuesoBeso

Creamy Blue Jack Cheese Singles

Vickie McCorkendale (@CulinaryVixen) 11/5/10 2:41 PM This is the strangest cheese I've seen in a long time and that is saying a LOT! http://yfrog.com/5nb1owj

Sent from my iPhone

Local Cheeses in Goteborg, Sweden

Figaro and Hooligan

Here they are, today's cheese selections...

Figaro from Andante Dairy in Petaluma, CA. This cheese comes from a
small batch artisan, Soyoung Scanlan who is famous for the care she
gives to her craft. Figaro is a very seasonal cow and goat cheese
wrapped in wine soaked fig leaves. Lovely fruit notes on a creamy
spraedable texture.

Hooligan is a cow milk cheese with a buttermilk washed rind from Cato
Corner Farms in Connecticut. Stinky on the nose, very rich creamy
center with a mild flavor.

Loved them both. Bruce says they went well together. Thank you Edythe
for sharing!

Practicing Safe Cheese

Bruce and I went to the Farmer's Market at the Americana in Glendale this morning. We spied around a bit and found the BH Cheese Store and their very clever, custom made cheese safe. Love it! Want one!

Winnimere and San Andreas

The Winninere is the runny one in the back. It is wrapped in tree bark (looks like bacon) before it is aged. The San Andreas has the delicate Bellwhether Farms drawings on the rind... Lovely.

Santa Monica Cheese Shops

Edythe and I visited Andrew's Cheese Shop as well as Goudas and Vines this morning.

We were quite impressed with Andrew and his shop on Montana in Santa Monica. He carries a wide variety of cheeses from all over the world. He labels his cheeses well and writes an interesting, informative and often witty description for each one. We sampled a goat cheese from Spain that tickled the throat. We sampled one of the best blues in the world, which is from right here in the USA.

I bought two cheeses. A wedge of a cow cheese, very creamy and stinky, a bit runny - it's from Vermont and called Winnimere from Jasper Hill Farm. The second piece is San Andreas, from Bellwhether Farms in Petaluma, CA and is made from sheep milk. It has crystals in it, a few small eyes (air bubble holes) and has a great complex rich flavor of a well made sheep cheese.

I'll post a picture of my purchases later today. When I pull the cheeses out to eat a bit of each.

The visit to Goudas and Vines wasn't as productive. I had heard from a friend that it was a cheese shop, but it is more like a wine shop, deli, specialty foods store that happens to also have a case with some good cheeses. But there was nothing to write home about and no one interested in talking to us about their cheeses, so we left.

We had time for one more stop, so we took the opportunity to visit with Lauren at Market Gourmet in Venice on Abbot Kinney. Here is an article I found with some great pics of the place:
http://www.yovenice.com/2007/09/05/market-gourmet/

Lauren's place is somewhat similar to both Andrew's and Goudas and Vines, not sure they carry wine though. Market Gourmet carries a wide variety of cheeses and she was very informative and helpful answering our numerous questions and even giving us some contact information for obtaining some great American Artisan Cheeses.

We're working on finding smaller burrata which keep for over a week and they need to be packaged individually... not that we're demanding or anything...

Pic of the cheese

We introduced the Angelo and Franco Mozzarella and Ricotta this weekend. It sold out. We're so happy our customers can appreciate the fine craft of making fresh Italian cheese.

Angelo and Franco Mozzarella

We are expanding the cheese selection at The Heritage Kitchen booth. We are trying a new Italian cheese maker for our ricotta, mozzarella and a burrata type mozzarella ball filled with ricotta.
I'm off to visit the Angelo and Franco cheese company in Hawthorne. I hope to post pictures later.

Wrapping Cheese

Recently we've had a great need for good cheese storage. We're selling cheese. We're sampling cheese. We're eating cheese. We need to keep our cheese fresh.
I have been using waxed paper for storing my cheeses. I like the natural brown waxed paper bags available at Whole Foods. They are inexpensive and seem to work as an efficient smell barrier while allowing the cheese to breath. If the wax paper gets a little soggy, I simply replace it, every few days.
We've discovered a product designed just for this task, cheese wrapping paper. We're very curious as to it's superiority as a cheese storage medium.
Formaticum Cheese Paper is quite expensive but the website indicates that funds go to helping the dairy farmers, which I like.

I'm also interested in glassine bags. They are traditionally used to store baked goods and candies and are similar to waxed paper. I'm wondering, are they better than waxed paper?

Is Formaticum Cheese Paper worth the expense?

Cheesy Broads need to know!

River's Edge Goat Selection

It's all about the cheese!

Cheese Report - Robert Downey Jr.

I worked at the market today. I've been working at the Pacific Palisades Farmer's Market at the Heritage Kitchen booth since January. I work with Edythe Preet selling vintage linens, homemade jams, jellies, pickles, chow-chows and chutneys, fresh baked goods, and CHEESE! I love cheese. I really enjoy spending each Sunday morning displaying, sampling and selling fine artisan made cheeses. What's not to like?
Today I looked up to hand out a sample I had just sliced from the Carr Valley Mobay. It's a sheep and goat cheese with a fine layer of grape vine ash in between the two which creates a beutifully layered wedge when cut. The goat cheese is a pure beautiful white and the sheep half is a buttery yellow. As you can see, I like CHEESE! But I digress. I was sampling the Mobay and as I reached out with the little bit of cheese on a waxed paper square I looked into the eyes of Robert Downey Jr. I stayed calm and sliced more samples and kept handing them out. He asked us which three cheeses we would pick and we steered him to our favorites: Three Sister's Serena and Carr Valley's Snow White Goat Cheddar (which won Best in Show at the 2008 American Cheese Society's annual competition) and Black Truffled Sheep. He sought out our Honeyed Goat Cheese with Blueberries and also picked up some fresh Dinosaur Plum Preserves. He wanted to know what made the Plums Dinosaurs. Edythe, a food historian, explained that Dinosaur Plums are a spotted heirloom variety. He paid for his products and was off. He seemed nice enough. He certainly knew what he wanted... CHEESE!