Cheap Ass Cheese Tuesday, January 12th, 2016

Due to some rather large, unexpected bills this week, Stinky Cheese Tuesday had to be done on the cheap.  I was playing with the idea of doing Velveeta and Kraft American Singles, but found some good deals on a couple of awesome cheeses and one crappy cheese.

Starting with the weakest of the bunch, we have Henning’s Cranberry Cinnamon Cheddar.  It does not follow through on its promise of cranberry, or cinnamon, or cheddar, even.  It is by far, one of the blandest cheeses that I’ve ever tried.  I’ve reviewed several other Henning’s cheeses in the past, and they have all really lacked in the cheese department.  Some of them have excelled in the supplementary flavors, but their base cheese is just kind of "meh".  This cheese continues their tradition of mediocrity.  But, it was a rather large slab for about $4.50, so it had that going for it.

Next up is BelGioioso Sharp Provolone.  This is one of the best provolones I’ve ever had, and since it is from a rather large creamery in Wisconsin, I found it for $4 per slab.  When it says that it’s sharp, it really means it.  It will cut you if you’re not careful.  It also has just the right amount of moisture to give it a slightly crumbly, slightly grainy texture.  This is a great cheese!

Lastly, we have today’s favorite, Jarlsberg!  This is an absolutely wonderful cheese that we’ve had several times before, but nobody seems to mind the repeat appearances.  It is similar to a Swiss Emmental, but more intense in flavor with a buttery texture.  This cheese makes me drool just thinking about it, and the fact that I found it on sale makes it even better.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week, and stay cheesy!

@Cheese Forum+

Beecher Cheese Tuesday, January 5th, 2015

Seeing as how it is the first Stinky Cheese Tuesday of the year, I tried to kick things off in style.  Unfortunately, it was busy enough that I really only have time to list the cheeses that were consumed.  Three of the four are from my favorite, Beecher’s Cheeses.  Their Flagship, Marco Polo, and No Woman cheeses were all up for the taking and if you’ve read any of my previous reviews you know that I am prone to waxing poetic about all three of them.  Lastly, we had a lovely Skellig from Kerrygold.  All in all, an excellent way to start the year!

New Server!

The Zot enabled SCT forum was moved to a new server running Hubzilla and hosted by Contabo back in October. I finally got around to moving the WordPress blogs over to the SparkleChicken server, and thanks to Let’s Encrypt, all of them are now covered by a wonderful (and free!) SSL certificate. Now stinkycheesetuesday.com, zarathustraphoto.com, and Kristi’s soon to be populated taxicats.com are all hosted on much better hardware than the Raspberry Pi in my living room. A special shout out to SpiderOak for hosting the off-site backups!

Hopefully 2016 will bring more time to write up the wonderful cheeses that we sample each week. Happy New Year, everybody!

Fungal Cheese Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

Hey everybody!  I decided to bring a bunch of blue cheeses today, making for a very special, Fungal Cheese Tuesday.

First off, we’ll start with the one non-blue cheese that I brought in, Kerrygold’s Red Leicester.  I’ve tried other Red Leicesters and been a bit on the unimpressed side.  It is like a super mild cheddar, and I figured that if Kerrygold makes it, then it must be "best of breed".  Sure enough, Kerrygold’s is like a super mild cheddar, too.  So there you have it.  Kind of boring as far as cheeses go.

Next we have Castello’s Sage, a Blue Brie.  This cheese is so creamy that it hurts, with just a hint of earthy blueness.  It is a remarkable flavor combination that got a ton of compliments.

The other Castello cheese for the day, Castello’s Traditional Danish Blue is intensely strong.  It will punch you right in the taste buds and you will like it!  It is absolutely amazing, and my favorite by far.

Lastly I brought Clawson’s Blue Stilton.  The funk is strong with this cheese.  The aftertaste was a bit off putting for a lot of people, but I really love this cheese as well.  @Satipera should try this one on his porridge sometime!

Stay Cheesy!

Stinky Cheese Tuesday, March 24th, 2015

Howdy, folks!  Another week with no pictures, so you’ll have to use your imagination.  I do it all the time!  Like the time I tore Saturn apart with just the power of my mind and then put it back together again so that no one would know.  Or when I started a successful stint as a skull farmer and cornered the market in shrunken heads.  On to the cheese…

This was more of a "Simple Cheese Tuesday" than a Stinky one.  We started off with Red Apple Cheese’s Kosher Extra Sharp Cheddar.  I must admit to bing a bit confuzzled about what the difference between kosher and non-kosher cheese could possibly be, but the good people at Kosher Quest were able to fill me in.  Basically, the rennet used must either be vegetable based or from a kosher animal ritually slaughtered under rabbinical supervision, and it has to be made under rabbinical supervision as well.  Apparently there is an ancient injunction about eating cheeses made by gentiles.  As far as this particular cheese is concerned, it is a fairly mild cheddar in flavor, but does have a bit of a bite at the end.  Definitely worth it, especially since I learned something interesting in the process!

Next is BelGioioso Asiago.  If you need a basic, nothing fancy, but still solidly good asiago, this is the one to get.  A great hard, salty cheese with just the right amount of saltiness to give it a wonderful aftertaste.  A good cheese, and today’s favorite by a large margin.

Lastly is Great Midwest Habanero Jack  This one has been here before, and just last month at that.  Shame on me!  Anyway, with as tasty as this cheese is, I hope that I can be forgiven for bringing it in after a mere six week hiatus.  Just a touch of heat unless you get a seed.  In which case, keep the milk handy!

Stay Cheesy!

Stinky Cheese Tuesday, March 17th, 2015

Yes, I’m a lazy little man, not putting up any pictures again.  And terse descriptions, too?  I know that y’all are going to be writing me off soon.

On to the cheese!

Today we had Ski Queen Gjetost again.  I brought it in last June and made a lot of friends with it so I decided that it was a good time to re-introduce it to my coworkers.  Gjetost is made from the whey instead of the curds, and boiled to caramelize the lactose giving it a sweet flavor and a brownish color.  It is delightful!

I also brought in Kerrygold Skellig for St. Patrick’s Day.  Well, I didn’t really need an excuse to bring in something from Kerrygold, but there you have it.  Their Skellig cheese is a slightly sweet Cheddar that just sings to your taste buds.  Even with the popularity of the Gjetost, Skellig ended up getting the most compliments by far.  Props to Pastor Barb for finding this one on a cruise and bringing back the recommendation!

Lastly I brought in Tillamook Sharp Cheddar out of Wisconsin.  As far as cheddars go, this one is fairly good.  No surprises, just good, solid cheddar with a bit of sharpness to it.

Stay Cheesy!

Stnky Cheese Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

Hello everybody!  No picture again this week, and fairly terse descriptions to boot, since this week has been a blur…and it’s only Tuesday.

First off, we have the ever popular Applewood Smoked Gruyère from Red Apple Cheeses  This is a favorite around here and is actually the reason that I started bringing in cheese every Tuesday.  The smokiness is not overpowering, and the taste of the cheese is divine.  Beautiful as always.

Next we have Kerrygold’s Dubliner, another standard that everyone enjoys here.  Like a slightly sweet, aged cheddar, Dubliner is a great cheese for snacking on, and I’m sure that it would absolutely liven up a burger or mac & cheese.  I need more data on that, however.  To the lab!

Lastly is BelGioioso’s Crumbly Gorgonzola.  This one was raved over by the folks that don’t really like blue cheeses.  It is incredibly creamy, but the pungent bite of a typical Gorgonzola was replaced by a mild "meh".  If it had not been called Goggonzola then I may have not been so disappointed by it.  It is a very nice tasting cheese, but Gorgonzola it is not.

Stay Cheesy!

@Cheese Forum+

Previously Mentioned Big News

Image/photo

I had mentioned Big News in Tuesday’s SCT post, and I think that I am ready for the announcement.  This doodad up top is the controller that I’ve just finished for my Cheese Aging/Ripening Chamber of Doom.  That’s right, I am going to start making my own cheeses in addition to just bringing the cheeses of others in.

The details of the cheese making will be posted here, but if you want details about the making of the controller and the chamber itself you can check out Jake’s SBC Channel on Red Matrix.  All of the components of the controller board are open hardware, meaning that the schematics are freely available, and the software is completely open source.  The controller will work with any refrigerator or freezer of any size so if you have an interest in making one of your own, all of the instructions will be here.  Possibly elsewhere as well, depending on if anyone else wants to host them.

With any luck, mid-April I’ll have a home made Camembert to bring in for everyone to try out!

Stay Cheesy!

@Cheese Forum+

Stinky Cheese Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015

Sorry for the lack of pictures again, but today was just plain stupid.  On the bright side, Pastor Barb brought in the cheese for the day and it was 2/3s wonderful!

We’ll start off with the blandest, weakest, least memorable cheese I’ve ever encountered, Bond-Ost.  This is a brined or pickled cheese that is aged for about 6 weeks, and it is about the blah-est thing ever.  It has a texture akin to Velveeta and a flavor that is like Velveeta turned down to a whisper.  Not my favorite.

The next two cheeses were phenomenal, however!

Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda is an exquisite aged cheese.  Salty, crunchy, and nutty, it is gouda at its finest made better with the addition of time.  A damn fine cheese, and one that got a lot of compliments.

My favorite of the day was Blaser’s Antonella Garden Vegetable and Sweet Basil.  I would have devoured the whole brick if there hadn’t been other people present.  The base cheese is a simple one in flavor and probably would not have stood out on its own.  The addition of the tomatoes, chives, and onions and the crusting with fresh basil just sends it into the realm of greatness.  The herbaceous flavors just meld so perfectly that it reminded me of a wonderful spaghetti sauce with parmesan cheese on top.  It was absolutely wonderful.

I’m going to have some pretty big news in the next few days, so keep an eye out for it.

Stay Cheesy!

@Cheese Forum+

Sharing Space With The Tacos