If I've got cheese....I can make a meal!

I love cooking and giving dinner parties but as a vegetarian, I rarely cook meat dishes…but have done so, by following a recipe (good ‘ol Jamie!).  Buying ingredients for a dinner party can be expensive, especially when buying meat.  I love to improvise so I often ‘make do’ with the ingredients I have in the fridge and if I have a bit of cheese….I can make a meal. Cheese to a vegetarian, like me, is everything - it gives nutrition, flavour and body, if making a sauce.  I love a simple dish like Broccoli cheese bake. 

Broccoli, Cheese (strong flavoured cheeses are best….a mixture of Gorgonzola, Stilton & Extra Mature Cheddar) cheese sauce, (cornflour, cheese, salt and pepper).   If you have leftover vegetables like carrots, green beans, courgettes, onions, fennel or potato’s…. all the better to add to the flavour. Place all cooked vegetables in a dish, poor on cheese sauce and grated cheese on the top.  Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes until cheese is brown.   

You can add cheese to an omelette or a salad or make cheese scones…..none of these foods are expensive to make. If someone pops in for a drink and you want a little snack - Gouda canapes adding cucumber, capers or cocktail onions are a terrific snack that will fill you up especially with wine. 

Cheese is a food derived from milk that is produced in a wide range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein. It takes proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep. During production, the milk is usually acidified, and adding the enzyme rennet causes coagulation - the solids are separated and pressed into final form. Most cheeses melt at cooking temperature and come from various countries. Textures and flavours (like herbs, spices, wood smoke) depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether they have been pasteurized and the butterfat content, bacteria, mold, processing, and aging. The yellow to red color of many cheeses (Red Leicester) is produced by adding annatto (you can also add black peppers, garlic, chives or cranberries).Cheese is valued for its portability, long life, and high content of fat, protein, calcium, and phosphorus. Cheese is more compact and has a longer shelf life than milk, hard cheeses last longer than soft cheeses, such as Brie or goat's cheese. 

 
Cheese is important in my diet as it is to the French and Italians but to a Frenchman, in particular, it is everything! France would merely be just another country without Cheese (so the French say).  It produces over 400 varieties of cheese made from cow, goat and sheep and is produced in rural areas,  as the French are mainly agricultural people and tend to feel attached to each region’s special cheese.  French meals include a cheese course served after the Entrée and before desert! The French consider that Cheese is part of their national and regional identity and that Cheese traditions are as important to the culture as wine.  The delicate matching of cheeses with wines is a ritual in itself.  When the French realised that children were consuming junk good the Government sent French chefs into the classroom to educate the kids about good quality food and that included tasting different cheeses!
Their soft cheeses include Chantal, Blue Roquefort and the tangy Chevre (goats cheese).  Brie, Camembert, Boursault, Pont l’Eveque, Livarot and Munster and their hard cheeses Cantal, Comte and Emmental are used in cooking for their strong flavours.

 French Cheeses

 
If French cheeses are best served preceding or culminating a meal, Italian cheeses are often woven into the fabric of dinner (or breakfast & lunch). There are many kinds of cheeses in Italy, and like France, each area has it's own local specialties and favourites.  I’ve always got some Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino in my cupboard or other Italian cheeses that have rosemarino (rosemary), aglio (garlic), cipola (onion) in them.   Parmigano-Reggiano, is the King of Cheese and is ubiquitous grated over fresh pasta, or slivered atop asparagus, or tangled up with peppery rocket leaves add a squeeze of lemon too and a simple dish rocks! Ricotta is for drizzling with good olive oil and scooping up with crusty bread, or baking into lasagna, or cheesecake.  The Maltese love Ricotta and even make amazing cakes with it. Wedges of Pecorino Toscano are perfect salad partners and Mozzarella was made for pizza. The French have no monopoly on cheese not by any standard! I would choose Italian any day!

 

NB: I love a bit of 'Cheese' on the TV and adore cheesy movies like: Pretty Woman, Ghost, The Way we Were, Four Weddings and a Funeral and An Officer and a Gentleman…to name a few. I can watch them over and over again AND do I eat too much cheese….yes but basically I couldn’t live without it!

 
Life is great…but Cheese makes it better!!