I was apprehensive about choosing hard sheep’s cheese (think Pecorino, Manchego) as this month’s cheese of choice for the Cheese, Please! Challenge. It’s not a cheese that springs to mind when you think about cooking, except perhaps for pasta. And so it was with some trepidation that I pressed the button and issued the call.
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Tag Archives: baking
October’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Round Up – Hard Sheep’s Cheese
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Inne’s Log Goat’s Cheese and Apple Tarts with Plum and Sloe Gin Sauce
Once I’d sampled some of my Innes Log last week, I was still left with quite a chunk and with the in-laws coming over and expecting sustenance, I decided to make some goat’s cheese tarts as a starter, also using up some of the windfall apples I was given recently.
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September’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Round Up – Cheddar
This month saw a bumper crop of entries to Cheese, Please! reflecting, I think, both the popularity and versatility of cheddar cheese. I certainly enjoyed trying some of the traditional farmhouse varieties that ranged from grassy-tasting to downright dirty (in a good way). Alas, I’m afraid I did go back on my promise to cut open my own home-made cheddar; I just couldn’t do it. So he lives on down in my cellar, maturing for a few months more.
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August’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Round Up – Feta
Feta cheese was on the table for August’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Challenge – and with it the challenge to prove that it’s more than just a salad cheese (although I still got myself a good-natured ticking off from a Greek chap annoyed that I had bracketed it with ‘other salad-style cheeses’ so I hoped that we could do it justice!)
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Greek Salad Bread Tarts
I love bread tarts. Simple to make, no fussy pastry involved and even the most discerning gourmand usually fails to guess they’re eating white bread and butter. I had previously made Cheshire Cheese and Marmalade Bread Tarts but for this month’s Cheese, Please! Challenge I was looking for a way to use Feta.
Greece is one of my favourite countries in the world. My first holiday overseas was to island hop across the Cyclades Islands with my big sister when I was 18. Although the television would have you believe that all young people abroad are staggering about with their vomit-spattered boobs hanging out, we were ridiculously civilized, with not so much as a waiter-snog between us. My memories are often of the food; of fresh grilled calamari, swordfish steaks and thick creamy yogurt and honey for breakfast. We ended up having a food budget of about £5 a day and so lived on Spanakopita (spinach and feta pies) and Greek Salads. (I confess the budget didn’t include beer and ouzo money.)
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July’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Round Up – Soft Goat’s Cheese
Soft goat’s cheese was the choice for July’s Cheese, Please Recipe Challenge; a lovely, summery cheese light enough to grace a salad if the sun deigns to comes out or equally hold its own as part of a comforting casserole whilst we watch the driving rain pelt down. The chèvre gauntlet was laid down but who would come to the party…?
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Three Cheese Focaccia Bread
In Britain, you can spend all summer waiting for summer. Lifestyle magazines might be full of picnics, laid out on gingham table-cloths outside gypsy caravans, spotted bunting fluttering from the trees, but the reality is more likely eating squashed cheese sandwiches in the car whilst the rain hammers on the roof. And if you have small children, there’s no romance to picnics anyway, just constant complaints about grass in sandals, giant bees, the lack of crisps and how ‘disgusting’ your lovingly-prepared quiche is. Really, don’t bother.
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Blue Cheese and Nettle Drop Scones
It’s hard to be a big fan of nettles; if they’re not taking over your garden, they’re stinging your ankles. But there’s no denying that they’re good for you, packed as they are with vitamins and minerals. In fact, if you believe the herbalists, the nasty nettle can do everything from purify the blood to cure arthritis, increase a nursing mother’s supply of milk and prevent dental plaque. And they’re undeniably trendy these days, packing out the Sunday supplements with recipes for soup, flans and pasta.
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Cheshire Cheese and Marmalade Bread Tarts
I always thought that my older sister had invented bread tarts. Sunday afternoon would often find us pressing buttered slices of Mother’s Pride into bun tins and spooning in various concoctions of egg, cheese, bacon and mixed herbs. Bread tarts are perfect for children to make – no messy pastry and you only need a concentration span of about ten minutes. The tart ‘cases’ come out surprisingly crisp and most people never guess that it’s essentially flat toast. Perfect for a picnic or as canapés.
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Olde Sussex Cheese and Beer Bread
We were down in East Sussex for the Bank Holiday weekend and, once the rain had stopped and we’d swilled out our tent, the weather was glorious and the countryside lush. If I was a cow in Sussex I’d be pretty happy with my lot. Endless green meadows full of buttercups and clover would fill the belly of the fussiest Friesian. So it seemed only right to hunt out some local cheese. And as we drove though ancient country lanes, their banks spilling wildflowers onto the road, it seemed that there was an oast house round every corner.
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Fromage Homage 