Cheese Bread

Cheese Bread

I like cheese and I like bread.

When I saw a loaf of cheese bread at our local supermarket I thought to myself “jackpot!”. The cheese bread was a little more expensive than regular bread but it was something that had to be tried. This particular loaf came from Loblaws.

Cheese bread is good. It has a nice taste. Bread with a light bite. The ingredients listed on the label indicate that it is cheddar cheese that has been cooked into the loaf. The cheddar gives it a nice little tang.

This loaf was much lighter than I expected. I had assumed that the cheese would make the bread dense. That was not the case. It was even lighter and more airy than normal sandwich bread. Almost too much. I’m lucky that it was pre-sliced because I’m not sure that I could cut it without crushing it.

I tried toasting some and it toasted up nicely. I made a tuna salad sandwich using toasted cheese bread and that was a great combination. Previously I would sometimes put a slice of processed cheese into a tuna sandwich. The cheese bread saves me a step and results in a delicate, subtle cheese flavor.

The big surprise came when my kids gave it a try. I had expected them to resist bread with yellow splotches scattered throughout. They loved it! They requested us to include it in their school lunch bags. It’s not a fruit or vegetable, but it beats a request for candy or other snack.

I’m going to do some more research and try some cheese breads from other bakeries. I love the breads from Panera. I checked out their website and found Three Cheese Bread featuring Parmesan, Romano & Asiago cheeses. OMG I can only imagine.

Periodically my wife and I bake homemade bread. We have been using a Rustic Bread recipe that turns out pretty good each time. The next time, we will add some shredded cheddar cheese into the dough and see how that turns out.

But really, how could adding cheese not have a happy ending?

Rosenborg Castello Blue Cheese

I am a guy that enjoys cheese. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or artisan, although I’m Ok with those too!

I bought a small package of Rosenborg Blue Cheese at a Loblaws. The label looks familiar and you can probably find this cheese most anywhere. I’ve had it before.  Now that I’m blogging about cheese I am “tuned in”. What does that mean? It means I’m paying attention. I notice the color, the texture, the smell and the taste. Instead of a food it is a now a treat.

So I opened the package.

It was vacuum sealed. I’ve been reading about cheese storage (I’ll blog on this soon). The basic idea is that cheese is alive and needs to breathe. This cheese was sealed up tight. I guess that is intended to extend the shelf life but I wonder if that affects the taste. Would a piece of the same cheese, taken from the wheel, taste different than this store package? I don’t have a way to figure that out yet.

I had to put it on a cheese board and lay out a few Carr’s Table Water Crackers. I think if you are going to enjoy a cheese you just have to do this. Would you drink a nice wine from a plastic cup? You could, but it’s not the same as a nice wine glass. I don’t know why that is, but it is.

The taste test – It’s nice. The extra creamy style is noted as being the 4th strongest on a scale of 1 to 5. It is pleasant but certainly not strong. It is creamy. It melts in your mouth. It spreads on a cracker easily. I found it salty. To me this is pretty basic blue cheese. I expect that as I taste other blue cheeses, and do some further comparison, the differences will become more apparent. In summary this was good, good enough for guests but not a wow for me.

Taking it to the next level I explored the website for Rosenborg Castella. The web site was excellent. I was able to navigate to a page specific to the exact cheese I purchased. I was impressed with the claim that “In 1994, Rosenborg-Castello® Extra Creamy Blue was voted the world’s best from among 590 other cheeses.”

Rosenborg Castle

Even more interesting was information about the history of the Rosenborg name which is a reference to a famous Castle in Copenhagen that dates back to the early 17th century. Who knew eating some blue cheese from the supermarket would bring me to understand a piece of 17th century history in Denmark. That’s the beauty of a cheese adventure.