When I was having Birthday At the Beach this past weekend, we had The Cheesing Hour on Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday, we had a selection of three cheeses: Stagnola Blu, Brie, Mini Brie Bites, and Cranberry Chevre.
The brie that we had was 62% Brie, which was super creamy and buttery. In the background, there are brie bites, which come five to a package and are really cool- I'm a fan of having them in the fridge in case I need a quick hit of brie and I don't want to buy a huge wedge.
The Stagnola Blu is a cheese that Trader Joe's carries, but it is about to be discontinued- I'm not sure if you can get it other places, but it's a great blue- creamy, and has a real knockout flavor.
Chevre and Cranberry are two of my favorite combinations, it's a really great combo in this cheese too. I think after the brie, this was my second favorite of the cheeses.
Sunday night we had some harder cheeses, a Manchego, a Cinnamon Dusted Toscano, and I also wanted to try out a Hot and Sweet Pepper Jelly that I had gotten from Trader Joe's, so I served that over a brick of cream cheese.
The pepper jelly was really good, except the "hot" part of the Hot and Sweet was.... missing. It was tasty, though! It is definitely going on my next party menu.
The Manchego was really nice- a milder cheese, salty in a good way. I didn't really prepare as well for this cheesing hour in terms of accompaniments, and I'm a little bummed out. I think it would have worked really well with some olives, or maybe a slice of apple.
The Cinnamon Toscano was really different. It is a really strong tasting cheese- and then to add a powerhouse spice like cinnamon ups the flavor to eleven. I liked it a lot, even though it's definitely a "holiday" cheese- the cinnamon reminded me of Christmas. My mom said that she thought that this cheese would go really well with apple pie, and I would have to agree. I think that would be awesome.
So! Six cheeses down, 44 to go!
