Insight and Expertise In The Cheese Making Community

When we wake up to a new year, many of us resolve to make dietary changes in the name of health.  After a long holiday season consisting of sweets, cheese, beer, wine and more cheese, many people use the month of January as a time to reset.  Here at Caves of Faribault, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite healthy(ish) recipes we’ve found that still incorporate our favorite food, cheese.  We’re sharing some of our favorite finds on this month’s blog and will also be sharing photos of these meals featuring Caves of Faribault cheese on our Instagram!

We all know cookies love milk, but turns out, they also love cheese, too.  Meet the monger who inspired a delicious holiday recipe that adds some cheesy cheer to a traditional favorite.

This year, Thanksgiving may look a bit different. Whether you are celebrating solo or hosting an intimate dinner, we’ve got you covered. The possibilities for incorporating cheeses into your Thanksgiving spread are endless, and we’ve highlighted some of our personal favs you’ll want to gobble up.

Whether you’re spending this Halloween hosting a ghoulish gathering or streaming scary flicks solo, make sure your cheese platters are dressed for the occasion.  We’ve curated five killer pairings that are guaranteed to have you and your guests howling for more.

Any cheese lover knows fruits and nuts are great companions to cheese—a crisp green apple, nutty cashew, a dried cherry—all make great matches with a well-rounded cheese platter.  While these tried and true pairings are timeless, they can be a bit overdone.  If you want to introduce your palette to a new experience, we’ve compiled five new unique matchups that will be sure to wow.

Visit the grocery store on a Saturday morning, and you just may run into me manning a table near the deli, excited to share with you a variety of cheeses to dazzle your palette.  By the afternoon, I’ve become besties with the guy behind the cheese counter.  Having logged my fair share of hours sampling product, I wanted to share my expertise of what I’ve learned along the way.

Ideally, cheese is best enjoyed fresh and by its “enjoy by” date on the original packaging. We recommend whenever possible to manage your cheese purchases in this way. Ice can do funny things to cheese. As ice forms during the freezing process and later melts during the thawing process, this expansion and contraction of water break down the molecular composition of the cheese. This in turn affects the texture, the coloring, and even the taste. Blue cheese, specifically, loses its traditional texture and transforms into a more “mealy” consistency, and it can be more prone to crumbling. The veining can turn yellow and the flavor may be off or muted due to freezer burn.

Picture this—you’ve just taken that first delectable bite of Blue cheese. You close your eyes to fully experience the intimate flavors that take over your taste buds. Your eyes reopen to savor bite number two and, you notice it—the veins in your “Blue” cheese are actually green, or perhaps even yellow. Do your eyes deceive you? Is this how it’s supposed to look? Who named this thing “Blue” cheese anyway?