Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

A super-easy-to-make snack is oranged-flavored cheese slices. You may know there's a trick to preventing cheese from getting moldy: Putting some bread in the container. That magically attracts the mold over to the bread, generally leaving your cheese untouched. I found that you can instead put some orange peel, and the aroma of the orange will infuse into the cheese. It won't be so strong that if you melted the cheese or put it in a sandwich that you're likely to add an orange flavor. However, if you take a slice of cheese on its own and eat it or maybe put it on a cracker, you can get a nice orangey aroma.

Black Diamond Cheddar Cheese Slices are on sale at Walmart this week, at the very low price of $1.97 per 410g pack (normally $3.88). You can get regular thickness at 22 slices per pack, or extra thick at 14 slices per pack. At this price, it is amazingly cheap compared to basically every other type of cheese you can get at Walmart. I bought two packs of the regular Cheddar, and immediately regretted it as soon as I ate a slice. The problem is the flavour is so very weak as to barely be present -- especially for a cheese that claims to be cheddar, normally a stronger-flavoured cheese. It is so weak as to be easily overpowered by pretty much anything else you are having it with, thus making it pointless to add. Even eaten on its own, the cheddar flavour is disappointingly feeble. Too bad I had discarded my receipt already. Otherwise I'd go back for a refund on the unopened pack.

Using the InstantPot, I've been making easy "cheesy rice pie" side dishes. The process is what's important here, so adjust to taste. Two cups rice, four cups water This will depend on the ratio that come with your rice instructions. I use a parboiled rice that indicates a 1:2 rice-to-water ratio so that's what I use. For a 8-quart InstantPot, the thickness of the rice "slices" will be around 1.5 inches. Adjust the rice for desired thickness. One teaspoon salt This is optional. If you are going to eat it mostly straight instead of a side dish, you probably want to flavour the rice a bit. If you are going to use a lot more cheese, you can probably leave this out. Cook the rice normally in the InstantPot. When the rice is done, release the steam safely with the valve and while the rice is still steaming hot, add: A layer of cheese on top. I like to use a flavourful cheese that melts easily, such as one that already has herbs or other flavouring mixed in. If...

Picked up a packet of Nuvo Gourmet Brie-Osh - Pecans and Caramel from Superstore. I've bought brie before, but my mom never fooled around with doing anything "fancy" with it, possibly because she didn't know how. So I got this in the hopes that she'd get the idea and maybe try it on her own. Pecans on top (as in the picture) NOT included. Bread is sweet and looks basically baked for you. On the inside, it is a cake of brie sitting on a tasty-sweet mixture of pecans and caramel. It's so basic you might as well not buy this and just use whatever you have at home. That was my MISTAKE NUMBER 1. MISTAKE NUMBER 2 was following the baking instructions. After the indicated 30 minutes at 250°F on "Bake" in my toaster oven, the cheese still hadn't melted in the least and was still cool when I cut it in half. I turned my oven on Toast at 250°F and left it in there for an additional 30 minutes. Cheese still only barely melted (see picture of two ha...

I'm totally a sucker for seasonal specials, so after reading about Chestnut-Flavoured Holiday Items by Follow Me Foodie , I decided to give the much-hyped Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar a try. Just the dessert, though. I dropped in late-ish (past 8pm) last Friday night and it was packed in there. A few seats at the bar, though, and since I was solo on this one it was easy to just nip in and go straight for what I wanted: Chestnut Cheesecake, and some peppermint tea to wash it down. Tea ($4) came in a heavy black iron pot which presumably kept the water not for a nice long while. No dribbling at the spout when poured -- which isn't always the case with every teapot, just so you know. Cheesecake (Mont Blanc - chesnut cheese cake, poached okanagan quince, vanilla ice cream $11) was rather horrifying small for the atrocious price, so right away expectations were high. Presentation was beautiful and chestnuttiness was evident -- so much so that it competed nicely with the chee...

We all know that burger ads look way better than the actual product you get because those advertisement burgers are expertly crafted to show everything that you do get, just not all carefully positioned on one half of the perimeter. Nevertheless, it still always shocks me when product wildly differs from ad copy. Like Snyder's of Hanover Cheddar Cheese Pretzel Pieces. This is from their line of Flavored Pretzel Pieces . The image on the bag shows rather nice somewhat-presentable nuggets hovering around the size of the first joint of your smallest finger. And every one thoroughly and thickly coated with cheddar-yellow savoury powder on the non-baked side. Not too shabby. The reality is actually much closer to the images on their website which dhows a wilder array of sizes, some very small, and shapes that are more akin to what you get after smashing pretzels. Which may very well be what these are. The worst part of what the actual product looks like is the horrible suspic...

Previously I mentioned having $1-off coupons from All You Need is Cheese , and I purchased two Boursin cheeses on sale at Superstore. The cranberry and pepper flavoured "spiced fresh soft cheese" is very much the same in consistency as the Boursin shallot and chive , except the flavour is more disappointing: If there were any pepper flavour, it was very subtle. To get any cranberry flavour, you really need to have at least a chunk of cranberry. Otherwise, the cheese tastes like cheese only. It's not so much flavoured cheese as it is dried cranberry bits mixed into the cheese. If you do get this, I recommend being generous with the portion to ensure that you have a good amount of cranberry included in whatever you have spread the cheese on. The cheese does have a richness which lends well to thicker spreads but won't give you that sick feeling from too much fat.

My free Spring 2014 copy of All You Need Is Cheese  included a number of expires-in-June coupons for cheese products. Somehow I ended up with two copies of the magazine, so I decided to get two different flavours of Boursin Spiced Fresh Soft Cheese .  Boursin is a type of Gournay Cheese . Red Chili Pepper flavour was sadly not available at the Metrotown Superstore where they were selling for a whopping $5.57 per 150-gram box. It is apparently not a particularly hot selling item because the ones I got had an April 2014 expiration and they were being discounted to $8.98 per two boxes. After applying the two manufacturer coupons from the magazine, the price still came out to a rather pricey $3.49 for each small portion. (Right now, Save-On-Foods is advertising Western Family cheddar cheese at $7.99 for a 700 gram block, and Safeway is advertising Kraft Cheez Whiz at $4.99 for a 900g bottle). The cheese itself is rather inconvenient to use. It crumbles easily, and can also ...

Last year I mentioned a free cheese recipe magazine  and you can subscribe to for a non-Quebec Canadian address . The Spring edition came recently, with interesting recipes as promised, and showcasing twelve cheeses, including grilling cheeses, and a variety of common and not-so-common cheeses. You won't get the $1-off coupons from the inside flap if you don't subscribe, but you can get all the recipes online, some of which have instruction videos. If you're into recipe books, I highly recommend subscribing for the hardcopy. Each recipe is accompanied by beautiful pictures, and the magazine itself is mostly recipes, with just a few articles. The only recipe not in the magazine is the Canadian Blue Cheese Crème Brûlée .

Previously I had tried the Daiya Cheddar Style Wedge . I was astounded to discover that the Daiya Jack Style Wedge was very similar in taste. In fact, if I didn't have them side-by-side, I might think them identical in taste. In other cheese-like qualities, my observations on the Cheddar all apply here. A quick look at the ingredient list shows one additional ingredient in the Cheddar Style Wedge: annatto , used in colouring cheddar cheese. Jack Style: Filtered water, tapioca flour, palm fruit oil, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and/or safflower oil, pea protein, coconut oil, inactive yeast, salt, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, vegan natural flavours, gum arabic, lactic acid (vegan, for flavor),titanium dioxide (a naturally occurring mineral), natural smoke flavour, vegan enzyme. Cheddar Style: Filtered water, tapioca flour, palm fruit oil, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and/or pressed safflower oil, pea protein, coconut oil, salt, inactive yeast, vegetable glycerin,...

For various reasons it is actually quite pointless to review Daiya Cheddar Style Wedge vegan cheese: There aren't many options out there, and for vegans there is really no comparison to real cheese because they don't have that dietary option. For the vegan-curious, however, here's what you're getting yourself into: Tastes like cheese? Not even close. You can tell that they are trying to simulate various attributes of cheddar, however. There's a creaminess in texture and a saltiness to simulate sharper, older, cheddar. Melts like cheese? It can melt, but generally you want it to touch other hot surfaces. For example, if you are putting it on pizza, it's nicer if it is sandwiched by crust and ingredients. When exposed to heat, it can form a film that holds the melted cheese inside, so you get blobs that don't spread. If you've tried putting cheese slices (like Kraft Singles processed cheese slices ) in the oven, you'll see the same beha...

I was in Superstore last Friday and happened to see this little free booklet. If you want an easy primer on cheese -- what's what and how to serve it -- so you can break out of eating just cheddar and mozza, pick this up! You can also go to the website AllYouNeedIsCheese.ca  to access all sorts of cheese information, but it actually isn't as straightforward and cleanly laid out as this booklet. It does have a lot of videos as well as a " Tools " section that includes a Cheese Encyclopedia and help for planning a cheese platter. Finally, you can sign up for a free quarterly magazine of cheese recipes .