The Cheese Conspiracy

Do you know this feeling? Randomly you catch a few words of a conversation of complete strangers and you have the feeling, they are talking about you. Do you know what I mean? Then maybe you are egocentric and take yourself too important.
On the other hand there might be some big conspiracy going on. I really have that feeling. For instance, some days ago I was travelling with the underground. Instead of seeing normal people having conversations or reading a book - you know that thing where you have to turn over the page once in a while - but, no they all were staring on these small objects in their hands and were doing who knows what. Then they had these small gadgets in their ears. I'm not sure yet what is going on, but it has to be some kind of conspiracy ...

Let us drift to something else. For that for sure isn't the only thing that is going on. Each and every time, when shopping at a supermarket they have incredible offers ... cheaper then ever. Ha! They simply reduced the size of the package - or just the content - together with the prize. A quick glance at the fine print or a bit of mathematics - if you still know how to do it without a gadget - reveals the grim truth.
When you keep looking, you just might find a real bargain among the millions of special offers. I guess I managed to find one yesterday: I bought cheese.
This now brings us a tiny bit closer to the real subject: the cheese conspiracy. However, this is by far not that easy. In order to explain it, I have to go back a bit in time ... eh ... one year, roughly. We had a kind of Spanish dinner party and for one tapas dish we needed cheese. Naturally, you would take manchego. We went to the wrong shop and bought Maygouda. That one was so aromatic, deliscious, full of flavour. We enjoyed it very much.
Afterwards I tried to get some more, but to no avail. It could be I am a little dumb. No worries, that way I usually have many light bulb moments like, for example, when I understand a certain song after years and listening millions of times to it. Those momets are well cherished.
So it occured to me, that the May-Gouda doesn't have it's name for nothing. It's made from the first milk after the winter. Due to this fact, obviously the cheese is only available from June on and not for long.
Good chance to try again. That one cheese made me to buy several packages of May-Gouda in different shops. To no avail. I didn't get that same flavour experience again. I reckon, we are to far on in the year already to keep trying. Nevertheless, the cheese I got was very creamy and delicious, too. Just not the same as last year.
Chris, don't cry!
Let us have some food instead and some more conspiracies. There is one going on at Belleau Kitchen. It's called random recipes. Somehow, Dom makes people coming back again and again joinng this blog challenge. The theme this month is the big three-oh.

Simple thing, get book number 30 from your cookbook collection and prepare the recipe on page 30. Go for it! Fine, do I do it digitally or do I go from shelf to shelf?
The digital version would have produced something, I wouldn't have dared trying let to say eating. Therefore I was glad to go for the manual version, which brought me the book: The Perfecr Afternoon Tea Book. Well, if that doesn't sound promising. "A feast of cakes, biscuits and pastries ..." Great, here I come ...
Page 30 was to reveal ... no cake, no biscuits and no pastries. No, nothing like that. The book has a section "Savoury treats" and page 30 was right in the middle of it.
Potted cheese! Here we are again. Instead of having a lush cake, we are here at having cheese again. Not that I mind so much, but this recipe doesn't even involve any sorts of boiling, simmering or baking.

No worries! Hm ... Maygouda would have been nice at this point, but ... you already know the story. We are having Noord Hollander, instead of as suggested in the book mature Cheddar or Stilton.
Here we are now with about 250 g of cheese. If that isn't some kind of conspiracy going on there. Never mind, I haven't left anything to loose anyway. I've lost almost everything already. Smile and be happy!
Faithfully I follow the recipe and cut the cheese into rough pieces to put them into the bowl of a food processor ... which I don't have. Oops! Ah, there is stil this manual kind of food processor. That has to do. Great! What do I need boiling, when it's already hot in the kitchen from the sun. The perfect point to have some exercise by keeping on turning the handle of that thing.
Sometimes, you just have to do it and why not full throttle. It worked kind of. The bigger chunks of cheese that refused to be properly processed where eaten right away.
At this point I had to add 75 g of butter ... more exercise (not just a pulse button). Oh, a bit of mustard, mace and pepper. Above that as an extra tip from the book, I added some finely chopped chives freshly retrieved from that messy garden. While I was there I loosened up the top soil a bit.
Back to the potted cheese. Blend until smooth! Ha ha ha, I went until I started to get soft and melted away. It isn't over, though. The final touch of 30 ml of sherry was imperative and a bit more ... ha ha ha ... blending, melting, smoothing ... whatever you care to say.
Spoon the pooted cheese into a nicer dish and pour over some melted butter (how do we get this?). Refrigerate.

When you are having your perfect tea time - without cake - get some crackers ready and ... dig in. Lovely! Hey, it's cheese. Oh ... did I put in too much sherry? After all I didn't bother to measure it properly.
Wait, I still have another photo for you. Hm ... do you know what this reminds me of? Ah, never mind.

You can be sure, there is a big conspiracy going on. Cheesy or not ...