Spanish Cheese (and It has been at least a month since I last posted about cheese)

While I have continued to EAT cheese, I haven’t POSTED about cheese for a bit.  I am thinking that the Spanish cheeses have been painfully ignored.  While there are many, many cheeses that i love from this region, I am chronicling three of my favorites. Want to learn more about others?  Spanish Sabores has a great article that provides far more info that I am here. It also doesn’t hurt to toss in Spanish chorizo or olives into the mix…

Manchego-everyone knows Manchego. It is a sheep’s milk cheese that is made in the central region of Spain.   It can be purchased in any place that carries more than just Swiss and cheddar.  My husband buys the huge blocks from Costco as this is an amazingly good hard cheese to eat for snacks. I recently discovered the aged version. This makes the cheese slightly darker but it gives it little tiny crystals that add both crunch and flavor.

Mahon is one of my most favorite soft cheeses. It is made on one of the Balearic Islands.  This is made from raw cow’s milk and comes in a variety of “cured” states.  I do like the really soft one best-called Tierno.  While I choose to eat my cheese with crackers, this is a great cooking chesse and can be made into delicious grilled-cheese sandwiches as well.

I love a specific variety of cheese called Drunken Goat which comes from a southeastern part of Spain.  .  As you might imagine-it is a goat cheese and the distinctive thing about it is that it has a purple rind which is created from “bathing” the cheese in red wine.  While I like to eat the rind of this cheese, it can be eaten both with and without the wine and goes great with almost anything.