Is Cheese good for you?

While searching for cheese ideas I found a new study that suggests that eating cheese may be good for you, I have always considered cheese good for our health, but it seems there is now sound science to back it up.

Cheese is a food, eaten and cooked many ways, it's capable of adapting to many different uses.

Eating, grill cheese sandwiches, with tomato soup, or your favorite food, such as bacon, eggs, seasonal veggies, and salads, cheese goes down as treat with any meal, especially a cheese and wine evening.

Elastic stringiness in cheese is a quality that is enjoyed, in dishes including pizzas.

Most cheeses melt at cooking temperature, but some cheeses grill better than others.

• Gruyere cheese is a good melting cheese.
• Feta is an aged crumbly cheese, used as a table cheese, salads, baking, good for grilling.
• Cheddar cheese is most commonly used for grilled cheese on toast, or sandwiches in New Zealand.

Strong, sharp flavors - matured Cheddar, Blue View, Romano, Grated Parmesan - which can be mashed with butter and used for a spread on cracker biscuits for a snack.

Full mellow flavors - tasty cheddar, Gruyere, Havarti, Fetta, Chashie.

Delicate mild flavors - mild Cheddar, colby, Gouda, Danbo.

Also popular are the distinctive flavors of Erbo and smoked cheeses.

Buying and storing cheese.

Soft perishable cheeses - for example, Feta, only buy what you need, keep refrigerated, well wrapped and away from foods with strong odors.

Semi-soft cheeses - for example, Danbo, Gouda, Havarti, Blue Vein.

These can be brought in larger quantities, they will stay fresh for about two weeks if refrigerated, well wrapped in waxed paper, tin foil or plastic food bags.

Hard cheeses, - or example, Gruyere and very hard cheeses like Romano.

Buy these cheeses in one piece and cut off only what is needed at the time, to prevent drying out.

Keep in the refrigerator, well wrapped in waxed paper or tin foil.

If the cheese becomes too dry wrap in a clean cloth wrung out in vinegar or water and keep the cloth damp.

Processed cheeses - for example, smoked, Erbo, these will keep for months in their original unopened wrappers, under refrigeration.

Once used, re-wrap tightly in the original wrapper or waxed paper, to keep out the air, refrigerate, and if possible, keep wrapped in a food bag or covered refrigerator dish.

Grated cheese - If you buy grated cheese it is better kept in a freezer and just take out what you need, sprinkle it on your toast to grill, then reseal and return to the deep freeze.

Take the cheese out of the refrigerator at least an hour before serving.

This allows it to regain its full flavor at room temperature.

If pre-cutting is necessary, leave it until the last moment and then cover the cheese with plastic, waxed paper or foil, until it is served.

Cheese is an ancient food, there is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheese making originated from.

The earliest evidence of cheese-making in the archaeological record dates back to 5,500 BCE, in what is now Kujawy, Poland, where strainers with milk fats molecules have been found.

The earliest ever discovered preserved cheese was found in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, and it dates back as early as 1615 BCE.

By Roman times, cheese, was an everyday food and cheese making a mature art.

The first factory for the industrial production of cheese opened in Switzerland in 1815.

Although cheese is a vital source of nutrition in many regions of the world and is extensively consumed in others, its use is not universal.

April in New Zealand is mid autumn and end of summer harvest, of red tomatoes and tasty peppers.

Time for a fuss-free meal with those tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, meals delicious enough to encourage a line of new converts to vegetarianism, just needing a little touch of tasty cheese to set it apart from a meal to remember.

Tip: Cooking peppers slowly helps to bring out their sweetness and assists the natural sugars to caramelize, removing the acidic taste that raw peppers can sometimes have.