Lovin' Haloumi

Robert Louis Stevenson III once said "Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese - toasted, mostly"; he's not the only one who has dreams about cheese! I adore cheese, I'm not sure I could live without it. I'm starting to learn more about cheese these days from reading books and watching Cheese Slices.

Haloumi is a cypriot cheese traditionally made with a mixture of goat and cheese milk. I call it a 'squeaky' cheese (kind of like Quebec cheese curds), when you chew it you get this sort of squeak in your mouth (it's really hard to explain). It's a semi-hard cheese which doesn't melt when grilled (due to cheese chemistry and high melting points) so grilled cheese literally! Haloumi is salty with a little sweet aftertaste, not like the usual cheeses.

After doing a little flavor bouncing...

I came up with grilled haloumi, basil, mint, fresh tomatoes, a salad of black olives, sundried tomatoes, capers and oregano plus a little "sauce" of lemon juice, olive oil and the oil that the sundried tomatoes were stored in.