Who Does NOT LIKE Cheese? Raise your Hands? 1...2.....Ok Ok 10 of you? And how many of you are Vegans? 9 of you? Thought so ;) As for the rest, "Hate" and "Cheese" are hardly in the same sentence leave alone in the same para! I love my share of cheese although I have to admit, I have not experimented with the gazillion varieties that boggles me every time I visit Whole Foods or any other local grocery store. Few of them don't even seem to spell right and I am sure if I read it aloud, people in the know will roll in the floor laughing :). I have restricted myself to Cheddar, Mozzarella and few others. Not cos I have any specific reason - just haven't till date.

The first time I went beyond my familiar cheese was with this Mexican Cheese called as "Queso Asadero", a cheese quite firm in texture. Its supposed to literally translate to "Grilling Cheese" and is mostly preferred for its melting ability and a slightly salty tang. I tried out this recipe for it - and fell in LOVE!.  Recently when I tried searching for this cheese (cos I was planning to make this dip for entertaining), I simply could not find it. I searched high and low - but it eluded me completely.  Hence I went for the next best thing - as suggested by the America's Test Kitchen show from whom I first tried this recipe -  who suggested Monterey Jack cheese. It still turned out to be delicious. 'Queso Fundido' is indeed a fun recipe to make. Of course variations abound and I am not sure what are the authentic ingredients yet. But this recipe is Quick, Simple with easy and minimal ingredients. Its Spanish for "Melted Cheese".  Its a hearty Mexican cheese dip with a topping of Chorizo Sausage and roasted Poblano peppers.  If you have the time for it, you can roast the peppers separately and add it to the rest of the ingredients. But for me, I preferred this simplified method of cooking it along with the rest of the topping ingredients together. Since I cannot have the meat, I opted to substitute the sausage with Tempeh - a protein rich Soy ingredient. Loved the healthy substitute and it was delicious nevertheless (although have to admit, I have no idea how the original with the meat tastes :)) But try it - who knows you might like this one too. I ran out on tortilla chips and had no time to buy some. I had some Whole wheat Pita on hand which I quartered and baked into chips.