As I have mentioned, I just recently moved (rendering me too busy to post, apparently). For all the miseries that changing abodes brings with it, there is one inevitable positive: the housewarming party! I love entertaining, and so am already thinking about the menu for ours.
One of my favorite appetizers cannot be accused of being sophisticated, but it is always a big hit at parties, and has long been a staple at family gatherings. It is my grandmother’s recipe cheese ball, tweaked just a bit.
Grammy’s Cheeseball
2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese (full fat–seriously, low fat does not work)
7 oz. of sharp cheddar cheese*, very finely shredded
1 heaping TB minced onion
1 TB drained and finely chopped pimento
1 TB finely chopped green bell pepper
1 TB Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup roasted and chopped walnuts or pecans*Use orange cheddar, which gives a nicer color than white. My grandmother only used Cracker Barrel cheese–gold label–and only used about 5 oz. More adds a pleasant sharpness. In general, I am a fan of extra sharp cheddar, but here it overpowers.
Mix together all ingredients except nuts in a big bowl; Grammy always used her hands to do this, but I usually use a big wooden spoon (I imagine a pastry cutter would work well too). Dump the entire contents of the bowl onto a piece of wax paper and using your hands form a ball. While you can serve it immediately, at this point it is best to wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let chill for a few hours or overnight.
Roll the cheeseball in the chopped nuts immediately before serving.
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April 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Idiots always think they can just replace ingredients with low fat versions and it will be exactly the same thing but healthy. What they don’t realize is that fat serves many purposes in recipes. In particular, fat is a great binder. Fat’s are really good at holding favors and other foods together.
That’s also why if you try to make a burger with lean ground beef(less than 20% fat) it falls apart on the bun.
–FatB
p.s. you should put up a contact page. There are plenty of free wordpress plugins that do the work for you.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
[...] Christmas was at my Brother and Sister-in-law’s house. It was sort of a potluck affair. Appetizers were provided by me and my mom, who brought along some homemade green tomato chutney and pepper jelly (see left. Yum!), both of which she served with crackers and cream cheese, she also brought along some smoked salmon with capers. I made a family favorite, my Grammy’s cheeseball. [...]