Thanksgiving foods!
Hey readers,
Assuming I know how to schedule posts, this should be coming out the week after Thanksgiving! If not, well then there sure is egg on my face. Anyway, this year I was invited to participate in a pot luck style Thanksgiving celebration. Of course, I am no chef. I once failed a boiling water. I was waiting for it to look like a witches brew from Hocus Pocus and inadvertently boiled an entire pot of water away. After 20 minutes or so I should have figured that I didn't know what boiling water looked like. Wow, when I say it like that it sure makes me feel embarrassed. To redeem myself and impress my friends with my culinary prowess, I took to Pinterest to see what I could find that would be cool looking and within my limited cooking skillset.
I found an awesome cheese ball recipe and technique from The Country Cook. The ball seemed to have both criteria I was looking for: uncomplicated and interesting to look at. Check out the recipe on her page! I like something I can prepare that has only 6 ingredients. That pepper stem doubling as a pumpkin stem is so fun. Confidentially, I even think my test run might be more pumpkin-adjacent than the original images she created. Don't freak out Country Cook, I am not coming for you.
The recipe is pretty easy. All it takes is regular and veggie cream cheese mixed together in a bowl. The you stir in some chopped red pepper and green onions. The spicy ranch mix and the cup of shredded cheese really helps give it that slight orange color inside. Mix all that up and you should get something that looks like what you see to the right.
Then came the messy part. Lay out your saran wrap on the counter and sprinkle some of the cheese on it. You want a coating that creates a delicious cheesy barrier between your plastic wrap and your soon-to-be-ball-shaped cheese concoction.
The Country Cook suggested grating your own cheese was the way to go. She says that freshly grated cheese is stickier and therefore the process came together better. I don't own a cheese grater and wasn't about to buy one for a cheese ball. Why does anyone own a cheese grater when you can buy cheese pre-grated? The world may never know.
Since I don't own a cheese grater I couldn't follow that part of her instructions. So I used finely shredded cheese. I had no problem getting it to stick, but perhaps freshly grated would have worked even better. Cheese connoisseurs can tell me their thoughts. Also, the spellcheck here really struggled with that word.
A year ago I made a cake that was completely covered in sprinkles. The process of sticking the cheese to my cheese ball was oddly similar. At first, I tried to be all delicate about it and sprinkle it and use the plastic wrap to get it on tightly. Eventually I just needed to press the cheese in - with hands I washed like 5 times because I am a little anal about that. Then I wrapped the ball up in the plastic wrap and used rubber bands to form the pumpkin lines (If you are wondering how I can talk about baking and my inability to cook - please understand that decorating a cake is not quite the same as cooking a turkey).
It might not look like much, but after a few hours in the fridge it was solid enough that I could manipulate it without it coming apart. Then, it was just a matter of presentation. I chose to cut the rubber bands off so that the pulling wouldn't change the shape. The picture I have of the finished product is actually my test run. You will notice my messy table and notepad used to solve cryptograms from Gravity Falls (definitely watch that show). I got a few fancy crackers for the real reveal and we were well set up for cheese and cracker shenanigans at Thanksgiving.
I don't know that anyone wants to eat a whole cheese ball by themselves, but it makes for a nice little appetizer and this cheese ball was on theme. I could probably put away a whole cheese ball. That's an unhealthy challenge you just gave me readers. Don't start any of this "but we are just readers and can only reply asynchronously. You are just rationalizing to give yourself permission to eat two entire blocks of cream cheese you lunatic." I see right through you.
Heart disease aside, my culinary skills might still need some work, but I think this was a success!
Keeping making cool stuff! Leave me a comment :)
Until next time,
JoshPrime
 |
| My cheese ball game is on point! |
I found an awesome cheese ball recipe and technique from The Country Cook. The ball seemed to have both criteria I was looking for: uncomplicated and interesting to look at. Check out the recipe on her page! I like something I can prepare that has only 6 ingredients. That pepper stem doubling as a pumpkin stem is so fun. Confidentially, I even think my test run might be more pumpkin-adjacent than the original images she created. Don't freak out Country Cook, I am not coming for you.
The recipe is pretty easy. All it takes is regular and veggie cream cheese mixed together in a bowl. The you stir in some chopped red pepper and green onions. The spicy ranch mix and the cup of shredded cheese really helps give it that slight orange color inside. Mix all that up and you should get something that looks like what you see to the right.
Then came the messy part. Lay out your saran wrap on the counter and sprinkle some of the cheese on it. You want a coating that creates a delicious cheesy barrier between your plastic wrap and your soon-to-be-ball-shaped cheese concoction.
The Country Cook suggested grating your own cheese was the way to go. She says that freshly grated cheese is stickier and therefore the process came together better. I don't own a cheese grater and wasn't about to buy one for a cheese ball. Why does anyone own a cheese grater when you can buy cheese pre-grated? The world may never know.
Since I don't own a cheese grater I couldn't follow that part of her instructions. So I used finely shredded cheese. I had no problem getting it to stick, but perhaps freshly grated would have worked even better. Cheese connoisseurs can tell me their thoughts. Also, the spellcheck here really struggled with that word.
A year ago I made a cake that was completely covered in sprinkles. The process of sticking the cheese to my cheese ball was oddly similar. At first, I tried to be all delicate about it and sprinkle it and use the plastic wrap to get it on tightly. Eventually I just needed to press the cheese in - with hands I washed like 5 times because I am a little anal about that. Then I wrapped the ball up in the plastic wrap and used rubber bands to form the pumpkin lines (If you are wondering how I can talk about baking and my inability to cook - please understand that decorating a cake is not quite the same as cooking a turkey).
It might not look like much, but after a few hours in the fridge it was solid enough that I could manipulate it without it coming apart. Then, it was just a matter of presentation. I chose to cut the rubber bands off so that the pulling wouldn't change the shape. The picture I have of the finished product is actually my test run. You will notice my messy table and notepad used to solve cryptograms from Gravity Falls (definitely watch that show). I got a few fancy crackers for the real reveal and we were well set up for cheese and cracker shenanigans at Thanksgiving.
I don't know that anyone wants to eat a whole cheese ball by themselves, but it makes for a nice little appetizer and this cheese ball was on theme. I could probably put away a whole cheese ball. That's an unhealthy challenge you just gave me readers. Don't start any of this "but we are just readers and can only reply asynchronously. You are just rationalizing to give yourself permission to eat two entire blocks of cream cheese you lunatic." I see right through you. Heart disease aside, my culinary skills might still need some work, but I think this was a success!
Keeping making cool stuff! Leave me a comment :)
Until next time,
JoshPrime
Looks yummy... do it again with soy cheese and I'm in! ;)
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