Holiday Cheeseball—and a caution on baking

What would the December holidays be without a cheeseball? It’s not too late to make your own delicious snack. This is the recipe that I remember from my childhood. Someone in the family still makes it every year--sometimes my daughters or DILs. This year I made one and divided it in two—one to go with Jordan and one for me to take to Tomball and Colin’s family.

A warning note: Cheese will mold if left in the fridge too long. I’d say a week is safe, so you can reshape the ball and freshen it with more parsley and ground pecans for New Year’s Eve. But if you have any left over after that, better freeze it. It freezes well—just defrost at room temperature.

Cheeseball

½ lb. Roquefort

1 pkg. Old English cheese (no longer available—I use 8 oz. of Velveeta)

l eight-ounce pkg. cream cheese

½ lb. pecans, chopped fine

1 bunch parsley, chopped fine

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 small onion, chopped fine   

½ tsp. prepared horseradish

Let the cheeses soften to room temperature and mix thoroughly. Add Worcestershire, onion, horseradish and half of the parsley and pecans. Mix thoroughly and shape into a ball. Do NOT do this in the food processor, as it will become too runny. Even a mixer makes it too smooth and creamy—wash your hands thoroughly and dig in, so the finished cheese ball has some texture and credibility. Roll the ball in the remaining parsley and pecans. Chill. Serve with crackers.

A cautionary note for those who bake in a toaster oven:

            I made old-fashioned gingerbread, from scratch, this week and learned a negative lesson about baking in a toaster oven. If a recipe has enough baking soda to cause it to rise, it will hit the top burner of the oven and burn. I could rescue my gingerbread by slicing off the burned—it was still delicious—but I won’t try that again. I don’t know if a gingerbread mix would work better or not. The recipe had 1-1/2 tsp. of baking soda.

Don’t forget: You can order Gourmet on a Hot Plate, print or ebook, from Amazon or several other platforms. The Amazon URL is https://www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Hot-Plate-KItchen-Recipes-ebook/dp/B07JC75FC5/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1545355410&sr=1-1&keywords=gourmet+of+a+hot+plate