Thanksgiving week has drawn to a close. For many of us, we won't be seeing some of the food we indulged in until next Thanksgiving: so much of what we eat for that holiday is specific just to that particular Thursday in November.
However, some of it can transition over to December and join us for all of our Christmas and New Year's festivities. This cheeseball recipe is one of them. I plan on making it at least once more in December to bring to a party or to an event.
I made this for Thanksgiving and it was a true hit. How do I know? Well, our family Thanksgiving is a food fiesta if ever there was one. We have family come in from New York and Massachusetts and it's our one "big holiday" all year because it's the only holiday we do with extended family. In our family, Thanksgiving is bigger than Christmas, and we treat it as such. We double and triple our recipes to make sure plenty of leftovers exist for the entire weekend. After eating at 1 or 2, we gather in the living room, take naps, catch up on gossip, watch football, have coffee and beer, and then we take all the food out of the fridge again around 6 or 7. After eating again, we play games. As we were taking all of the leftovers out for Round 2 of our Thanksgiving feast, several people asked if there was any more of this cheeseball leftover. For a lowly cheeseball to be referenced among the many Thanksgiving sides and main dishes, you know it was popular. In fact, I have yet to meet someone who doesn't like it.
I made this cheeseball years ago, in the early 2000's when I saw Paula Deen appear on an episode of Oprah and whip it up for the audience. For whatever reason, it entered the rotation and I didn't bring it out again until this year. I'm glad I resurrected it, because it is ridiculously easy to make and it makes 2 giant cheeseballs.
Here's the original recipe: Fisher Nutty Bacon Cheeseball. Here's how I adapted it; mainly, I doubled the amount of cream cheese to make 2 balls instead of 1, I use walnuts instead of pecans and I only roll the ball in walnuts, not walnuts and bacon (I found that the bacon would constantly fall off the cheeseball...instead I just add all of the bacon to the mixture since it gets divided among 2 separate cheeseballs.)
Ingredients:
2, 8 ounce packages of cream cheese, very softened
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (I usually add a bit more, here)
1 jar pimiento, drained
1/4 cup minced green onions
3/4 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped and divided
10 slices bacon, cooked, drained and finely chopped
Directions:
Place softened cream cheese in a large bowl and mix on medium speed for a couple of minutes. Add milk and mix again. Add remaining ingredients, including half of the nuts and mix again until well incorporated.
Divide mixture into two. Turn out onto plastic wrap or non-stick foil and shape into 2 separate balls. Wrap the balls and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. After 2 hours, unwrap and roll each ball in the remaining chopped walnuts or pecans.
Serve with crackers.
Enjoy!
