{"id":3919,"date":"2019-12-21T18:58:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T00:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/?p=3919"},"modified":"2019-12-22T09:20:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T15:20:49","slug":"classic-christmas-cheeseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/classic-christmas-cheeseball\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Christmas Cheeseball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A holiday classic in these here parts, I give you a Christmas Cheeseball.  Yes, you can make this any time of the year, but if you&#8217;re counting calories, you may want to make it only during the Christmas season.  As I&#8217;ve said before, this blog is not going to teach you how to cook, so if you can&#8217;t figure out how to turn these ingredients into a cheeseball, well, you need help.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re going to need:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 pound Velveeta, &#8220;shredded&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>2 cloves fresh garlic, minced<\/li>\n<li>1 teaspoon <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tabasco_sauce\">Tabasco sauce<\/a><\/li>\n<li>1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning<\/li>\n<li>1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The above makes up your cheeseball, and you&#8217;re going to roll it in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chili powder<\/li>\n<li>Chopped roasted pecans<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a bowl combine your shredded cheddar cheese and Velveeta.  If you&#8217;re ever tried to shred Velveeta, well, you know as well as I do that it&#8217;s more of a smear, so just treat it like cream cheese.  The idea is to combine Velveeta and cheddar cheese together.  I prefer extra sharp cheddar, but if you are a wimp (or your guests are) use sharp or mild.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s note:  If you are from foreign lands that have not yet been blessed with Velveeta, look for any locally available <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Processed_cheese\">processed cheese<\/a>.  For my Uruguayan friends, seek out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.claldy.com.uy\/es\/prod\/quesos\/gambu-crema-de-queso\/\">Claldy Gamb\u00fa<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, add your minced garlic, and don&#8217;t be afraid to use minced garlic from a jar or from a tube &#8211; the idea is to give this a garlicky kick and the cheeseball doesn&#8217;t care if it came from a tube, trust me.  Add your Tabasco or whatever <a href=\"https:\/\/store.davesgourmet.com\/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAIN\">insanity sauce<\/a> you want, along with a &#8220;Cajun seasoning&#8221;.  All of the following are respectable:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tonychachere.com\/Original-Creole-Seasoning\">Tony Chacheres&#8217;s<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mccormick.com\/zatarains\/products\/spices-and-seasonings\/spices-and-extracts\/creole-seasoning\">Zatarain&#8217;s<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/store.slapyamama.com\/collections\/frontpage\/products\/slap-ya-mama-original-blend-seasoning-case-of-12-4oz-canisters?variant=6022154305\">Slap Ya Mama<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Round things out with some black pepper and mold into a ball.<\/p>\n<p>Then, grab your favorite chili powder and dust the ball with it making sure its nicely covered.  Chop some roasted pecans and roll your cheeseball in them, taking liberty to &#8220;press&#8221; the pecans in a bit.<\/p>\n<p>You should end up with something that looks a bit like this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/cheeseball.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/cheeseball.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"631\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3923\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is best served a day later (stored in the refrigerator of course), but can be eaten right away.<\/p>\n<p>To serve, lay out a plate of crackers (not saltines, idiot).  My favorites are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the venerable Nabisco Sociables<\/li>\n<li>the ever popular <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clubcrackers.com\/en_US\/home.html\">Club Cracker<\/a><\/li>\n<li>a plain <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Triscuit\">Triscuit<\/a> (don&#8217;t bother with the flavored Triscuits, they are crap and will just interfere with the cheeseball flavors)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Nabisco-Flavor-Originals-Chicken-Crackers\/dp\/B00IO2IK8K\">Chickin in a Biskit<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>or just a plain <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ritz_Crackers\">Ritz<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A holiday classic in these here parts, I give you a Christmas Cheeseball. Yes, you can make this any time of the year, but if you&#8217;re counting calories, you may want to make it only during the Christmas season. As I&#8217;ve said before, this blog is not going to teach you how to cook, so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3919"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3931,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919\/revisions\/3931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.iachieved.it\/iachievedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}