what's cooking wednesday - spicy cheese ball

Oh do I love me a cheese ball. That being said I almost never make them. And I would never buy one because 100% of the time they are rolled in crushed nuts and you know how I feel about nuts in my food. No? Well blech, no, actually double blech should cover it. Robin, Tim and the girls were over for our annual Christmas dinner and on a whim I decided to make a cheese ball. Of course I hopped onto allrecipes.com to track down a good one. I am a self taught typist and often times my hands just cannot keep up with my brain so a little typo brought me to this recipe.

But do you want to know the other exciting bit? Before the holidays my Mom had lent me her food processor thinking it would help me with my cookie extravaganza. I didn't end up using it because... well I won't lie to you.... it intimidated me. I have never used a food processor before and I had no idea how I would make cookie dough in it. Now in reading the recipe I saw the word minced a couple of times. Mincing is not my favourite thing. All that tiny chopping, while I realize is necesary, is also a pain in my ass. And then it hit me.... a food processor can mince.

So I gave it a try, threw everything in it and turned it on. Nothing happened. There was no mincing. No chopping or mixing either. Well what the hell? I tried turning it on and off a few more times because that should fix things up. Not surprisingly that didn't work. Then after staring at it for a minute or two I noticed I hadn't plugged it in. So I plugged it in and turned it on. Nothing. Well! Really! What the hell? Turns out the lid needs to fully be in the locked position. Who knew? After that it was all gravy. I turned the dial and in a second everything was minced and mixed and chopped. I big red puffy heart the food processor.



Spicy Cheese Ball

2 (8 oz) pkgs of cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup shredded cheddar
1/4 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1/2 green bell pepper, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 tsp worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp garlic salt

In a medium bowl combine all the ingredients and mix together until fully combined. Shape into a ball and roll in cilantro. Serve with crackers.

Recipe Notes: Well I didn't have pepper jack cheese so it was straight cheddar with some fresh ground pepper thrown in. I skipped the green pepper because I'm not a huge pepper fan. Espcially in it's raw state and used an onion instead. I also used jarred jalapeno rings, five of them I think. And I never have garlic salt so I just dropped a clove in. Using the food processor there was minimal prep to be done. So this came together in no time at all. And since I made mine into a snowman I didn't roll him in anything.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret. Much to Kaffy's chagrin, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday.