It feels like many of the normal things I grew up with in West Texas are now considered hip. Some are surprising to me (like having chickens in your backyard) and others not surprising (like pimento cheese). One snack always on the table at parties back home was a cheese ball, so I was happy to see this yummy recipe in a recent issue of Garden & Gun.
Sounds good right? Randy is heading to the grocery store now so we can test it….
XXOO – Brooke
From Vivian Howard’s Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South
INGREDIENTS
¼ cup high-quality blue cheese (I like Maytag)
⅓ cup (5½ tablespoons) butter
¼ cup fresh goat cheese
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons cream cheese
¼ cup chopped dates
2 tablespoons finely chopped scallions (both white and green parts work here)
½ teaspoon hot sauce
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Salt-and-Butter-Roasted Pecans (recipe below), roughly chopped
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
SALT-AND-BUTTER-ROASTED PECANS
2 cups pecan halves or pieces
2 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
PREPARATION
For the cheese ball:
Take the blue cheese, butter, goat cheese, and cream cheese out of the refrigerator to soften 30 minutes before making your cheese-ball mixture. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine all the ingredients except for the pecans and parsley. Paddle it up till homogenous. It will be loose and sticky and you’ll wonder how you’re ever going to form that mess into a ball. The answer is, you transfer the bowl to the refrigerator for 15 minutes or so. During that time the cheese mix will firm up enough for you to pat it into a sphere. Once it’s stiff enough to hold up, form the ball and roll that ball in the pecans, followed by parsley.
For the salt-and-butter-roasted pecans:
Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Toss the pecans thoroughly with the melted butter and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet and slide that sheet onto the middle rack of your oven. Roast the pecans for 11 minutes if using whole pecans and 10 minutes if you’re using pieces. Bring the slightly darkened and toasty-smelling pecans out of the oven and hit them with the remaining salt. Let them cool 5 minutes before you eat them. These will keep for 7 days in an airtight container at room temperature.