Re: A Saturday Afternoon Snack 12/14/2024 😋

On 2024-12-14, Jill McQuown <j_mcquown@comcast.net> wrote:

Forgive me if I forgot, but what is "Christmas cheese"?

I first divulged the "secret recipe" in 2011 with a reply to sf.
Here it is.

--

But in the spirit, I'll now divulge "Laura's Christmas Cheese". It has
been produced and distributed for sixty years to family and friends by
mom, then me. It was my mother's recipe and a big secret. Whenever I
croak, I'd like my friends to find it online.

1 pound Gorgonzola
1 pound Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1/4 pound salted butter
1 very heaping teaspoon minced and rinsed yellow onion (use a food
processor if you have it to chop it finely)
2 medium cloves of garlic crushed (I use a garlic press)
10 to 14 shakes of Tabasco
8 shakes of Worstershire

Yeah, shakes. These are hefty shakes, not taps or drips. FWIW, it's hard
to get wrong.

Crumble the gorgonzola, add the cream cheese and butter and start the
mixer[1] on one of the lower settings until you can kick it up to more
than medium. Whir it for a couple of minutes and stop it. Add the rest
of the ingredients and start the mixer at your last used setting until
everything is blended well[2]. Put in suitable containers [8 oz or
better] and give them out. The recipe scales well. I start out with 4
pounds of gorgonzola and 4 times the other ingredients.
This is great with wheat thins. I suppose there are other uses, but I've
never been able to get past the wheat thins. If you don't like blue
cheese, you won't like this. I've personally made it for a quarter
century. It'll last for more than a month in a clean container. The
better the gorgonzola, the better the cheese spread[3].


[1] Mom used a powerful Sunbeam mixer. I use a KitchenAid with beater
blade. A food processor isn't optimal in my experience for the actual
mixing of the cheese. It's just OK.
[2] Do not refrigerate the blended cheese before putting in containers.
It will get stiff and hard to work with.
[3] The cream cheese and butter quantities give a good base for a
cheddar spread too, using one pound of cheddar. I'd discourage using the
rest of the ingredients unless you know what you're doing and more than
I do. Maybe sweet wine/sugar. I made a cheddar spread once. It was OK
but not giftable.

leo