The Healthy My Ass Cookbook

THE Cheese Ball

An arrogant yet tasty addictive cheese ball or disc.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Let the Cream Cheese and even the Sharp Cheddar Cheese Spread, if sealed, soften at room temperature.  Meanwhile, as Jill's mom says, cut the cheese...into small pieces, the American Cheese slices that is.

Blend the cream cheese and cheese spread with the Milk and Garlic Powder using a hand mixer.  Then on low speed, stir in the American cheese pieces and the Roasted Pecans, if incorporating rather than coating, until uniformly incorporated but not blended in beyond recognition.

Shape into your desired shape and sprinkle with the Paprika.  If you did not incorporate the nuts, coat the outside of the shape with them.

Serve at room temperature with Triscuits.

Freezes well.

Notes:

This cheese ball is a tradition at the Rubin family holiday events and oddly Jill's mother, Mrs. Rubin, incorporated the nuts and shaped it like a Frisbee or large hockey puck rather than the more traditional ball rolled in the nuts.  If you want to serve it in the Aul/Rubin tradition, you must also serve it on Triscuits, Original flavor.

Jill's recipe from her mother called for Kraft American Cheese and given the age of the recipe I assume it is their real American cheese and not their non-cheese Kraft Singles.  It also called for Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Kraft Olde English Cheese slices.  When the latter disappeared from store shelves, Jill started using Kraft Old English Sharp Cheddar Cheese Spread and less milk.  Now that product is nearly impossible to find or too costly from the internet and according to the ingredients on Kraft's own web page for the product, any Sharp Cheddar Cheese Spread will do.  Finally, Jill prefers smoked Paprika and she uses chopped Walnuts that the original recipe called for, but I prefer pecans and in particular my Roasted Pecans.