Pimento Cheese

This recipe came from a local restaurant that has since closed. You can use jarred pimentos or make your own.

Ingredients

Directions

Add mayonnaise and lemon juice to a mixing bowl and whisk until combined. Add grated cheese and pimentos and mix until ingredients are distributed. This stuff benefits greatly from being prepared in advance and overnighting in the fridge. Serve any dang way you want… just make sure you’re on good terms with your room mate if you choose “finger in bowl, finger to mouth” as your serving method.

Making your own Pimentos:
Pimentos are just roasted red peppers. If you want to make your own, just roast quartered red peppers in the oven (375° or so), skin side up, until the skin chars a little. Take them out of the oven and throw into a plastic baggie. After the bag steams up and sits for a minute, the skins will slide right off. Then just dice ‘em up.

Parmesan Crackers

I found this recipe in the local paper and they’ve become a hit both at home and at the office. They are amazing with pimento cheese or just on their own. You can substitute almost any hard white cheese; asiago, romano, etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Heat oven to 400°. Mix the flour, cheese, and butter with a food processor until blended. Add the cream/half-and-half and mix until the the dough balls up.

The trickiest part of this recipe is the rolling of the dough and the transferring of the dough to the baking sheet. Here’s how I worked that out:

First I get a piece of wax paper that’s the same size as my baking sheet. I tape this to my counter, spread a little flour on the paper an work the dough by hand until it’s roughly rectangular and about a half-inch thick. Sprinkle a little more flour on top and then proceed to roll the dough as thin as you possibly can. Lightly dust the baking sheet with flour. Carefully remove the tape from the wax paper and transfer the dough to the baking sheet, dough side down. Peel off the wax paper and ta daa! transfer achieved!

Score the dough with a pizza cutter into 1- to 1 1/2-inch squares. Sprinkle with coarse salt and bake 10-12 minutes or until the thinnest crackers are golden brown.

You can experiment with both the cheese and the sprinkles. We’ve successfully used romano and asiago cheeses instead of parmesan. Tried cheddar, but the higher oil content kept them from getting as crisp and flaky. Sprinkles can be pepper, sesame seeds, poppy seeds or minced garlic.

White Chocolate Popcorn

This recipe comes to us from our St. Louis Cardinals fan, Mrs. Elizabeth Steiner Kullmann. It’s easy to make and has become a favorite of several of our friends.

Ingredients

Directions

Pop popcorn. Empty into large bowl.

Melt chocolate in microwave, according to brand instructions.

Pour melted chocolate over popcorn. Mix well. Store tightly covered.