{"id":6819,"date":"2018-11-12T15:32:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T15:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/?p=6819"},"modified":"2018-11-12T23:28:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T23:28:27","slug":"amandas-real-super-fancy-balls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/12\/amandas-real-super-fancy-balls\/","title":{"rendered":"Amanda’s Real Super Fancy Balls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Balls people.\u00a0 So many balls.\u00a0 Amanda’s balls to be specific.\u00a0 Cheese balls you dirty birds!\u00a0 I see you out there.\u00a0 It was play time in the kitchen yesterday and we made cheese balls.\u00a0 We like them so much that we’re going to do an array of them for Friends Giving.<\/p>\n

For what?\u00a0 Friends Giving.\u00a0 It’s the Thanksgiving dinner we have with our chosen families on the Saturday after the regular event.\u00a0 Last year, Hubs and I had to move the living room furniture out onto the patio to make room for about 20 people.\u00a0 Same this year.\u00a0 We’ll hobble together a bunch of tables and odd chairs and smoke a couple of turkeys.\u00a0 But that’s for another post.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to post specific recipes for cheese balls, but rather give a list of what went into each one.\u00a0 We did it by taste and so should you.\u00a0 Cheese balls are like pizza toppings….some people like a little, some people like a lot.\u00a0 Or none at all.\u00a0 It’s all up to you.\u00a0 Don’t fret!\u00a0 Just get out lots of tasting spoons.\u00a0 Pick out your favorite ingredients and load up on them.\u00a0 I’ve never made a cheese ball before, but Amanda has me sold.\u00a0 We shredded and chopped and diced and toasted while making a giant mess and it was exactly what I needed.<\/p>\n

First up….the classic herbed cheese ball.\u00a0 This was a cheese mix of cream cheese, fine shredded gouda and jarlesberg and three herbs….chives, rosemary, and sage and she tossed in some smooshy roasted elephant garlic.\u00a0 Simple and delicious and extremely versatile as a go to cheese ball for the beginning of any meal.<\/p>\n

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Next was the bacony ball.\u00a0 The cheese mix was cream cheese, pepper jack, and gouda.\u00a0 To that we added diced oven dried tomatoes, fine sliced green onions, crispy chopped bacon, roasted garlic, chopped buttery castelvetrano olives, chopped sage, and it was rolled in toasted pine nuts and chopped rosemary.\u00a0 I could have eaten it as a meal.\u00a0 It’s exciting in your mouth and hearty in a very satisfying way.<\/p>\n

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Then there was the dried fruit.\u00a0 I like to keep dried fruit for cheese platters, so why not make a cheese ball?\u00a0 The cheese mix was an even amount each of goat cheese and cream cheese.\u00a0 To that we added chopped dried pears, cherries, and cranberries and then I mixed in a spoonful of quince jam and rolled it in chopped toasted pecans and dried cranberries.\u00a0 It tasted like Fall…warm and not too sweet.<\/p>\n

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My personal favorite…if I was forced to pick one…was the lavender pepper ball.\u00a0 I mean, it brought a tear to my eye.\u00a0 The cheese mix was goat cheese with a little cream cheese.\u00a0 To that we added a spoonful of meadowfoam honey, some lavender flowers, and some crushed pink peppercorns.\u00a0 And it’s just so pretty to look at.\u00a0 I’ll be making that one a lot.\u00a0 Perhaps weekly.\u00a0 Just for me.\u00a0 And I won’t share it either.<\/p>\n

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Lastly, the dessert.\u00a0 Because there always has to be dessert.\u00a0 There does!\u00a0 This was pure cream cheese blended with powdered sugar, vanilla, chopped white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and a touch of lavender flowers.\u00a0 We rolled it in a mix of the chopped cookies and chopped Biscoffs that I keep in the house for Diane when she comes for tea.\u00a0 I wasn’t sure about this one…it seemed kind of all over the place.\u00a0 Mind blowing!\u00a0 That tiny bit of lavender at the end brings it all together and the choice to use white chocolate was spot on.<\/p>\n

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Balls people.\u00a0 So many balls.\u00a0 Amanda’s balls to be specific.\u00a0 Cheese balls you dirty birds!\u00a0 I see you out there.\u00a0 It was play time in the kitchen yesterday and we made cheese balls.\u00a0 We like them so much that we’re going to do an array…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":[],"wprm-recipe-roundup-description":[],"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_20181112_151103660_HDR.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pagICo-1LZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6819"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6876,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6819\/revisions\/6876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}