I’m somewhat of a lazy appetizer maker. I readily concede it. I nearly always do make some something or other from scratch, pairing it with a bowl or two of nuts and maybe some high end potato chips. (My current chip crush is a Truffle one you can order on amazon. Shoot me if I’m wrong.) More often than not – scroll down to IF YOU LIKED THIS to prove my tale –I whip up a cheese spread of some sort. It’s easy; it holds if made ahead; it keeps and might even freeze if it’s leftover. Works out all around.
Over the past several years, I’ve gotten friendly with the, by now, very famous Lee Brothers Pimento Cheese (google it). Born to a southern-bred mama, I’m no stranger to pimento cheese, especially layered into a party loaf for a baby shower. But I don’t think I’d ever made it myself as a young cook, so was glad to rediscover it. While I liked the basic batch lots, I quickly began to play with it, as is my wont — not a popular thing to do in the south, where Pimento Cheese is serious business. Nonetheless, play with it I did, going all southwest (I do live and love in Colorado) with the addition of roasted green chiles and later on even adding shrimp. Oh no!! Oh yes!! I loved them all but yesterday, when my good friend Jim White was coming to dinner, I had everything for a pimento cheese spread of some sort but also had leftover crisply-fried bacon. I know; who has leftover bacon? Well, you know what happened. And, I couldn’t help but think, “Bacon for breakfast, bacon for lunch!!” You do remember the movie “Grumpier Old Men,” right? (If not, time to watch that and its predecessor. You missed out.) This movie has prime bacon dialog. If you haven’t seen it, Grandpa Gustafson was played by Burgess Meredith and John (Johnny) Gustafson was played by Jack Lemmon. Here’s the dialog:
Grandpa Gustafson: Well, let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?John Gustafson: Bacon.Grandpa Gustafson: Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now, according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should’ve took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I’m still here. Ha! And they keep dyin’. You know? Sometimes I wonder if God forgot about me. Just goes to show you, huh?John Gustafson: What?Grandpa Gustafson: Huh?John Gustafson: Goes to show you what?Grandpa Gustafson: Well, it just goes… what the hell are you talkin’ about?John Gustafson: Well, you said you drink beer, you eat bacon, and you smoke cigarettes, and you outlive most of the experts.Grandpa Gustafson: Yeah?John Gustafson: I thought maybe there’s a moral.Grandpa Gustafson: No, there ain’t no moral. I just like that story. That’s all. I like that story. (Grumpier Old Men, 1995)
And that, if for no other reason, is why there is now bacon in my green chile pimento cheese. But just to keep my southern family happy, I’ve changed the name around a little so it doesn’t end with “pimento cheese.” It leans southwestern now and I think you’ll like Bacon-Pimento Green Chile Cheese when you try this:
Bacon-Pimento Green Chile Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 pound (about 4 cups grated) Extra-sharp Cheddar cheese- coarsely grated
- 1/2 cup (4-oz) softened fresh goat or cream cheese
- 4 oz can (about 1/2 cup) mild, diced green chiles-drained well and pressed with paper towels to remove excess moisture
- 4 oz jar (about 1/2 cup) chopped pimentos-drained well and pressed with paper towels to remove excess moisture
- 3 scallions-thinly sliced
- 1 small, plump garlic clove, minced
- 5 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon –or less–Dijon-style mustard (optional)
- Pinch EACH: kosher salt + fresh ground pepper,
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- A few drops of hot sauce such as Tabasco (optional)
- 3 slices bacon, crisply fried and chopped finely or crumbled
Instructions
- Add all ingredients except bacon to the bowl of a standing electric mixer (or use a bowl with a handheld electric mixer or mix by hand if you're strong!) and mix first on low and then on medium for a minute or two until well-mixed, smooth, and spreadable. (Add a bit more mayo if too thick. Add the hot sauce if you'd like more heat.) Add the bacon and mix on low briefly. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with crackers or fresh veggies, toast points, tiny hot biscuits, grilled baguette, squishy white bread, or firm, thin slices of cornbread. Stir into scrambled eggs or use as an omelet filling. Spread on the bread for a BLT or layer on a bun for a grilled chicken sandwich. Dream on.Store tightly covered in the fridge for 3 days or freeze for up to a month. Thaw overnight in the fridge before serving.
Notes
CHANGING IT UP: The world is your oyster here but I would venture to say you can adjust the proportions of this recipe to suit your tastes or change out small elements. You might add more bacon but don’t overdo it; the pepper flavors are key. No bacon but maybe bits of salty Virginia ham? Skip the goat or cream cheese, if you like, though I like the creaminess these add. Use less or more heat. Try extra mayo if smoothness is your thing. Maybe a little bit of a different cheese for grating. Minced red onion rather than scallions. Add chopped, toasted pecans or a bit of finely chopped celery if crunchy is a goal or you need vegetarian. What else? Be brave. If unsure, try a tiny bit with the questionable additive or change and see what you think.
Don’t know from pimentos?
Pimentos are a certain sort of sweet red, heart-shaped pepper that is often roasted, chopped, and sold in jars that look like the pictures below. (They’re not pickled.) You might also recognize a pimento pepper when your green olives come stuffed with one! We do still grow some pimento peppers here in the U.S., but we also import them from other countries such as Spain. Sometimes, when I’m searching for them at the store, they seem to hide from me.
IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE MY:
Shrimp-Green Chile Pimento Cheese
Green Chile Chicken Cheeseburgers
LIFE GOES ON:
After a long hiatus from shower hosting, I gave a wedding shower last weekend for bride-to-be Anna Fogg (at my right above with friend Rebecca Garcia behind her), who will soon marry one of my favorite almost-grandkids, Joshua DeHart. So enjoyable and the food was, naturally, fun, too. If you’re interested, I did the sheet pan quiche (two kinds–one bacon and one green chile) along with two different scones (blueberry and smoked salmon) along with the ever-changing salad –all right here on the blog. A mimosa bar and a coffee bar made for easy help-yourself drinks and the groom’s grandma, my good friend Jeanne Patalano, baked a fab cake (below).
Our Joshua, the groom, was featured in a blog post long ago as a kid-baker! ( above, right)
(above) Sue me again for bad wildlife photography but I just had to share what was apparently the last day our scrub jay family was in my messy garden. They nested in very low bushes (“Unsafe!” said Alyce from the windows!!) and hence had to fight off the peskiest of predators, the magpies–who came in a frigging flock. Somehow, 3 baby birds servived and fledged! Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay info here.
Other families of robins and towhees (who figure prominently in our summers in Colorado) have lived to tell the tale in our yard this year and I got to watch the robin parents teaching their speckled-breasted young how to dig up my newly laid mulch to find food. Birds can be quite messy. Well, then; I have a broom, don’t I? I no longer hear the male towhee’s voice each time I walk out of the front door or garage and hence, I know summer is nearly over.
(above) Mom and fawn have visited regularly recently; it takes them quite a while to begin traveling around the neighborhood after birth. While deer eat all kinds of things, I’m grateful they rarely touch my herbs unless terribly hungry. They love the bushes (no lilac ever blooms in my yard) and the weeds, thanks God.
This big bad boy is afraid of nothing. And rightly so. He will walk down the middle of the street if he must but he prefers the dirt or grass. No matter how many times I see this, it is never boring.
We are soon off on a month-long journey to Japan, as I’ve mentioned in the last couple of posts. (Check out the maps there.) I may or may not get back to the blog before we leave…time will tell.
Until then, enjoy the last roses of summer, my friends. Make some cheese spread!
Alyce
PS: If you don’t follow me on fb, you miss fun like this:
Why one of these is larger than the other is beyond my technical skill level!!! I inadvertently deleted the original of the second photo and so then saved it from the fb page. Not only is it small, it’s blurry; it wasn’t blurry when I started 🙂 Well and hell. You get the idea anyway. In my next life, I won’t be a photographer. Cook some breakfast!