Pimento Cheese

Bacon-Pimento Green Chile Cheese

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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.

A party loaf you can still make today. (courtesy Betty Crocker)

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:

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FRIDAY FISH: Shrimp-Green Chile Pimento Cheese

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This year, when I began to dream about FRIDAY FISH recipes for Lent, I realized that while I hadn’t run out of fish and seafood ideas after fourteen years of food blogging, I did need to do a little planning to make sure I didn’t get seven special company meals or even five fish sandwiches and two seafood chowders. So I jotted down a few ideas (click on the photo at left), wondering if it made sense to go with one soup, one appetizer, one sandwich, and so on. To even things out a bit. I could have made a list of salmon, crab, canned tuna, cod, tilapia, flounder…and that would have been fine, too. But so far, my little dreaming note has worked, though there are only 5 dishes listed to date. Ok, then. I’ll still be thinking.

Ash Wednesday and Lent 2023: WHY DO PEOPLE FAST?/VOX

The thought of stirring a slew of chopped shrimp into my green chile-pimento cheese was born because there was a bag of frozen cooked shrimp in my garage freezer that needed using. I couldn’t imagine shrimpy pimento cheese could be anything but luscious — also versatile — and at the very first turn, I knew I’d struck gold. Shrimp Green Chile-Pimento Cheese is an easy (if not simple) appetizer or sandwich spread or omelet filling that makes a generous quart so you can freeze a pint for the next time friends come to dinner or when you need something to take in the car cooler to have with crackers and a cold beer in the hotel room. My seasoning leaves you with a brief smiley buzz in the mouth but you can ramp that up by doubling the crushed red pepper or adding Tabasco. To decide on your heat level, think about how you’ll use this cheese. Bread will dumb down the heat if you’re making a sandwich but should you dip it up with celery sticks or cucumber rounds, you’ll witness lots more warmth. Your choice.

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It’s Too Hot to Cook. So Don’t. (plus what I’m missing/not missing)

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just add #rosé or a cold beer

CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT CORNER: Kalamata olives, hummus, potato chips, tortilla chips, sliced cucumbers, Triscuit Thin Crisps, sweet cherries, Green Chile-Pimento cheese, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, guacamole, and onion dip.

Americans, in the heavy heat of summer, are known for flocking to cold-cold air-conditioned restaurants for dinner–and staying a while. Maybe a long while. (Like until it cools off at home.) I mean, who’s going to turn that stove on when it’s that warm? Even if you have AC (and a lot of Americans do), it makes no sense to make that blessed machine work any harder now, does it? In Covid-Time, though, quite a few of us are still not going to restaurants–at least not to sit inside. We may do drive-throughs or pick-ups, but restaurant dining rooms are still kinda high up on the scale of risk factors. In some places, they’re closed again. Let’s face it, I’m thinking it almost sounds as if it’s not quite worth it, despite my desperately wanting to support my fave local eateries. And even if we do go, we can’t stay there; that’s only fair. There are fewer tables and, in restaurant parlance, “They need to turn.” In other words, you need to eat and git. Drink and run. Maybe, until a few more things move around, it’s still better to spend most dinnertimes at home. Yeah. As in the past four months.

Save Restaurants — read up here.

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Green Chile Pimento Cheese

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A love affair with Pimento Cheese begins, ends, and begins again at will in my house. Sometimes it’s months or a year or two in between dalliances. And then it’s over and over and over again plain old, plain old just like it always tastily was or sometimes it arrives in new captivating disguises like CHICKEN-PIMENTO CHEESE PATTY MELTS with Grilled Broccoli with Sriracha Sour Cream from the summer of 2017 here on More Time at the Table.

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