It’s National Cheeseball (or Cheese Ball) Day!!!!

Photo by Michelle H. (mishnpow)

By Gail P. (TinkerPirate)

Yup, it’s a holiday. But, it’s a holiday surrounded in mystery.

You can google National Cheeseball Day and there are loads of sites that talk about it. But, none of them identify who started it or why or even the year it was first celebrated. And, then there is the whole mystery of how it became a “national” holiday. There’s no record of Congress naming it or setting aside April 17^th as National Cheeseball Day. The final mystery is what is really being celebrated! There are 3 different kinds of cheeseballs:

1. An airy puff of cheese-flavored nothingness to be munched upon whilst watching basketball leaving your fingers tips, lips, and likely the arms of the sofa roughly the same color as said basketball.
2. A spherical structure of cheese often decorated with nuts, herbs, and/or spices, typically surrounded by teeny, tiny crackers, and often impaled with a dull, short-bladed knife with a handle reminiscent of whatever holiday is being celebrated.
3. A guy who says really stupid stuff in an attempt to “get lucky” not realizing the really stupid stuff he says is exactly what is keeping him a virgin.

As Grammie to a soon-to-be 17 year old grandson, I prefer the 3^rd definition, but that’s not what the holiday is actually about. And, since I HATE basketball (I’d rather chew tin-foil than listen to the sound tennies make on the wood floor), I’ll ignore definition #1. Which leaves us now with the one kind of cheeseball I happen to know a lot about and take a lot of family flack for.

I LOVE CHEESEBALLS! I love the fact that they are full of surprises! What is encased in that layer of pecans or cracked pepper or paprika or oregano??? Is it going to be a white cheese or a yellow cheese? Will it be cream cheese alone or will there be a mixture of grated cheeses? Is it just cheese on the inside or cheese AND something else…..like BACON!!!!! Then, there’s the anticipation about way the cheese spreads. Will the cheese be soft and flow smoothly over the cracker or is it going to be hard…too hard for the teeny, tiny crackers? I hate that…..the cracker snaps as I try to spread the cheese and you end up with cheese all over my fingers and a cracker half that flew across the table landing in my mother-in-law’s lap. Lastly, how will the cheese taste? Will it be sharp, will it be salty, will it be sweet, will it be earthy? I think you are getting the picture about why my family kids me about my obsession with cheeseballs! And, yes, I do own a complete set of dull, short-bladed knives with handles for every holiday, so just get over it already!

But, enough about me……here’s an easy cheeseball recipe for you to make, share, and celebrate National Cheeseball Day:

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese

12 slices of lean bacon

3 scallions

1/3 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (use the kind that are in the jar with oil)

Cracked pepper

1 snack-size bag of cheeseballs

1. Let the cream cheese sit on the kitchen counter for at least an hour before you start.
2. Fry the bacon until it is crisp and then crumble it into pieces.
3. Wash and dry the scallions. Cut the root end off and trim the green end to about 4 inches. Then thinly slice (including the green part).
4. Drain the oil of the sundried tomatoes and pat dry. Chopped them into a course chop.
5. Place the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer (or by hand if you have a really strong wrist and forearm) until it is smooth, creamy, and kind of fluffy.
6. Mix in crumbled bacon, sliced scallions, and chopped sundried tomatoes.
7. Season with fresh cracked pepper to taste.
8. Form the mixture into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.
9. About an hour before you are ready to serve the cheeseball, remove it from the refrigerator.
10. Smash the contents of the cheeseball bag, unwrap the cheeseball from the plastic wrap, and roll the cheeseball in the smashed cheeseballs.
11. Place on a plate, surround with teeny, tiny crackers, and stab it with a dull short-bladed knife….preferably with a handle that looks like a cheeseball.

If you are looking for more recipes with cheese, try out some of these books available through PaperBackSwap.

Fondues from Around the World: Nearly 200 Recipes for Fish, Cheese and Meat Fondues, Oriental Hot Pots, Tempura, Sukiyaki, Dessert Fondues
Author: Eva Klever, Ulrich Klever

The Cheese Course
Author: Janet Fletcher

Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cookbook
Author: Kraft Kitchens

Grilled Cheese & More
Author: Louis Weber, Glenn Fuller, Shaughnessy MacDonald

Cheese: How to Choose, Serve and Enjoy
Author: Sunset Books

Who Cut the Cheese: A Cultural History of the Fart
Author: Jim Dawson

Tags: Book Suggestions, Members

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 at 12:23 am and is filed under Holidays and Special Dates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.