Screw the deceptiveness - I'm going all out semi homemade. I admittedly watch the food network even though I wouldn't eat even a small fraction of what the shows feature. Prime rib?? Blech. Scallops? No thanks. Oh and the occasional foie gras - urrp. And, too, most of the recipes are two complicated for my lazy tastes so I wouldn't waste my time. Until....
Sandra Lee.
Don't know who Sandra Lee is? She's not to be confused with Sandra Dee or Sarah Lee. She's an over stylized cooking cheater. And far be it from me to judge her for it. She has a formula for cooking - 3/4 store bought, 1/4 homemade or something like that. SOLD! That's right up my lazy ass alley. AND she makes cocktails!
My ears perked up at two recipes I listened to while folding towels ( I have a habit of listening to wacko religious conspiracy shows on the History channel or Food TV while I fold clothes). Meatballs and a cheese ball.
Oh lord. Not another cheese ball. no no no this one sounds ok. And I have no idea why I felt compelled to make these. But anyway here I go.
The meatballs were a piece o' cake! Get out the trusty crock pot, throw in frozen meatballs, catalina dressing, worschestire sauce, orange marmalade and red pepper flakes, stir, and heat for 3 hours. Done!
May sound weird but dang that sauce is GOOD!
The cheese ball was another story. Bad thing is, it sounds as easy as the meatballs but leave it to me to have some kind of problem. Apparently, I do not know how to soften cheese. I needed to soften 2 pks of cream cheese so I got it out of the fridge while I made some other stuff. Got all my other stuff done and went back to see the cheese - ok, felt soft to me so I stuck it in my food processor with the blue cheese to blend. That cream cheese bogged down my processor so that it made a sickly, whirly whine. Hmmm :-/ So what else do you do when you see that something isn't going quite right? You just keep holding down that blend button and see if it'll work itself out! It didn't and large ball of cream cheese was forming and just rolling around the top edge of the processor. What if I speed it up? Nope. The motor just sounded worse. The only thing I can think to do at this point is just leave it to soften some more - I'm thinking now that to soften means to WARM cheese. Oh.....got it now!
I came back in another 15 minutes or so and blend again - oh good, it worked! I do a few more pulses to make sure it all homogenous. Took the lid off and proceeded to dig out the blades...omg, the cheese glued down my blades! Imagine food processing a few containers of Elmer's glue. I had to go from the bottom to push them out but not before I left shards of my spatula in the cheese. Oops. ( Nothing like having to dig through cheese). Ugh! I finally got it all out, chilled, rolled in dates. It was pretty awesome. I don't have a finished product pic - it got devoured.
Now, you better eat it!
