Cheese Ball

Every Christmas when I was growing up my parents made cheese balls. I remember the big balls of sticky cheese, that no longer resembled cheese, being rolled in nuts. In later years I was probably the one who chopped the nuts, not with a knife but in a jar that had 2 blades that crossed in the center and were attached to a plunger. You had to press the plunger down about 3 million times to get nuts that were so unevenly chopped that some nut pieces were pounded into powder and some were still whole. But that did not matter because the end results tasted so good.

Flash forward to this weekend. My wife was in the musical Godspell. If you have seen it you will realize all the cast is on stage most of the time and most of them have more than 1 part (at least when you are doing a small church production). They decided to have a cast party and each member would bring a dish to represent on of their characters. One of my wife's characters was from a parable about sowing seeds. Well I right away I thought I would make a multi grain bread with seeds on top. As the party got closer several people announced they were making bread. Time to change plans. Google seed recipes. What comes up...cheese balls. Time to engage the brain, what was in those sticky balls rolled in nuts? Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion salt, cream cheese and cheddar I think.

Cheese Ball
8 oz Sharp Cheddar, the sharper the better, shredded
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Enough chopped nuts and seeds to cover the ball of cheese, I used sunflower seeds and pecans I would guess about 1/2 cup total I did not measure.

Chop the nuts and place in a pie pan.
Put all ingredients except the nuts in a food processor. Mix until combined. I thought the cheese looked a little dry so I added a tablespoon of mayonnaise. Then roll the cheese mixture into a ball. After the cheese is rolled into a ball, take the ball and roll it in the nuts. Refrigerate the ball for a couple of hours. The cheese ball has more flavor when it is at room temperature so take it out of refrigerator at least 1/2 hour before serving.