There are times that, even with a very well stocked cheese drawer, you find yourself in need of a dairy product that melts really nicely. My pimiento cheese melts pretty well on burgers, but the cheddar loses a bit of it’s creaminess as it melts – fine for a burger, but not so great in a queso. This was one of those times – a time, indeed, when I would normally reach for that friendly yellow box on my grocer’s shelves.
Not so much anymore.
When I first made this truly kinda amazing and cunning cheez food stuff, I noted how easily it could be customized – made spicier, hotter, even milder, if that’s your thing, by switching up the cheese and mebbe adding a thing or two. I also noted how easily the recipe ingredients were divided into threes for ease of running through the blender.
What I didn’t note was the fact that, with only four ingredients (and one of them water) – the rather large hunk of WonderCheeez you’ve made will not have as long a shelf-life as that friendly yellow box.
Hmmm.
Easily divisible into thirds, is it?
Why not just cut the recipe down, thus making less WonderCheeez to get all green and fuzzy (and not in a good way) in the fridge?
And, why not play around with some of the flavor enhancements I’d considered when making that original big block o’ nicely meltable dairy product?
And so, here we are:
INGREDIENTS
•8 oz grated cheese – I used pepper jack
•1/2 cup almost boiling water
•3 tbsp nonfat dry milk
•1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin
I also added:
•1/2 tsp Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Sauce
Grate the cheese (I used my Cuisinart) and set aside.
Add the nonfat dry milk and unflavored gelatin to the bottom of a blender container, then pour the very hot water over and blend until the gelatin has dissolved. Scrape down the sides and then add the grated cheese.
Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
At this point, I decided that my WonderCheeez could use an extra bit of ZIP! – so I chose to add a bit of my old standby Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce, but you could also use Tabasco (our current fave is the Tabasco Chipotle).
WonderCheeez blended smooth and flavored to my liking, it was time to finish it off.
Line a small-ish container with plastic wrap, leaving enough overhanging to seal the WonderCheeez – I used a 7-inch Spanish tapas dish, which worked a treat.
Turn the WonderCheeez into the container, fold the extra plastic wrap over to seal, pressing down lightly to compact the WonderCheeez and spread it out to the edges.
Pop into the fridge overnight to allow the WonderCheeez to set.
When you’re ready to use, remove from the container and unwrap – you’ll have a smoothly textured disc o’ dairy product that’ll be as zippy as you like and melt like a dream.
This friendly looking little disc is scheduled to be ‘waved with some salsa to become a very nice queso and passed with some chips for our game night tomorrow evening.
I doubt I’ll have to worry about any leftovers to go bad…