Yeh, I could’ve bought a jar or two of the cheez product made by that large, no-doubt friendly, multi-national down the street, but, much as with The Cheeez of Threes, it turns out that making it yourself is pretty darned simple, and then you get to decide what spices to add and how much.
I like that in a cheese sauce/spread/blend.
I also like that I could use cottage cheese in place of the higher-fat cream cheese called for in other recipes; winning!
INGREDIENTS
•1 to 1-1/4 cup shredded cheddar*
•2 tbsp hot green chiles, drained
•1/4 cup cottage cheese
•1/4 tsp sugar
•1/4 tsp dry mustard
•1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1/4 tsp garlic powder
•1/4 tsp onion powder
•1/4 cup milk
•1 tsp sherry peppers sauce
*Use whichever cheese you prefer; a nice Pepper Jack would give you a decent bite and you wouldn’t need to add the chiles. I started with one cup of cheese, but added an additional 1/4 cup at the end, mebbe because of the residual liquid in the chiles, or mebbe because I’d used cottage cheese. Turned out perfectly.
Combine the cottage cheese with the spices in a food processor and pulse until the cheese is creamy.
Add one cup of the cheddar cheese and chiles and pulse to blend well.
Place the milk in a small, ‘wave-safe container with a wooden skewer in it (the skewer breaking the surface of the milk will help to keep it from super heating in the ‘wave), then ‘wave for 30 to 45 seconds.
Add the milk to the cheese in the processor and blend until the sauce/spread/blend is smooth.
Give it a taste. I thought mine could still use a little sumpin’ sumpin’, so added a teaspoon of my sherry peppers sauce. You could use your favorite hot sauce, if you like, or mebbe even a bit of mustard and/or horseradish.
Another bonus of making it yourself.
The sauce/spread/blend will thicken as it cools, but I thought another 1/4 cup of cheese wouldn’t hurt, and it didn’t.
One, fine sauce/spread/blend.