Technicolor Day

Perfect Food

• Buy cream cheese in block form, it's cheaper. Buy a few at a time, if they are still in their tinfoil wrapper, they'll stay fresh for a few weeks. (learned the hard way--don't freeze and expect the consistancy to be the same. still works well in recipes, though) You can also buy Nufchatal cheese, which might be slightly cheaper, and is lower fat or something, but the taste is basically the same. Buy the plain lable kind whichever you get, the plan is to save money here.
• Plan ahead: When you want to flavor the cream cheese, it will need to sit out on the counter for a while ahead of time. Plan a couple-three hours. Leave it in the wrapper and in the box. If you forget about it, or change your mind, you can put it back in the fridge and it will still be ok (I'm talking hours, here, NOT days!)
• You'll need to decide what flavor-type you are headed for. The two types are 'sweet' and 'not-sweet'. I am in the 'not-sweet' catagory, as far as cream cheese is concerned, as you probably realized since I'm putting said cream cheese on triskits which are salty. But if you like it sweet, please, be my guest.
• Since we started with a block and want to make it spreadable, we'll need to add some liquid. Depending on if you went sweet or 'not-sweet' there are several things you could use for the liquid. Sweet: Honey, Milk, Jam, Maple Syrup, Chocolate Syrup, Apple Butter, Fruit Juice. Not-Sweet: Ranch dressing, Blue Cheese dressing, Any dressing, Barbeque sauce, Milk, Hot Sauce, Olive Juice, Mustard, Tomato Juice or sauce.
• Now for the dry goods. Pick for Sweet: fruit, nuts, chocolate chips, candy sprinkles, mini-marshmellows, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, any combination. Not-Sweet: Cajun spice, Garlic or Garlic Powder (better yet--both!), Olives, Onions or Onion Powder, Ramen Packet (we have a lot of that at our house-Eleven could eat Ramen every meal for a week!), Jalepenios, Pickle Relish, Bacon Bits, Tomatoes, Any Veggie, Any not-sweet cooking spice.
• Mix it all up, don't put in too much liquidy stuff or it'll be runny. (duh!) I mix it in a seperate bowl than the one I store it in, then the storage container looks nice.
• Put it back in the fridge. Eat whenever. On Triscuits preferrably. Oh P.S. to Impulsive Buy Guy: don't bother to review the new Olive Oil and Rosemary Triscuits. They suck big time.
  

posted by Unknown at 9:36 AM