FCG: Larrupin' Good Sweet Potatoes and Cheese Ball 11/22/04

Thanksgiving greetings gang! The time swiftly approaches. As I logged in to write this gang offering, I discovered an e-mail from Erin of our group requesting a cheese ball recipe. How great is that timing? Anyhow, some of my family had an early Thanksgiving Day dinner last night because a lot of the fam will be out of town on Thursday. Family potlucks are great because you have a roomfull of guinea pigs that you can try new stuff on. This year my experiment was two-fold: a cheese ball and a vegetable. The Hot Pepper Cheese Ball recipe comes from Allrecipe.com and the Larrupin Good Sweet Potatoes comes from The Sweet Potato Queen's Big-Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner). Both are worth doing in my opinion, though if I do that cheese ball again, I will probably add some crushed red pepper flakes because it really wasn't the hottest Hot Pepper Cheese Ball I've ever had. I also may cut back on the sugar in the Larrupin Good Sweet Potatoes recipe--I had potatoes that were REALLY sweet to start with, but then again, sweet potatoes are just a lesson in turning a vegetable into candy anyhow, aren't they? No marshmallows on these ones, though, which for me is a plus. (I'm not fond of the melty marshmallow yam thing, though I will eat it. I need to be more discriminating or I won't be able to fit in my pants any more.) Happy Thanksgiving gang, however you spend it. Enjoy! -- Devon

Hot Pepper Cheese Ball

1 8-oz package cream cheese
1 cup shredded Cheddar (you could maybe substitute pepper jack for this for more of a kick)
1 cup shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar
1 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
1/4 tsp onion powder (I used onion salt because that's all I had, so now we'll all die from sodium poisoning)
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 TBSP mayonnaise
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chopped pecans (I left these out: not a fan of nutty cheese)

In a large bowl, mix everything together except the nuts. Cover and chill it for an hour. Then take the cheese goo out and roll it into a ball (or whatever shape you want, really: there's no food police going to arrest you for making a cheese triangle if you want) and then roll the ball (shape) in the pecans. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Larrupin Good Sweet Potatoes

Boil enough sweet potatoes to end up with 3 cups of mashed ones. I think about three sweet potatoes will do it. Boil with the skins on: attempting to skin uncooked sweet potatoes is an exercise in extreme frustration as it's akin to skinning a brick. If, however, you boil them up, the skins literally slide right off. They're done when you can stick a fork into them easily, just like regular potatoes.

To your three cups of cooked, mashed sweet potatoes, add the following:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 stick butter
1 "running-over teaspoon" of vanilla (a little more than a teaspoon, just like it sounds)
1 dash of salt (keeps it from tasting "flat")

Stir that up and taste it. If it needs more sugar, add that. It just needs to be however you like it. You do need to taste it before you finish cooking it, though, because next you add:
2 eggs
and you don't want to be eating raw egg stuff, especially not warmed up raw eggs in sweet potatoes because that just gets the bacteria all super-poisonous but doesn't cook it to death. Stir the eggs in with the sweetened-enough potatoes and then top it with the following mixture:

1 cup dark brown sugar (I used light, but I can see how dark would be luscious)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
1 cup pecan pieces

Mix these all up well and sprinkle over the top of the potatoes. You can also add 1 cup coconut to this (I did my pan - 8x8" by the way - half and half, and the coconut half disappeared first: just decide if you want cocount or no). Bake for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. Spoon up and enjoy.