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Little Party Nibbles: Retro Cheese balls and Lights dancing in the Night.

Everyone has their own favourite cheese ball.  I am willing to bet that you all have a tried and true recipe. They do not need to be elaborate when you use good quality ingredients and  chill for at least a few hours for the flavours to exchange. We keep  the flavours to a minimum so that the clean taste of the cheese is allowed to shine.  I make variations of this all through the summer with labneh which is a homemade  yoghurt cheese that is very easy to make. 

Celi’s Cheese Ball

  • 1 packet of cream cheese or 2 cups labneh.
  • 1/4 cup of tomato sauce, I used the tomat conserva that I made this summer.
  • 1/3 cup chopped spring onions
  • 1/3 cup chopped good ham
  • 2 cloves of garlic mashed.

I was going to roll this in rosemary and cracked black pepper, but then I forgot!

I serve this on crostini or some robust crackers, there is nothing worse than a disintegrating cracker. Now, we remember that the party rule is, small and simple to eat, so  pipe a little cheese ball mixture onto the tiny cracker or crostini and top with a tiny curl of chilled spring onion.

To make your little spring onion curls, slice your green (spring) onions longways and then across in 2 inch lengths. Separate the slithers of onion.  Submerge them  in a bowl of  icy cold chilled water. After a while they will curl up quite delightfully.

Mums cheese ball was  quite different. No onion here.

Mums cheese ball.

  • 1 package Cream Cheese
  • Finely chopped dried apricots
  • Finely chopped dates
  • Finely chopped walnuts

Roll in almond chips.

For those of you who cannot eat nuts just omit them. It is still a lovely surprising collection of tastes.   Mums favourite snack was a slice of tasty cheese on a slice of apple so you can see that this mixture was an easy jump for her.

I was writing this last night and realised it was time to go outside and finish up in the barn. I sat on the stool in the kitchen to pull on my warm clothes.  I sent TonTon off to find my gloves, he found them and brought them to me one by one, then stole them back off my lap and gave them to me again.  He did the same with my top pair of socks and my hattie but is fairly useless at getting my big wugga jacket down off the hook inside the basement door, so he just stared at it until I got it down myself.  When he heard the zip going up, he retrieved the flashlight from its corner by the door (it has a convenient handle for dogs) and stood watching his own reflection in the french doors, waiting.  I took the torch and turned it on and we proceeded outside into the cold and across the grass to the barn.  We wrapped Big Dog up in his two eiderdowns, (he was waiting in his bed of straw) said ni night to Daisy and Queenie (the sheep were still outside), checked the water, the feed, the doors and the baby chicks and then turned off the big barn lights.  It was very dark.

I shut and latched the old barn doors behind me and turning I saw a light running to and fro out in a field, across the grass, around the back of the rat house, past the chook house. The light leapt and nodded through the fence, over the gate and then this ghostly wavering searching light jaggedly made its way  back towards me, randomly catching trees and fence posts and cameos of surprised cats in its white beam.

TonTon the BonBon had run off with my flashlight.  But was bringing it back. He had never done this before so I stood out in the cold with my blimp layers on, all alone under the stars and laughed out loud.  He gave me back the torch, looked a bit disappointed when I declined to throw it for him to fetch,  then we both trotted back to the warm house and our beds. 

c

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97 responses to “Little Party Nibbles: Retro Cheese balls and Lights dancing in the Night.”

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  2. Celi, you run the risk of having all of us want to move in with you! This was like a page out of heaven for me! I love Border Collies – it looks like Bon Bon had that pedigree. I had one as a child and it was my guide, my friend, my protector. He was always “thinking ahead of me”.

    PLUS, all this delicious food. I hope you encourage the world to really look at itself and get honest about how we are living! I really love your blog!

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    • I just said to john the other day that our weather has been so settled, usually we have had a few storms by now, of course as it gets colder lightening is less likely.. so i guess TonTon was making up for it!!

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  10. First-time visitor here … and thanks for the recipes. Interestingly, last night my wife and I went to an event (20-24 people) where we divided into groups, made appetizers (and one dessert) to share with everyone … and wine included. 🙂 …. a great time and we also met many nice people! … and thanks for visiting my site.

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      • Actually liked everything as we had the following:
        Goat cheese terrine with almonds and spring onions
        Chicken meatballs with hoisin dipping sauce
        Mini new potatoes stuffed with cranberry and red wine braised beef
        Brie and rosemary almond chutney phyllo parcels
        Mini crabcakes with remoulade sauce
        Crimini mushrooms stuffed with herbed risotto
        Spiced bread pudding with a brandy whipped cream

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  11. You know me and anything cheesy! 😉

    TonTon shows his incredible cleverness once again! Now you’ll probably have to get him to take the torch and do a bit of evening dancing with Mia. You’ll be back in full theatrical production in no time! Although if he resists herding the sheep, Mia might have to lead. She seems up to the task.

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