My “Kicked Up Mo’ Healthy Pimento Cheese” Recipe

I am happy to work as a private chef for a family in Nashville …

… mine ! ;-)

We haven’t enjoyed eating out in restaurants for a long time.

I feel it’s that most restaurant food has diminished in quality over the last decade or so.

There are exceptions – like Fido’s in Nashville and the like –

But mostly, we enjoy spending time together in the kitchen cooking and eating together. It’s fun to smell up the house with something grilled !

It’s amazing how much fun that family time is, the great conversations and business ideas come about in that atmosphere. Lots of laughs and leaning too for everyone.

I have a particular passion for something that can be whipped out of a container quickly in the middle of the night when working over a hot computer keyboard and I’ve forgotten to eat … again ! Something a bit more substantial and not some snack in a bag.

I make some killer roasted honey almonds … and a honey roasted peanut cluster that I have to hide from the girls if I want it to last more than two days … we make our own snack bars, spiced nut mixes and candy bars … but sometimes I want some kick …

So I thought I would share my “Tony’s Kicked Up Healthy Pimento Cheese” recipe.

Any southerner is “plum nuts” about
pimento cheese !

Pimento cheese recipes are like potato salad recipes as they are as variant as the number of
folks who make it.

Here is mine:

Don’t spend a lot on pimentos – Pimentos are merely prepared red bell pepper.

The secret is – I grill mine on a cast iron grill pan.

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Tony Rollo Style Kicked Up Mo’ Healthy Pimento Cheese

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Ingredients:

2 cups grated cheese – 4 cheese mex mix from Sam’s Club

( traditionally, it’s sharp cheddar or the like – but the grilled red bell pepper gives it a kick enough – it’s easy to use the grated 4 cheese mix – you can go 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar and 1 and 1/2 cup mozzarella if yer hard up on finding anything else )

2/3 cup Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon mayo

2 tablespoons chopped chives

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

1/4 chopped cast iron grilled red bell pepper ( more or less to taste )

Optional – 1/8 chopped sweet onion & 1/8 of a green bell pepper cast iron grilled

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Preparation:

starting with the cheese – put everything in a glass mixing bowl …

mix with a cheap hand mixer on low until “sorta” smooth –

mix smooth or chunky depending on how ya like it

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That’s it – enjoy !

Try it on grilled bread – or use pretzel sticks to dip. Crackers are a good standby …

PS: We made a rare all day trip out today to explore around and went to Opry Mills Mall and around the Music Valley area. Hard to believe we hadn’t been there in a year – and only once since that terrible flood.

It was a really tough feeling looking at the torn down Roy Acuff (Gaslight?) Theater next to the new (well – newer than the Ryman) Opry House ! There were construction machines there and all that was left was the steel frame with like junk hanging off of it … sheesh … maybe they are considering rebuilding it ?

It was a great theater – better sounding than any theater in Nashville … it was (was) a GREAT facility … what the heck ? I can’t seem to find anyone who knows what the heck is going on with it …

No one seems to want to remember who Minnie Pearl was or Roy Acuff.

Gee – I remember sitting in the Grand Ole Opry backstage dressing room that Roy Acuff had and plunking on his piano. And being told by the daughter of one of the Opry’s regular entertainers how she would sit on Acuff’s knee as a little kid as he worked hi yo-yo between acts …

21st Century Nashville sucks as much as it is exciting …

Category: Tony Rollo Blog