supper tonight – 6.25.12 and 6.28.12 – pork (belly) ‘n’ beans – a guest post from Micah – plus 3-ingredient microwave chocolate cakes!

I was much too busy with Red Clay to help Micah cook dinner Monday night, so he whipped up an amazing (and very fancy) meal for us all on his own. I snapped some photos and told him his delicious supper would go up on the blog if he would write up a post about it. So he did, and here it is!

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Hi. I’m Tanya’s main squeeze Micah and her very first official guest blogger.

I’m also the resident cook/curer of all things carnivorous in our household and a dabbler in what Tanya has coined “boozy infusions.” These are simply booze that has been infused with something (preferably non-toxic) that you think it should taste more like. But I’ll go into further detail about those adventures in a future guest post.

The reason I’m writing is to tell you about this here dinner:

beauty and substance – a perfect combination

I’ve recently begun to discover my roots. In other words, I’ve become enamored with Southern cooking.

I’ve long had a taste for the tasty. But whenever I’d think about the great food cultures of the world, I’d think about French, Italian, authentic Mexican, Japanese, etc. Never did Southern cross my mind. Only recently have I discovered what has been right in front of my face (and in my mouth) my whole life.

This has a lot to do with the rise of our local celebrity chef, Hugh Acheson. I know Tanya has mentioned him before. He’s the man who has put Athens, Georgia on the culinary map. His specialty is Southern cuisine with a modern twist.

After we visited his restaurants and read his cookbook, A New Turn in the South, a lightbulb went off in my head. The South does have one of the finest food cultures in the world. In bridging the traditional cuisines of three continents (North America, Africa, and Europe), we Southerners have created something greater than the sum of its parts.

Sure, it’s been hijacked and bastardized by the Paula Deens of the world, but trailblazers like Hugh are taking it back. This makes for an exciting time to be a foodie in the South, and it has made me want to incorporate a little Southern charm into almost everything I cook.

Including the meal I’m telling you about here, which fancifies butter beans and quick pickles with a little bit of pork belly. Voila!

Wait, that’s French. Let’s try again.

Here it is, y’all: my Pork (Belly) ‘n’ Beans.

First, there are two things you’ll want to make ahead: pork belly confit (I followed these directions from Belly Love) and pickled beets (made following thismodernwife’s recipe). These’ll keep in the fridge for a while, so make them when you have time and keep ‘em around for this meal.

(As you can probably tell from the preceding recipes, and Tanya can confirm, I prefer to read things with lots of pictures.)

Ingredients:

• For the butter bean puree (you’ll have extra left over):
  • 2 cups dried butter beans or baby limas
  • 6 cups stock or broth
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
  • salt and pepper to taste
• Everything else:
  • two 2- to 3-ounce pieces of pork belly confit
  • 2-4 tablespoons pickled beets, sliced into thin strips
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped

What to do:

• Put beans, stock, onion, and garlic into a pressure cooker, slow cooker, or big pot. Cook until tender (about 30 minutes in a pressure cooker or several hours on the stove/in a slow cooker).
• Puree with a stick blender or in batches in the regular blender until smooth.
• Add cream, lemon juice, and paprika, plus salt and pepper to taste.
• Strain with cheesecloth or fine mesh strainer. (Bonus: The solids that are leftover make good bean dip.)
• Add the liquid back into a saucepan and cook on medium low heat to reduce it until it’s good and thick.
• The last step is to crisp up the pork belly. Add the pieces to a skillet over medium heat and cook each side until brown.
• To serve, ladle about ½ cup of butter bean puree onto each plate, add the pork belly, top with slivers of pickled beets, and garnish with parsley.
• Eat up!

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Tanya here again. I just want to reiterate how good this was! Micah and I usually work together in the kitchen, but this recipe was entirely his creation and entirely, mouthwateringly, perfectly delicious.

The best part? We had enough of all the fixins that, after having this meal Monday night with a tomato cucumber salad, there was still plenty for us to enjoy it again yesterday, this time with the last of my peach tomato gazpacho.

Oh, and for dessert? We made some fantastic 3-ingredient microwave chocolate cakes, thanks to Stephanie at a {modern} christian woman.

topped at the last minute with the remnants of a pint of
cherry vanilla Häagen-Dazs that we found hiding in the freezer

Gluten-free friends, these are made from egg, powdered sugar, and unsweetened cocoa, so you can enjoy them, too!

supper tonight – 5.29.12 – beet & carrot salad, couscous with lentils (plus a quick lunch with the leftovers)

Root vegetables.

They’re kind of amazing, if you think about it.

All you see above ground are stems and greens. Sometimes tasty, sometimes bitter. Sometimes edible, sometimes poisonous.

Who in our hunter-gatherer ancestry first mined the hidden gems that flourish underground? Who was first curious enough to discover that some plants have wiry tendrils for roots, while others stand on concealed, crisp, bulging nuggets of stored nourishment? Who was first brave or hungry or reckless or stupid enough to unearth and eat one of these mysterious fruits from the earth, willing to risk sickness or death for the sake of a strange thing that might–or might not–be food?

It’s easy to scout your garden for the perkiest basil leaves, the fluffiest fennel fronds, the plumpest strawberries, the tenderest figs.

But until you part the earth to release its buried root treasures, you won’t know whether your carrots are pretty and slender like a maiden’s fingers or knobby and hooked like a witch’s claws. You won’t know what shape your potatoes or yams have taken until they’re out of the soil and in your palm.

(You can estimate size, of course–pretty accurately, even–based on when you planted those veggies and what above-ground signals they’ve transmitted. But really, you will never know for sure until you hold those secrets in your hand.)

Here’s the other thing about root vegetables: you’ve got to work for them.

Fresh herbs? Snip a few sprigs as you need them. Fruit and berries? Pluck ‘em from the bush and enjoy. Quick, easy.

But with roots, the magic happens under the soil, and you can’t see it or hold it or taste it until you dig it up, unearth it, get a little grit and grime under your fingernails. Brave the worms and grubs and bugs, brave the mess, brave the unknown.

Carrots and beets? Prepare to get dirty. Prepare to scrub. Prepare for food that doesn’t really look like food at first, not until you’ve shined it up and shown the beauty underneath.

And once you’ve unearthed these treasures, please, do let them shine.

the (mostly) unadorned beauty of roots

Our salad, enjoyed warm, was simple: roasted beets and carrots tossed with crumbled feta and fresh parsley, drizzled with a cumin vinaigrette. The recipe comes from our favorite cookbook, Hugh Acheson’s A New Turn in the South, which I know I’ve written about plenty already. But it’s our favorite, so it’s hard not to cook from it as often as we do.

What’s in it (the cumin vinaigrette):

• 1 teaspoon grainy mustard
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar (another wine vinegar would probably work well)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (Hugh toasts and grinds whole seeds, which we didn’t have–I’m sure this would add even more flavor)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
• salt and pepper to taste

Step-by-step:

• Whisk together the mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, and cumin.
• Gradually whisk in the olive oil, then the mint.
• Season with salt and pepper to your liking.

This makes about 3/4 cup of dressing, so you will have extra leftover after you make the salad. You won’t mind, though, because it makes a great dressing for other salads or a crisp cabbage slaw (which I’ll tell you more about in another post).

What’s in it (the salad):

• 1/2 pound carrots, left whole or halved if they’re very small, or cut up if they’re larger
• 1/2 pound beets, halved or quartered if they’re very small, or cut up if they’re larger
• a little olive oil, salt, and pepper
• 2-3 ounces crumbled feta
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• 2-3 tablespoons cumin vinaigrette

Step-by-step:

• Get a pot of salted water boiling on the stove.
• Add the carrots, boil for 1 minute, then remove to a bowl to cool.
• Add the beets and boil until they’re just tender, about 20-25 minutes. Drain the beets and allow them to cool for a few minutes.
• Preheat your oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Toss the carrots in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, then spread them out on one side of the baking sheet.
• Do the same to the beets, then spread them out on the other side of the baking sheet.
• Roast for about 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and slightly browned.
• Let the vegetables cool for a few minutes.
• In one bowl, toss the carrots with the feta, half of the parsley, and about a tablespoon of the vinaigrette.
• In another bowl, toss the beets with the rest of the parsley and another tablespoon of the vinaigrette.
• Add carrots to your plates first, then top with the beets and a little more of the vinaigrette.

We followed these instructions exactly, but if you don’t mind your beets bleeding a little on the rest of your salad, you could certainly mix them with the carrots on the roasting pan or when you toss the veggies with the vinaigrette at the end. This is probably what we’ll do next time.

The amount of salad this made could easily have been a light lunch for two or sides/starters for four. We were pretty hungry, so we added lentils and couscous to the meal to make it a little heartier, plus a bottle of white wine, because…well, why not?

the whole meal, with Micah waiting patiently in the background

The flavors in our mugs of lentils and couscous paired perfectly with the salad, so I’ll share how I made them, too.

What’s in it:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup dry lentils
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 2 tablespoons orange zest
• 1 tablespoon dehydrated minced onion
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup dry couscous
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup white wine
• salt and pepper to taste

Step-by-step:

• Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
• Add the lentils and stir around for a few minutes to coat them with the oil.
• Add the tomato paste, diced tomato, orange zest, minced onion, and spices. Stir to incorporate.
• Add the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.
• Cook for about 15-20 minutes or until the lentils are just tender.
• Add the couscous. Bring to a boil again, then reduce the heat to very low and cover the pot. Let stand for about 15 minutes.
• Uncover the pot, stir in the vinegar and white wine, then season with salt and pepper to taste. If you have more liquid then you’d like, you can simmer and reduce for a few minutes.

The orange zest, balsamic vinegar, and white wine brightened up the smoky, earthy flavors of the lentils and paprika, and the Mediterranean-inspired seasonings meshed beautifully with that colorful beet and carrot salad.

Really, the only problem with our lentil and couscous dish was that we made too much. If we’d eaten no salads, or much smaller salads, we would have had plenty of beans and starch for a main course–about 3-1/2 cups. But with our substantial vegetable dish, this was just too much to finish in one meal, so about a third of it went into the refrigerator as leftovers.

I love eating leftovers just as they are, especially if they were good the first time around (as this definitely was). But I also love experimenting with ways to transform old leftovers into something new and different, so of course that’s what I decided to do on Sunday for lunch.

similar flavors, completely different texture and form

What’s in it:

• about 1-1/2 cups leftover couscous and lentils
• 1/3 cup dry breadcrumbs (I used panko because that’s what I had in the pantry)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup mixed Greek olives, finely chopped (or you could try subbing capers or a ready-made tapenade)

Step-by-step:

• Use your hands to smoosh together the leftover couscous-lentil mixture, breadcrumbs, and egg (kind of like making a burger).
• Divide the mixture into fourths and form into patties.
• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
• Add the patties to your pan and cook for about 4 minutes per side or until they’re nicely browned and firm.
• Top with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of olives.

Wow. These came out better than I could’ve hoped or expected.

Of course I knew they ought to taste pretty good since we had enjoyed the original dish so much, but I worried about the texture. Needlessly, because the outsides of these couscous lentil cakes were nice and crisp, while the insides were moist and flavorful. Combined with the creamy, tangy yogurt and the salty, briny olives, this lunch was even better than the leftovers that inspired it.

So good, in fact, that I know we’ll have to cook up these little cakes again the next time we make a batch of that splendid root vegetable salad.

supper tonight – 4.6.12 – grilled pork chops & veggies

The weather thwarted our outdoor steak plans last time, but a warm and sunny evening invited Micah outside on Friday to grill some pork chops.

The warm weather has also welcomed one of our favorite summer veggies to the party a little early—zephyr squash! I love any kind of summer squash—crookneck, zucchini, pattypan—but these buttery little heirlooms are absolutely the best summer squash I’ve ever had. And the fact that we got to enjoy them with asparagus (which is usually out-of-season by the time summer squash arrives) was pretty magical.

Micah’s masterpiece:

smoky, charred perfection

We topped our succulent pork chops with a stewed green tomato relish from our favorite cookbook, Hugh Acheson’s A New Turn in the South. Hugh serves the relish with crispy-crunchy pan-fried chicken, which we’ve made and devoured several times now. But we thought—correctly, I might add—that the relish would also be sublime on a thick, juicy, bone-in pork chop.

(And, as always, we made a few adjustments based on what we had on hand.)

What’s in it:

• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced red onion
  
• 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
  
• 1/2 cup chopped pickled green tomatoes
  
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
  
• 1 tablespoon water or chicken stock
  
• 1/2 tablespoon chopped cilantro
  
• 1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Step-by-step:

• Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.
• Add the onion and saute until translucent.
• Add the fresh tomatoes, pickled green tomatoes, ground cayenne, and water or stock. Stir around and cook until the onions and tomatoes are tender and most of the liquid is reduced.
• Toss in the chopped cilantro and parsley, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

The pork chops, squash, and asparagus, were cooked very simply: brushed with a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, grilled to perfection. The sweet, salty, tangy relish perfectly complemented the smoky-charred outside and tender inside of the pork chop, and the vegetables made a perfect side dish for those big, juicy hunks of meat.

Grilling season has officially begun in the Hudson household! Have you broken out the barbecue yet?

supper tonight – 3.19.12 – Caesar salad from scratch

Four days after the Ides of March probably isn’t the best time to eat Caesar salad.

Well, okay, Julius Caesar didn’t survive the Ides of March, but he also didn’t invent the Caesar salad–they say it was actually a dude named Caesar Cardini. But I like to think our Roman friend caught the soothsaying bug when he said “Let me have men about me that are fat,” because a salad like this definitely won’t give you “a lean and hungry look” like the backstabbing Cassius had.

Unless you look hungry ’cause you want more salty, gooey, delicious salad, of course.

Anyway, ever since we opened a tin of anchovies for salmoriglio during that fiasco of a date night, we’ve been thinking about how real, made-from-scratch Caesar dressing pretty much always includes these deliciously salty little fishies…and how we also had some leftover sourdough baguette from the party sandwiches that would make perfect croutons…and how some of Micah’s home-cured guanciale (hog jowl bacon) would be so good if we crisped it up and crumbled it on top….

(Damn. Now I’m kind of craving some more salad.)

This hankering actually set in sometime last week, but we had to wait for Thursday’s Athens Locally Grown pick-up to get our romaine lettuce, and then I kept forgetting that I needed to make some more mustard (which needs to sit in the fridge for a day before it’s ready to use). So, even though we’d been gazing longingly at the recipe with our sad puppy-dog eyes for almost a week, it was last night before we actually had everything we needed to craft the perfect Caesar salad:

(Can you tell I finally found my real camera? Canon Powershot A520, only 4 megapixels, but WAY better than my broken iPhone 3GS.)

We had a few mishaps along the way, like almost burning the croutons (you can see in the photo that they’re a tad on the brown side)…not to mention a few issues getting the mayonnaise base for the dressing to come together correctly (apparently, a common problem).

Side note: You might be thinking to yourself…but I thought Tanya hated mayonnaise? And I do. Passionately. With the heat of a thousand suns. But for whatever reason, I love Caesar salad. And you have to admit, once you get all the other flavors into that dressing, it really doesn’t taste like mayo at all.

Anyway, in the end, this salad tasted even more delicious than it looks, and we will definitely make it again.

What’s in it (the dressing):

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 anchovies, minced (the recipe called for 2, but we were feeling adventurous)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (I used my own homemade–recipe below)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (but I bet apple cider vinegar would work well, too)
• 1 egg yolk
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon hot sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Step-by-step:

• Mix together the garlic, anchovies, mustard, lemon juice, and vinegar in a small bowl.
• In a larger bowl, put your egg yolk and a tiny bit of olive oil. Whisk quickly (or use an electric handheld or stand mixer). As the egg and oil mixture starts to thicken, continue to slowly drizzle in the olive oil while you keep whisking. Add too much at once, and this stuff will never fluff up. We learned this the hard way.
• Once the olive oil is completely incorporated, blend in the garlic and anchovy mixture, then the Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.
• The recipe says this makes 2 cups, but for us it only ended up being a little more than one. Not sure why, but that just means we’ll need to make more soon!

Now that you’ve got some of this amazing dressing, here’s how we made the rest of the salad.

What’s in it (the whole shebang):

• 1 head of romaine lettuce, washed and chopped
• 1/4 cup of that delicious Caesar dressing we just made
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 3 big slices of bacon, cooked crispy, then crumbled
• croutons (super easy! – cube some bread / toss with melted butter, salt, pepper, and minced garlic / bake on a sheet pan at 400°F until golden brown and crunchy)

Step-by-step:

• Toss your lettuce and dressing together in a big bowl.
• Split the dressed salad between two big plates for a meal (topped with protein of your choice, if you like!) or four small ones (as a side or starter).
• Divide the cheese and crumbled bacon between your salads. Evenly, unless you’re looking for a fight.
• Add croutons.
• Enjoy!

And yes, you read correctly that the mustard I used in our Caesar dressing was homemade. I had no idea mustard was so easy to make until Micah and I won a copy of Vanessa Barrington’s awesome book from a drawing over at Punk Domestics:

image from indiebound.com

The cool thing about this book is that it includes recipes for all sorts of stuff I’d never thought to make from scratch: ketchup, tortillas, sauerkraut, kimchi, and the aforementioned mustard–and then it gives you different recipes for using all your delicious homemade fixins.

We haven’t attempted the ketchup yet. Micah did make the kimchi, subbing collard greens for the cabbage (pretty good). But the corn tortillas are yummy, the carrot and cabbage sauerkraut will rock your socks off, and the mustard…well, this is my fourth or fifth batch, if that tells you anything.

What’s in it:

• 1/2 cup whole mustard seeds (mix of brown and yellow)
• 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) port wine
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon salt

Step-by-step:

• Mix everything together in a glass or plastic bowl.
• Cover and store overnight in the refrigerator. (This lets your mustard seeds soften.)
• The next day, put your mustard in a blender or food processor and start blending. Your liquid-y, grainy mixture will magically thicken and smooth out to a lovely, spreadable consistency.
• Taste it. It’ll be pretty spicy! If it’s too spicy, you can blend in a little bit of water and/or a little more honey.

This is how I made my most recent batch, but basically, you just need 1/2 cup of mustard seeds, about 3/4 cup of liquid, and whatever other flavorings you want to add. I’ve used different boozes (port, sherry, madeira, cognac, bourbon), different vinegars (cider, balsalmic, rice wine, sherry), different sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, molasses)–and it has always turned out amazing.

DIY Delicious is one of my very favorite cookbooks, hands-down. And not just because it taught me how to make mustard like this:

Nice and brown and grainy and spicy, perfect with a beer-braised bratwurst--or in that delicious Caesar dressing.

quick lunch – 3.13.12 – not my Mammaw’s pimiento cheese

Pimiento cheese is the stuff of the devil.

My Mammaw loved this orange goo at least as much as she loved triple-decker mayonnaise sandwiches, probably because the kind she bought was pretty much a tub o’ mayo (or, more likely, a mayo-like “salad dressing”) with a bit of pasteurized processed cheese food thrown in to give it that bland, vaguely cheese-like color.

For example, the ingredient list for Knott’s Old Fashioned Pimiento Cheese Spread is an entire paragraph long and includes all sorts of things that you won’t find in most people’s kitchens: sodium phosphate, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA, and even the ever-controversial high fructose corn syrup (which boggles my mind because why, oh why, would you need to sweeten pimiento cheese, anyway?). Yep, Knott’s might claim on the packaging that this old-fashioned cheese product was established in 1947 (when Mammaw was 12), but I’m pretty sure no one’s grandma has ever made her pimiento cheese based on their recipe.

(The jalapeno version was even recalled a few years back due to metal fragments being found in the product. Also not a common ingredient in most home kitchens.)

Anyway, my dislike of pimiento cheese when I was a kid had much more to do with its mayonnaise-to-cheese ratio than any of this, and after trying it once when I was a wee lass, I was sure I’d never want to eat it again. I successfully avoided it throughout my childhood and most of my adult life, even when it was homemade, because it just grossed me out.

Fast-forward to a few years ago, when a late-afternoon visit to Five and Ten changed my life forever.

Micah and I had strolled down to this wonderful restaurant one afternoon for an early dinner, but I wasn’t super-hungry, so I perused the snackies section of the menu for something small that I could enjoy with a cup of soup. Feeling a bit reckless, I decided to order the pimiento cheese. I knew I hated the stuff. I knew it might make me gag. But I figured that if anyone could make me like it, it might be Hugh Acheson. And Micah (who doesn’t share my mayo aversion) promised he would eat it for me if I couldn’t.

Well, Hugh did not succeed in making me like pimiento cheese that day.

He made me love it.

He made me love it so much that I immediately decided I must make my own batch so I could eat pimiento cheese all the freaking time.

The only problem was, I didn’t have his recipe, and I had no idea how he had made it so damn delicious. So, I did what I always do when I don’t know what I’m doing. I winged it. And the results were fantastic.

I’ve been making my own pimiento cheese for three or four years now, tweaking the recipe here and there to suit my own tastes. Since I don’t like hate loathe mayonnaise, and since Micah can’t usually consume a whole jar of the stuff before the expiration date, it’s not something we keep around the house. So one big change in my recipe is using Greek yogurt in place of the mayo. This might sound strange, but I promise–you won’t miss that fatty egg-goo at all, and the yogurt gives you the added bonus of less fat and more protein (not, of course, that anyone eats pimiento cheese for its health value).

Here’s the batch I made this week:

I could eat this whole bowl in one sitting.

Even if you don’t like pimiento cheese–especially if you don’t like pimiento cheese!–you should try this recipe. (Or Hugh’s.) It just might change your life.

What’s in it:

• 1 pound of sharp cheddar (the sharper, the better)
• half of a 12-ounce jar of pimientos or roasted red peppers (or just roast your own)
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon paprika (smoked, if you have it, but regular is yummy, too)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne (or chipotle, if you want it smokier, which I like)
• salt and pepper to taste
• a little apple cider vinegar if you like yours tangy (which we do)

Step-by-step:

• Cut the cheddar into cubes and toss it in the food processor.
• Add the pimientos, yogurt, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, dry mustard, paprika, and cayenne/chipotle.
• Process until you’ve got the texture you like. (We like ours creamy and spreadable, but if you like yours chunkier, just process a little less.)
• Taste it! Add salt, pepper, and/or vinegar if needed.
• Enjoy!

This makes a pretty big batch, which we eat on toast, crackers, cold sandwiches, or–my favorite–grilled cheese sandwiches. (Heaven!) It’s tangy, salty, smoky, and spicy, just how I like it. I can eat gobs of it in a sitting, and sometimes do.

Yep, pimiento cheese really is the stuff of the devil.