Snowman Cheeseball

I made this awesome snowman cheeseball (actually two of them) for Christmas this year!  I adapted the recipe I found via Pinterest on Babble.

Here is the recipe:


Ingredients

3 – 8 oz packages cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups Italian blend shredded cheese
3 teaspoons almond basil pesto, recipe follows (or a couple tbsp of pesto - that's what I did)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Almond Basil Pesto

A handful of fresh basil
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 clove garlic
2 – 3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

Decoration

nose – carrot
eyes and buttons – raisins
crown – rosemary, or you could do a hat with stacked crackers
arms – asparagus, green onions or pretzels
on crown – cranberries
scarf – green onion (I used 2 pieces attached in the back with toothpicks and held on with a cocktail toothpick in the front), carrot or radish shaving
mouth – red pepper or currants
optional – add a corn pipe, a chunk of baby corn on the end of a toothpick

Method

1. Make pesto first in the food processor by adding basil, almonds, garlic, salt and pepper to processor. Pulse until chopped. Turn processor on and stream in olive oil until pesto is movable.

2. Add cream cheese and pesto to a large bowl. Use a hand mixer to blend the pesto through the cream cheese. Add shredded cheese and use hands to incorporate. Divide the cheese into 1/3 for the head and 2/3 for the body. Make into a ball in your hands. Roll in grated Parmesan and place on platter. Refrigerate until firm, at least 4 hours.

2. Decorate snowman with carrot, asparagus, raisins, cranberries, green onion, red pepper, and rosemary.

I also did a Mexican version with mexi blend cheese and chipotle salsa instead of pesto (you could use smoked chipotle peppers but I couldn't find any).

I received a lot of compliments on these!