"PimentoCheese" news and stories

Few diners who polish off the Chili Cheese A-plenty at South Carolina's legendary Beacon Drive-In (for the uninitiated, that's a chili cheeseburger buried under a mound of French fries and onion rings) are hungry for more, but that hasn't stopped owner Steve Duncan from trying to tempt them with a new Southern-pub grub mash-up of his own invention.

"We make our own pimento cheese here, so I combined that with some jalapenos and stuffed it in a hush puppy," Duncan explains. "We call it a hush pupper."

Few of us want to make a complicated lasagna for solo dining -- by day six, you'll never want to see lasagna again! In this series, AOL Food staffer Sarah LeTrent taste-tests simple recipes suitable for a "table for one."

Oh, beloved pimento cheese; the Southeast's answer to cheese dip and queso.

The bright-orange spread is nothing more than extra-sharp cheddar, mayonnaise, diced pimiento peppers and cracked black pepper. Homemade pimento cheese is a snap to make and leftovers are a cracker's best friend. You could spruce up the spread with serrano peppers, garlic, cayenne, different types of cheese or even bacon. But to most, nothing is better than the classic four-ingredient mix between two pieces of bread.

Paula Deen and her artery-clogging Southern home cooking aren't for everyone, but as we gathered from an actual look into her home cooking routine, without the crispness of network television, she might swing you over to her motherly foodie ways.

Paula has started a new cooking station on YouTube called Get Cookin' with Paula Deen, one that's a bit different than her Food Network show. Instead of the high-production quality of a hit series, this is a hand-held, casual affair more akin to a home movie. The fattening family delicacies, however, are still there. For this round, Deen makes Pimento Cheese with her son Jamie. It's a large slop of caloric extravagance, one that should be made using a whole lot of mayo because,"after it comes out of the refrigerator, it'll be as hard as my arteries," as Paula instructs her son.

If Paula's casual cooking leaves you hungry for more, check out sister site AOL Food's interview with Ms. Deen and hubbie Michael Groover right here.

[Via YouTube]

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Philly-area food blogger potluck. I love these gatherings, because it is an opportunity to taste a huge variety of foods, all prepared by people who more than usually interested in such things. At the last potluck, someone had brought a tray of what looked like plain tea sandwiches. Triangles of white bread, crusts removes, and a thin layer of orange-y cheese in the middle.

I steered clear of this particular tray for sometime, a little appalled that someone would have brought something so seemingly basic. Then, as I was talking to a friend, she said, "Have you tried the pimento cheese sandwiches? They are amazing!"

Upon her urging, I walked over to the food table and picked up a triangle and bit in. I discovered that what I had taken for soul-less white bread was actually a bit chewy and sour, with a fresh, newly baked aroma. And the cheese that was holding the slices together? Pimento cheese that was pungent, sharp, tangy and wonderful. These were not my Aunt Doris's tea sandwiches.

Earlier this week, Cookthink ran a post about the many ways that it's possible to reinvent pimento cheese, which made me start thinking of those potluck sandwiches. I think that there is pimento cheese in my very near future.

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Whether they choose to spell it pimento or pimiento, odds are most folks know the heart-shaped cherry pepper from its use as a stuffing for green olives. The people behind National Pimiento Month are out to change all that.

That's why they picked a Deep South comfort food as the flagship recipe for their monthlong campaign. Pimiento cheese, Elvis' favorite hamburger topping, is a cool blend of shredded Cheddar, mayonnaise and chopped pimientos that makes for one savory snack spread.

In case you're wondering, National Pimiento month did not originate in the Southeast, which consumes 42 percent of the  pimiento cheese in the U.S., but  in California, where most of the nation's pimientos are grown.

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