This Is A Hedgehog

Alright its thanksgiving (Canadian) so I figured why not do a "cooking" post? What follows is a fairly quick and easy appetizer I give you The Hedgehog (with pictures)

Step 1:
 Ingredients

le ingredients and some of the tools

 2- 250g bricks cream cheese
1 packet Hidden Valley ranch dressing
Pinch or more dill
approx. 200g whole almonds
1 cup "ish" of mayo or Miracle Whip
(trust me use the Miracle whip)
Bacon-bits

Step 2:

Cut up cream cheese and put in to mixing bowl. This will make it easier to mix

Step 3:
 add "whipped Dressing".  Now this is a tricky spot the amount of Miracle whip you use is dependent on what you want the out come to be, but 1 cup is a good bench mark.  LESS and you will have a firmer hedge hog that will be harder to mix and less ideal for out right dipping crackers into.  MORE and you will have a softer hedge hog ideal for dipping but will take more time in the fridge to "set" and you may need to put in a bowl

Step 4:

dump package "Hidden Valley ranch dressing" (side bar any powdered ranch dressing mix will work hell you could go all hard core and add your own mix of spices and what not)






Step 4.5:

Sprinkle dill liberally

Time to bring out the big guns

Step 5: Now if you look at the above picture in the top left hand corner you will see a potato masher and my trusty wooden scraper. That is how I started out mixing every together.... but that takes alot of arm strength and time so I called in the big guns Le Black and Decker Power Pro and when to work.  if using an electric mixer you are going to want to use the lowest power setting you want to mix all the ingredients but not to the point of beating the crap out of them.

Step 6 (oops should be step 4.75)

add bacon bits

Step 7:
Remove from mixing bowl and start placing on plate







Step 8:

Shape blob in to a spherical shape. This is where if you used more miracle whip you may run into problems with it retaining a spherical shape.

Step 9:
Add almonds and arrange in an order conforming to your brand of OCD

Grand Finale

Le HedgeHog

You may want to put in the fridge for a while to "firm" it up but for the most part break out the crackers and your ready to go.  

Holy Blizzard Batman (sort of)...

Well more like Holy wind batman!and on that note I start today's post. So in times like these what do we do but cook. That's right went out in to the cold wasteland of Winnipeg gathered supplies and now we are about to embark on a cooking odyssey. We are going to try and pre-cook and freeze some meals for later on to cut back on the junk food and eating out. The line up of meals is as follows; Veggie Sheppard's pie, and Kalee is going to make a noodle dish. I will post the recipe for both later tonight, I might even take pictures for a play by play guide how to sort of thing. Well I'm off to the kitchen.

Bon appetite