Partially defrost puff pastry. While puff pastry is defrosting, mix together cream cheese and pesto. Set aside. Cut chicken breasts into strips. Spread out 1 sheet of puff pastry and cut in half. Place 1/4 of pesto mixture and 1/4 chicken on each half. Fold up and seal with water, making little packets. Repeat with remaining puff pastry, chicken, and pesto mixture. Place packets in freezer bag and freeze flat.
When you’re ready to eat, partially thaw packets in fridge for a few hours (or in micro). Place on greased cookie sheet and brush with milk or egg (optional). Bake at 400 until puff pastry is golden brown. Serve with a salad.
it can be used in place of sour cream in recipes where it will melt… Stroganoff, etc. I love omelets with creamED cheese and chives or scallions. I use it in celery, on bagels and wwwrecipzaar will give you recipes if you just type “cream cheese” in the search bar. I’ve also made a delicious bolognese sauce for pasta that used creamed cheese, it’s probably on recipezaar.
Oh, and lots of dips… with crab meat and sour cream, I used to make a dip with cut up ham, scallions, garlic, cream cheese and sour cream, really good.
For a quick delicious treat, get a jar of sun dried tomatoes from Costco. Put creamed cheese on a ritz cracker with a sun dried tomato. Eat. Repeat as often as is appropriate.
Correction: pour salsa over top. If I’m not paying attention (ie, it’s a party-type environment and I’m chatting with a bunch of people), I can go through an entire block.
Wow, I’m going to have to bookmark this thread – cream cheese really is a magic food!
Here’s my favorite dip:
Spread one block of softened cream cheese in the bottom of a shallow serving dish
Top with one bag of thawed baby salad shrimp (NOTE: if you thaw the shrimp by rinsing in a colander, make sure to dry them thoroughly with paper towels before adding to this dip!!! If you don’t, the dip becomes a soupy mess!)
Cover with one bottle (actually, about 2/3 of a bottle) of cocktail sauce.
A good roll, like a small sub roll or an onion roll (Not bread, IOW)
sliced grilled chicken
sauteed peppers and onions
jarred pesto
cream cheese
Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Halve the roll and toast both pieces on the stove top or under the broiler. Spread a thin layer of pesto on one side and a pretty thick layer of cream cheese on the other. Layer on the chicken and peppers/onions, and put the lid on the sandwich. Wrap in foil and heat in the over for 10 to 15 minutes, until the filling is heated through and the cream cheese is melty but not melted.
1 graham cracker pie crust
1 10oz jar Dickenson’s Lemon Curd (in the baking aisle)
2 8oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbs lemon zest (you can leave this out, I’ve made it both ways)
Beat all ingredients on medium speed until creamy. Pour into pie crust. Lick the spoon. Chill the pie about 2 hours. Garnish with whipped cream.
Everything in this thread sounds wonderful! Here’s one of my favorites: Spinach and artichoke dip I don’t really like spinach or artichokes all that much, but combined with the yummy cheeses it’s really delicious.
Here we go…mix a brick of cream cheese in with some icing sugar (not too sweet, just til it tastes like enough). Spread in the bottom of a casserole dish. Then top with store bought caramel dip(spread the same way), then top that with crushed SKOR bars.
Cut an apple into small wedges then dip them in the above. MMMMMmmmmmm
We had the stroganoff last night, fantastic! I am trying some of the dips tonight with some homemade hot wings and potato skins. (Healthy, I know, right :p) Unfortunately, my So and I both are allergic to shellfish, so the shrimp is out. But I passed those ideas along to my shrimp loving friend. Thanks so much for the replies!
OK, I have no idea what the true recipe is, but the fundamentals seem accurate. I was out in Minnesota, and my friend’s wife made mashed cauliflower. She said the ingredients were mostly cauliflower and cream cheese. My god, it was delicious, and did not even seem all that heart attack inducing. Here’s a cooks.comrecipe that seems close:
Take 1 pound of cream cheese or neufchatel, chop as many jalapenos as you can find into small, tiny pieces. Grate some sharp cheddar or Irish cheese.
Blend the shit out of them with a fork.
Toast a rock salt bagel, then dip pieces of it in the cream cheese and munch away happily, washing it all down with ice cold milk while reading the Sunday comics.
Cream cheese and chutney - any kind of chutney, plum, green tomato, feijoa, chowchow.
Any kind of chutney.
Put a thick layer of cream cheese on crackers, top with chutney.
Put a thick layer of cream cheese your favorite bread, top with chutney
Put a thick layer of cream cheese on bottom slice of bread, thin layer of chutney, add top slice of bread, butter the outside and *fry *that sucker till golden brown on both sides. Also works with blue cheese and jam.
Now I’m hungry. I have cream cheese and chutney! Woohoo!
