Plagues or Blessings--cooking from abundance

      I’m stuck with a 5 quart pail of cream cheese! Huh? You ask. Well, the story there is that my choir had a big Victorian Dessert Concert with apple dumplings, wassail, coffee and (my new idea) an 8 ounce block of cream cheese donned with red or green jelly accompanied by crackers. There were 25 tables, so that’s how many blocks of cream cheese we got. Not having served this before and not ever having had an audience of 200, I overestimated It was popular but too much for each table. After the concert and clean up, I had a 5 quart pail of left over cream cheese.

      That was Thursday night. Last night we had cream cheese and habaneras pepper jelly on crackers for a snack. Now by Monday morning I’ve scouring the internet for recipes that use a lot of cream cheese. So far I’ve got Cream Cheese Almond Crescent dough in the fridge ready for baking tomorrow, the pecans ground up for the Cream Cheese Pecan Tarts I’ll be making tomorrow, and the Cream Cheese Pound Cake will be in the oven by 9 am Wednesday for the choir Christmas party that night. Tonight I concocted up a cream cheese, chipped beef, onion, spinach and plenty of seasonings dip for carrots and potato wedges. You bet ! That was good! I’ve got a little bit of that left in the fridge for a snack. The flavor will be really nicely mellowed by then.

      I’m thinking I may actually run out of cream cheese before I get to the Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies, or the Cream Cheese Baked Corn. And unfortunately I’m not going to be able to make my old standby--Cream Cheese Horseradish Chip Dip which I’ve been making for over 55 years. That’s because my husband Jack does not like horseradish, and there’s nobody else in the house anymore to help eat stuff like that and I would probably just eat the whole bowlful!

      I can think of other times in my cooking career I’ve been plagued by abundance. All right, that’s a bit of a strong word. Maybe “blessed” would describe the situation more appropriately. Back on the farm I would scour for recipes that could use up a dozen or so eggs, 5 pounds of butter or a couple of quarts of heavy cream. How many times have I deliberated on how to use the 2 bushels of tomatoes in the garage, while more continued to ripen on the vines. Pears from three old trees out back have yearly given me consideration on how many ways pears can be prepared. Of course everyone has been inundated with turkey after the holidays and we page through the current magazine recipes for one that will catch our eye and give us a little taste adventure.

      So which one do you think you’d like me to send you---the Cream Cheese Lemon Bars or the Cream Cheese White Fudge? SASE please.