A Cheese paste Vaps!

Guys, ever had one of those days when you had a craving for something covered in cheese?

Maybe I should emphasise the fact that I am a serious cheese addict. I’ve eaten cheese on Crix, cheese on toast, cheese and hops bread, cheese and olives, cheese with celery, melted cheese, grated cheese, cheese on pizza, cheese in macaroni pie, sliced, diced, torn, shredded and cooked cheese… *drools like Homer Simpson*

Yeah, I’ve got it bad… :-) But I digress…

The crux of my post tonight (as you may have already figured out, is that wonderful concoction we love to eat as a snack – cheese paste (or cheese spread). No one knows how we learned the recipe, really, but I can truthfully say that you can put 10 Trinis in a room and asked them if they knew how to make cheese paste, each of them will say yes, and tell you their tried and true recipe for the stuff.

My mother and grandmother have made it. My daughter has made it. I’ve seen my uncle make it. Friends have made it. But I’m sure if you ask someone, “Who taught you how to make cheese paste?” the answer will be the same… “I saw (insert name of friend or relation here) make it and then I just decided to make it one day… and I’ve been making it ever since.” Ah lie?

Anyway, the basic cheese paste recipe is simple; some grated cheese, maybe a little butter, some mayonnaise, mustard and peppersauce. Some take it further and add in some garlic flavoured mayonnaise. Others still, go for the unorthodox and put in some parsley, sweet peppers and a little red onion… and then there’s folk like me, who let a serious cheese vaps kick them in the head like a crazy mule and they try to take cheese paste to yet another notch…

Okay, I decided that I was going to make an industrial sized serving of cheese paste, so I gated an entire block (about 375g) of rennet free cheddar. But the purists among us know that ‘rat cheese’ (the Trini equivalent of America’s government cheese) makes a wicked tasting paste.

Here’s where the madness began. I peeled a carrot and grated the living daylights out of him.

This entire bundle of chive (including the thyme and parsley that’s tied to it) is going to get chopped up, along with these five pimento peppers.

Gave them a rough chop…

And into the food processor they went for a quick pulse or two.

Next, I put in the cheese and grated carrot.

Here are some of the stars of my paste; mayonnaise, peppersauce and mustard.

A dollop of mayonnaise went in, then I pulsed it some more – it’s halfway mixed in here.

A squeeze of mustard… then I pulsed it again.

Then I added my “secret ingredient”… a spoon of sweet relish (for a nice tang).

Pulsed it some more, tasted it and added peppersauce, another spoon of relish, a little more mayo and mustard and a spoon of ketchup to even out all the flavours. Here's the finished result!

I then warmed up two slices of whole wheat bread and put on a couple dollops of cheese paste.

Spread it all over, covered him up…

Then took a nice bite. Deeeeee-lish!

And there you have it… my cheese paste vaps. I’m afraid that I don’t have a set recipe for this one, simply because every time I make it, the ingredients are never the same, other than the main players. You may have noticed that there isn’t any butter in this either, but that’s only because I didn’t feel like putting any this time. I’ll confess… even chadon beni (cilantro) has made it into this cheese paste more than once, but this is one vaps that I am totally enjoying!

So, I really hope you enjoyed my cheese adventure today, and I look forward to sharing even more from my little kitchen. Take care, everyone, and doh forget to mind de pot!

Hugs and love always! :-)