Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude: Balls and Nuts

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly(ish) feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I am not an expert, but I do enjoy talking about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food.  Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. After all, this is not meant to be an homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.

Recipe Index can be found here. 
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The other day, Manoj was sharing a sweet memory of eating a cashew fruit and I was all, " Huh?  What??" and then he Googled some images and THEN, I was all, "What the FUCK??"  

Gentle Reader......seriously.  Are you with me on this?

My brain?  KABOOM.

Source: Wikipedia/Cashew

I never knew that a cashew was some weird, ballsack-looking thing descending from a FRUIT.  Come to think of it, I guess I have never had to bust out a nutcracker to help out with a bowl of cashews, either.  Huh.  

What is the weirdest "food discovery" you've ever come across??

Speaking of weird foods, Manoj sent me a link about a pudding that his mother used to make and since Manoj NEVER sends me links about foods from his childhood, I hopped right on that link.   And was promptly deflated.   It was a link for Tender Coconut Pudding which made me think that I would have tiptoe around the coconut's feelings or something.  Manoj tried to explain that it was an "immature" coconut which only brought up visions of coconuts shouting "Stop with the judging!"  Anyway!  We are going to hunt through some Asian stores in hopes of finding this so-called "tender coconut." (Apparently, it is a soft coconut that has not hardened its shell yet.  It's a SOFT BALL OF COCONUT, if you will....) 

Next up?  Is my Grandma's Weird Cheeseball.  I love, LOVE this cheeseball and it is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  

A load of cheese with a bonus gingerbread house photobomb. WIN.

I call this cheeseball "weird" because what makes it special (I think) is the bleu cheese.  It gives it a particular bite, to be sure.

Grandma's Cheese Ball


Ingredients:
8 oz brick grated cheddar cheese
2 oz blue cheese
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup dry minced onion
1/4 cup parsley flakes

(Note: Grind/chop up an extra cup of pecans for the last step.)

Preparation:1. Let cheeses sit at room temperature and then simply mix together (I smush it all up with my bare hands.)  

2. Add onion, pecans, parsley and mix. Shape into 2 balls and roll into the extra nuts. Lay the balls onto a piece of cling wrap. Wrap tightly and it will be good for at least a few days. However, make this at least one day before serving to let all the spices meld together.

Note: Instead of the dry minced onion, I used My Garlic Seasoning mix ( it's riff on Tastefully Simple's Garlic Garlic seasoning)