2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
1 packet dry onion soup mix
After finding the flour which you haven’t used for months, go on a hunting party for the sifter until you realize it broke and you threw it out more than a year ago when you temporarily lost your kitchen to the remodelers. Use a strainer as a sifter, which make a wonderful snowy -- appropriate to the holiday -- mess on the counter.
Now you’re ready to start.
Grate cheese, toss with all dry ingredients. Cover with foil and stick in fridge.
Take a half hour to rest your arm from all that grating, because it’ll be all tingly and feeling like its going to fall off.
Turn off simmering eggs, cover tightly with foil and let them finish hard cooking in the steamy hot water.
After you’ve rested and when you feel like it, preferably when “they” are up to help with the really boring part, mix two melted sticks of unsalted butter into dry mixture until well blended.
Get “them” to form the cheese mixture into a zillion ¼-inch balls, placing each ball on a cookie sheet.
Put parchment paper on another cookie sheet, place the balls you intend to use immediately on sheet and put in fridge until you’re ready to bake them at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, or until they’re golden, bubbly, brown.
Put the remaining balls on the cookie sheet into the freezer. When completely frozen, [there’s nothing like frozen balls; they’re almost as good as Alex Baldwin’s Schvetty rum balls] transfer them to a zippy freezer bag, where they’ll stay usable for up to six months…if they last that long.
Freezing them before bagging keeps them separated, so you don’t wind up with a big cheese blob that you have to re-ball.
Serve balls hot out of the oven. Apple or pear slices make great go-withs. Oh hell, forget them. They’re healthful and this is a holiday treat.
Now for the devilishly good eggs.
Reminder: Peel the shells off the eggs.
