Snowman Cheese Ball

Name: Snowman Cheese Ball
Ingredients: 350 g cream cheese; 100 g semi-hard cheese; 1 tsp grated onion; 1 tsp lemon zest; spices to taste (I used 0.5 tsp each of garlic, oregano, and marjoram); ground black pepper; 50 g cheese; cucumber or green onion; pretzel sticks, black olives, peppercorns; crackers (for serving)

Let's keep getting ready for New Year's! Today I have a recipe for a wonderfully tasty cheese appetizer — and not just any cheese, but two kinds of cheese that complement each other perfectly. You can use whatever spices you like, but I'd definitely recommend adding at least a little garlic and onion. This cheese snowman is best served with crackers — your guests will nibble him away piece by piece. The snowman turned out absolutely delicious. The three of us — my husband, my daughter, and I — polished off half the snowman in one sitting and couldn't manage more, since it's quite filling! It was so good!

Ingredients:

Cheese mixture:
350 g cream cheese
100 g semi-hard cheese
1 tsp grated onion
1 tsp lemon zest
spices to taste (I used 0.5 tsp each of garlic, oregano, and marjoram)
ground black pepper
For coating:
50 g cheese
Decoration:
cucumber or green onion
pretzel sticks, black olives, peppercorns
crackers (for serving)

How to cook snowman cheese ball

Place the room-temperature cream cheese in a bowl. Add the cheese, grated on a fine grater. Add the grated onion, season generously with black pepper, and stir in the spices.

If desired, add a little lemon zest — it gives a light, fresh flavor — but this step is optional.

Mix everything together thoroughly; the mixture will be very thick. Taste it and adjust the spices as needed. Refrigerate for a couple of hours — the mixture needs to be well chilled so it's easier to work with.

Divide the mixture into two portions — 2/3 and 1/3. Roll each portion into a ball.

Roll both balls in the grated cheese, then stack one on top of the other. First brush off the cheese where the two balls meet so the top ball sits more securely. Now it's time to decorate. I made the scarf from a strip of cucumber — green onion also works great for this. The buttons are made from black olives.

The eyes are also made from black olives. To keep the scarf from slipping, I pinned it with a clove — it doubles as a brooch! The arms are pretzel sticks, the nose is a carrot, and the hat, as you might have guessed, is made from cucumber.

Arrange plain crackers around the snowman and serve. By the way, in addition to crackers you can also use vegetables — strips of bell pepper, cucumber slices, or celery sticks. The Snowman Cheese Ball makes a wonderful centerpiece for your New Year's table. You can set it out ahead of time so guests can snack on it while waiting for the main course. Enjoy!