The Secret to Amazing Pimento Cheese

“The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture.” 
-Fannie Flagg

Let me tell you about my love affair with pimento cheese.

Pimento cheese was something that I thought was really nasty until high school and packed lunches opened my eyes forever to this wonderful, Southern concoction. I am always amazed when people say they have never had pimento cheese. You don't know what you're missing.

Luckily, my wonderful boyfriend, Don, shares my love of pimento cheese. Our passion for the stuff is probably unrivaled by most other couples. So hoping for an easy dinner tonight, I suggested pimento cheese sandwiches.

Now, my mom and granny's basic recipe is simple:

1 small jar pimentos
1 lb. sharp cheddar cheese
Some mayonnaise
Paprika to taste

This is the easiest recipe possible, but people are always putting their own variants to it. I like the simple version, but tonight our local Kroger in Macon did not have a single jar of plain pimentos. This is a problem that I oddly run into frequently down here that I never experienced back in Tennessee. Maybe Tennesseans just love their pimentos more.

I got a jar of sliced olives with pimentos, but I correctly predicted that even after separating the pimento out, it would not be enough, so I also grabbed a jar of roasted red peppers to slice up and throw in. Since the two of us are vegetarians, and thus understandably COMPLETELY OBSESSED with cheese, we picked up two varieties from the bagged cheese section and then headed over to the specialty cheeses to pick up something special. We grabbed some smoked provolone, and boy, am I glad we did.

The final recipe looks like this:

1 small block smoked provolone cheese
1 bag sharp cheddar cheese
1 bag colby jack cheese
Half a jar of roasted red peppers
Small jar of pimentos (you can separate them from olives if you can't find a jar)
Cholula hot sauce to taste
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
Paprika
Salt and pepper

Combine your two shredded varieties of cheese in a large bowl, and then grate in the smoked provolone.
Pour in a dash of the juice from the pimentos, and drain the rest. Add pimentos to the cheese bowl.
Pour in a dash of the juice from the red peppers, and drain the rest. Finely chop about half of your red peppers from the jar and add.
Put in as much hot sauce as you like. The mayo will cut the spiciness a little, so keep that in mind.
Add about a cup and a half of mayo, and stir it all together. Add more mayo if it is not sticking together.
Add paprika, salt, and pepper to taste. Mix again so that all of the ingredients are spread evenly. You don't want to mash your cheese into too fine a consistency.

Enjoy with white or wheat bread, on toast, or on crackers! Also great melted over a delicious veggie burger.

It will keep in the fridge for several days, and will tend to taste better on day two when everything has been marinating together. :)

Enjoy!

College Rant #1: Bureacracy and Bear Cards

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” 

― George Bernard Shaw

#StoryOfMyDay 

The bane of my existence. No, that's not me in the picture. 

Mondays are actually supposed to be really good for me. I have purposefully scheduled myself to only work four days a week at the law school, and Monday is my day off. I also happen to only have one class on Monday, which is at 11, which means I get to actually sort of sleep in. Sleeping in is seriously one of life's greatest pleasures. 

So today, since I got out of class at 12:15 and had nothing much to do, I decided to do my laptop shopping with part of my hefty refund check. It's totally an academic expense! I'm not even being facetious (this time)- my laptop is almost four years old, literally has parts fall off of it frequently, and now has to stay plugged in at all times because the battery is so dead. If I jostle it just enough to make it come unplugged, it immediately shuts off, taking whatever paper I was working on at the moment into the abyss. 

The stupid thing about Mercer is that it takes like at least two weeks for them to process refund checks after the semester starts. I know that in fall of 2012, I did not get my refund until November, which was crazy. Gotta eat! And you know, buy toilet paper and shit (#lol). So even though it takes that long to process the checks, somehow they can magically transfer as much or as little of my refund as I want onto my student ID/debit card (Bear Card) within a few hours. We can spend the Bear Card at certain locations only, but one of those locations is our local CVS, so I had this brilliant idea to transfer like a lot of money onto my Bear Card, and then use my Bear Card at CVS to put like $500 on an American Express giftcard, and go down to Best Buy for my laptop. Simple, right? Wrong. 

I can literally purchase anything in the store, including booze, except for a giftcard. What the hell Mercer? So now I have like $700 sitting on my Bear Card that I can spend on campus, at CVS, or at one of seven restaurants that accept it. 

And no laptop. 

I would try to fight with the Bursar's Office or Auxiliary Services-after all, it doesn't say anywhere in all their little brochures that this is a thing. But I learned in my first semester here how pointless that would be. I won't say that they're all the most useless people ever...that would just be rude...

Oh, and they won't let you withdraw money off the card. You can get it refunded when you graduate. 

#FML

Hello, world!

“Isn't it weird how we make big decisions in life based on the strangest, most random things?” 

― Mhairi McFarlane, You Had Me At Hello

Even though when I think of blogs, I mostly think of stay-at-home moms posting pictures of their kiddos, I think I have a lot of smart things to say about life, so I'll give it a whirl. 

My name is Lindsey, I'm a junior at Mercer University, and as you can see, my dream is to be a high school English teacher. Making that decision was a long time coming because I initially came into college as pre-law. Now I'm an English major with minors in History and Teacher Education and I'm planning to go on and get my masters in conjunction with my teaching certification. 

Even though my university is in Georgia, I'm a Tennessee girl originally and my home has a lot to do with the way I am. My family has lived in the same county, just south of Nashville, for ten generations, so I'm related to everyone. Understandably, after graduating high school in 2011, it was time to get out! I really don't know if I plan to return home permanently after I finish school, but I would definitely like to experience some other places first. 

Coming from small-town Tennessee to Macon, Georgia was a big transition. Macon is significantly bigger than my hometown and according to some, one of the more dangerous places you can live. Luckily, I have rarely felt threatened here and the university is great. It has been really weird leaving all my family behind, though. I didn't even realize how close I was to them until I moved away. 

I am basically totally responsible for my living expenses, although there definitely have been some occasions where I've called Mom & Dad to ask to borrow money. :D My tuition and meal plan at school are covered entirely with scholarships, and I accept some government student loans to help pay for my off-campus rent and utilities. It hurts to think about putting myself into debt at such a young age, so I also work two jobs to offset those expenses. I work in marketing in a student position at Mercer Law, which basically consists of me doing this all day, only fancier. 

My second job is actually my dream job- I'm a high school debate coach! I started debating as a freshmen in high school and now I'm in my third year of debate for Mercer. The activity really changed my life in a lot of positive ways, and I can't imagine ever leaving it. Since graduating high school, I have been looking for a place to assistant coach or volunteer coach, and this opportunity just fell into my lap last semester. One of the students at the school was interested in starting a team, so her mother contacted my college coach to ask if any of us Mercer debaters would be interested. I teach a seventh period nonacademic class on Fridays on debate and we traveled to two tournaments last semester. A lot of this blog will probably be me bragging about "my kids." They are all extra-talented individuals and our team has brought home four separate titles already. 

Aside from all that good stuff, I am a cat-lover, a vegetarian, a Christian, a longterm girlfriend (hopefully soon-to-be fiancee), a reading and quotes enthusiast, a wannabe DIY person, and a leader in some random campus organizations. My life is extremely busy, but it's a crazy ride! 

The things that I would like to change about myself:

--language: I curse like a sailor 

--weight: I have been struggling to get to a goal weight for a good two years now, but it fluctuates. At this point in time, I am in a place where I don't feel good about my weight, although if you had asked me last summer, I would have said I felt great!

--temper tantrums: Ask anyone. I have a hideous temper inherited from both sides of my family. 

--think before you speak: I literally have no filter. I cannot keep my mouth shut for any reason whatsoever. 

Please leave a comment and introduce yourself! Thanks for reading!