mad men

Pimento Cheese Served Mad Men Style

Fancy Pants Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

Nearly a year ago I had my first, and most likely last, experience making cake balls for an annual work party. Annual events have a pesky way of popping back up and once again, I was snookered into being part of the food committee.

The theme for our office booth was Mad Men (and Women), echoing the 1960s style and feel of the television show on AMC featuring the likes of Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks and January Jones.  On a side note, I loved dressing up to fit the part and by some amazing feat I wrestled my hair in an up-do thanks to this bun hairstyles for long hair tutorial on YouTube. See the hairstyle pictured below.

Attempting to emulate the tastes of the era, we decided on serving meatballs with a sweet beer sauce, herb cream cheese sandwiches on rye bread, pimento cheese sandwiches on white bread and chocolate wine bundt cake. We nearly went with deviled eggs, cocktail wieners or fondue but had budget and logistical constraints to consider. I did insist on using fancy ruffled cellophane toothpicks and olives for garnish.

The party has come and gone, and although we didn’t win any of the award categories (not a good year for contests), a women returned to our booth asking for the pimento cheese recipe. I count that as a personal victory.

For the pimento cheese sandwiches I used the famed Parlor Market recipe with a few minor alterations. I remembered being pleasantly surprised by my first taste of pimento cheese and figured it would be a crowd pleaser. It is easy to make and what’s not to love about a recipe that includes bacon, cream cheese, cheese and more bacon. Amusingly enough, it does not include pimentos…which is why an olive garnish is perfect.

Parlor Market Pimento Cheese
I used three loaves of bread at 20 slices a loaf, to assemble 30 sandwiches. (60 slices of bread total = 30 sandwiches) They were then cut into four triangles, which resulted in 120 small cocktail sandwiches. I altered the amounts used from the original recipe.

Ingredients
2 – 8 oz. packages cream cheese, room temperature
3 c. mayonnaise
5 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
1 lb. bacon, cooked and diced
4-6 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and a good spoonful or two of sauce
2 green onions, minced

Directions
Beat the softened cream cheese and mayonnaise together in a medium size bowl. Once combined fold in the cheddar cheese, bacon, chipotle peppers, a couple spoonfuls of adobo sauce and green onions. Refrigerate and spread on bread or toasted crostini rounds.

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