Slow Cooker Queso Blanco — The Graduation Party Cheese Dip

Mother’s Day went well. I want to put it on the page in pen because Mama’s Mother’s Day this year was the kind of Mother’s Day a person remembers, and Mama’s previous Mother’s Days have not always been.

The plan had been three months in the making. Eggs Benedict for two. The recipe I had read about in Family Circle at the dentist in 2017 in the same waiting-room pile that gave me the chicken shawarma the first week of the notebook. The recipe is the kind of from-scratch breakfast that requires you to know how to poach an egg and how to make a hollandaise sauce, and I had been learning both for a week.

The poaching technique is the swirl-and-drop. You bring a pot of water to a bare simmer, salt it, swirl it with a spoon to create a small whirlpool, and crack each egg into the center of the whirlpool. The whirlpool keeps the egg white wrapping around the yolk instead of trailing off in long egg-white ribbons. You poach for three minutes. You lift with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel.

The hollandaise is the technique I had been most nervous about. Hollandaise is butter and egg yolks emulsified together into a creamy yellow sauce with lemon juice. The trick is the temperature — the butter has to be hot enough to cook the yolks gently, but not so hot that the yolks scramble. The first batch on the first attempt Tuesday morning broke into scrambled-egg-and-butter-puddle the moment I added the butter, because I had heated the butter to bubbling instead of just-melted. The second batch on the second attempt held. The third held. By Sunday morning I knew what I was doing.

The whole breakfast came together at nine in the morning Sunday May thirteenth. Two English muffins toasted, split, buttered. Two slices of Canadian bacon (Walmart deli, $2.99 for the package) warmed in a small skillet. Four poached eggs, two per plate. Hollandaise spooned generously over each egg. A small fan of sliced strawberries on the side from the Aldi sale. Two cups of coffee.

Mama walked into the kitchen at eight forty-five in her bathrobe and stopped dead. The plates were set. The hollandaise was in a small white pitcher. The strawberries were fanned. She said, in a small soft voice, oh, baby. She sat down. She ate slowly. She had two helpings of the hollandaise. She said, eating, baby, my mama would have called this a hotel breakfast. I am going on the page in pen with the sentence.

And the recipe Saturday for the catering work was slow cooker queso blanco for Mrs. Henderson’s niece’s high-school graduation party. Mrs. Henderson had asked me on Tuesday afternoon if I would make a big slow-cooker dip for thirty people. The reimbursement was $25 for the cheese and ingredients; she tipped $15 on top, $40 total. The dip was a Couple Cooks recipe — white American cheese melted in the slow cooker with evaporated milk, fresh-roasted poblano peppers chopped fine, garlic, cumin. Low for two hours, stirring every thirty minutes. The cheese melts into a smooth, slightly tangy, slightly spicy dip that holds at temperature on a buffet line for hours.

The math: a pound of white American cheese from the Walmart deli $3.99, a 12-ounce can of evaporated milk $1.49, two fresh poblanos roasted at 400 for fifteen minutes and chopped $1.50, four cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of cumin from the rack, salt. Total: $6.98 in ingredients, against the $25 reimbursement. The tip was the bonus.

The technique on the queso is the white-American-cheese choice and the evaporated milk. Most queso recipes call for shredded cheese; the shredded kind has anti-caking agents that throw off the melt. Deli white American cheese is the cheese to use because it melts smoothly into the dip without breaking. Evaporated milk is the dairy to use because it does not curdle the way regular milk does over the long slow cook. The combination produces the creamy-smooth queso that holds for hours.

Mrs. Henderson’s niece — her name is Madison, eighteen years old, headed to OSU in the fall on a partial scholarship for biology — came over to me at the buffet line and asked for the recipe. I wrote it out on a small index card from the kitchen drawer. Madison’s mom Renee (the same Renee who brought Eli over for the floating taco bowls a few weeks ago) asked Mrs. Henderson if I would be available to do her own younger daughter’s ninth-birthday cake in July. The answer was yes. The catering schedule is filling up the way catering schedules fill up when one job leads to two.

Mama said when she had her bowl of the queso for dinner Sunday night, baby, you are going to be running a small business. She is right. I am.

The recipe is below, the way A Couple Cooks wrote it. The trick I want you to keep is the white American cheese (deli-sliced, not shredded; the anti-caking agents in shredded cheese throw off the melt) and the evaporated milk (regular milk curdles over the long slow cook). Roast the poblanos before chopping; the smoky char is the difference. Make this for a crowd that needs a buffet-line dip that holds at temperature.

Slow Cooker Ground Beef Chili

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 6 hours | Total Time: 6 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef (80/20)
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 cans (15 oz each) dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef, breaking it apart, until no longer pink, about 7–8 minutes. Drain the excess fat.
2. Sauté the vegetables. Add the diced onion, bell pepper, and garlic to the skillet with the beef. Cook for 3–4 minutes until the onion is softened.
3. Season the meat. Stir in the chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, cayenne, and salt. Cook for 1 minute until fragrant.
4. Load the slow cooker. Transfer the seasoned beef and vegetable mixture to a 6-quart slow cooker. Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, kidney beans, beef broth, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir everything together until well combined.
5. Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours or on HIGH for 3–4 hours. The longer cook gives the best flavor.
6. Adjust and serve. Taste and adjust salt and spices as needed. Ladle into bowls and serve with your favorite toppings — shredded cheddar, sour cream, diced onion, or saltine crackers.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 385 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 29g | Fiber: 8g | Sodium: 920mg