Cover Woman Jen Hatmaker’s Rules for Supper Clubs with the Perfect Pimento Cheese Recipe

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Rules for Supper Club:

One night a month, rotating houses.
No kids. (Since we have 16 children between us, SC starts at 8 p.m., and the host’s kids are already in bed or bribed with Cheetos and movies. The other parents get sitters, unless they are awesome like me and Melissa and have big kids to babysit, in which case, actual supervision is an incredibly loose concept.)
When you host, do everything: plan, shop, cook and clean. So three out of four months, just show up, drink wine, eat amazing food, laugh until you cry and leave your friend’s kitchen an absolute crime scene.
The food is serious. If you haven’t started planning your menu a week in advance, you are in the weeds. Don’t you dare put taco soup on the table.
All anyone can bring to SC is wine. And you’d better bring some or die trying.
SC is any night we make it work, which means we’ve seen 1 a.m. on a Tuesday and paid brutally. (After one such late night, we bemoaned our exhaustion in a group text the next day. [My husband,] Brandon, wrote, “We made the littles eat breakfast at school this morning. Hope the pancake on a stick with sugar syrup works out.”)
What happens at SC stays at SC. Failure to comply will result in flogging.

Sweet and Spicy Pimento Cheese

After being asked infinity times for a recipe, let me cobble one together while absolutely assuring you I don’t actually have one. This is as close as it gets, people.

First of all, don’t even talk to me about bagged shredded cheese. Unless you like grody, waxy pimento cheese, just stop it forever. Get a fresh block, put your food processor adapter thingy on “shred,” and shred up a whole block in 30 seconds. Yes, the processor is a pain in the butt to clean, but do you really want to hand shred that much cheese for approximately eleventy million hours? I didn’t think so. (If you spray the blades and inside of your processor with nonstick spray first, they will clean right the heck up.)

Shred your cheese. I like an equal combo of sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack, but you could not possibly mess up a cheese combo. Let’s say half a block of each.

Add:

1/4 to 1/2 cup mayo (It must be real. If you put in Miracle Whip, I will never speak to you the rest of your life.)
1/4 to 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup pimentos, chopped
1/4 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
1/4 cup candied jalapeños
Salt and pepper
2 to 3 dashes of cayenne

A word about the jalapeños: These are basically the bread-and-butter version of regular pickled jalapeños. Same idea but canned with way more sugar. You could make them by mega-sugar pickling fresh jalapeños or order them online. (This is my favorite brand and Amazon Prime will deliver them to your door.) If you have never had them and don’t immediately order them, there is no point in going on with your life.

Additional suggestions: Add chopped pecans (yes), put marmalade or jam on your bread and grill like a sandwich (yes), add bacon (always a yes), add Worcestershire (yes), add grated onion (yes). Worried about the mayo? Good mayo has only four to five ingredients. Honestly? Make your own. It is as easy as making vinaigrette and tastes a thousand times better. Even mayo haters will love homemade mayo.

Eat this on bread, crackers, veggies, baked potatoes, burgers, hot dogs, apples or—you know what?—straight out of the bowl because pimento cheese don’t need no wingman. I don’t even need to tell you how long it is good for in the fridge because it will be gone before that tragic date.