Easy Thanksgiving Appetizer

I am going to be traveling for Thanksgiving, so I need an easy go-to recipe so I can show some gratitude to my hosts during the week.  Since I'm not sure how much access I'm going to have to a kitchen, I found a recipe that is no-cook, incredibly festive, and most importantly DELICIOUS.

Thanksgiving pumpkin cheese ball!

Check out these pumpkins!  They are so dang cute.  Here's my secret:  cheese balls, dusted with paprika.  I used green onions and cilantro for the stem and leaves.  Bam.

Oh, and if that wasn't great enough...you can use virtually any cheese ball recipe for this appetizer.  Obviously I used the best one:  the Fiesta Cheese Ball.

Here's the recipe, with my added tweaks.  The pictures show a doubled recipe, because I tested this one on a larger crowd.

Fiesta Cheese Ball (original recipe)
Ingredients:

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup shredded pepperjack cheese

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

1/3 cup chopped green onion

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Red and yellow food coloring (if desired)

Paprika

Instructions:
1.  Combine everything but the paprika.  Add food coloring to get a light pumpkin color.  Refrigerate overnight to let the flavors marry and allow the cream cheese to harden up so the cheese can be shaped into a ball.  (Save some green onion stems and pairs of cilantro leaves for garnish)
2.  After refrigeration, form the cheese into a ball.  Sprinkle with paprika to cover.  Lightly slice some vertical lines into the ball to simulate pumpkin ridges.  Press down from the top to give it a pumpkin shape.  Finish the pumpkin with green onion stems and cilantro leaves.

For the record, this recipe was DEVOURED.  I was lucky to have any leftovers, despite making a double batch.  Check out this carnage!

Super tasty, super easy, super cute.  I love it when a recipe comes together like this!