WGN Morning News’ Robin Baumgarten is back in the kitchen! She’s up to her old tricks with some retro recipes. Today she whips up some Mini Cheese Ball Turkeys.

Ingredients

• 8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese, room temp
• 1 pkg cheese ball dip – your favorite 
• (I used Parmesan Garlic from Sunset Gourmet)
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans
• thinly sliced carrots
• slivered almonds
• orange cheese
• dried cranberries

Directions

• Mix together the room temp cream cheese and the package of cheese ball dip until well combined. Using a small cookie scoop (approx 1 Tbsp) scoop cream cheese into balls. 
• Roll each ball in the finely chopped pecans. 
• Stick 4 – 5 of the finely sliced carrot sticks into the back of each ball to form the tallest part of the tail.
• In front of the carrots, place 4 -5 of the slivered almonds.
• Cut a slice of cheese into small triangles. Stick a small triangle on each ball as the beak.
• Cut the dried cranberries into small circles. Place 2 small circles above each beak.

If you need some help sticking the eyes and beak onto the cheese balls you can use a toothpick to dab a teeny bit of mayo or cream cheese onto the eyes/beak and that will help it stick better.