Cream Cheese Roll Ups

 Cream Cheese Roll-Ups

• 2 8oz packages cream cheese, room temp
• 1 can black olives
• 1 can green chilies
• 1 package large flour tortillas
• 1 jar of salsa (we buy mild)

1- Beat cream cheese until smooth

2- Dice black olives, add to cream cheese mixture with green chilies

3- Spread evenly in thin layer onto tortilla, and roll tortilla

4- Refrigerate until cream cheese has firmed up before cutting into 1/2 or 1” slices 

These are another staple my grandma Sue always had during the holidays. They’re fairly simple, and I’m pretty sure most people would call them pinwheels, although I don’t think anyone in my family has a specific name for them. Grandma always served them as a sort of appetizer. At the time I’m sure I didn’t think of it as a fond moment, but I can remember all of the days we spent standing around her kitchen eating these wraps and plucking black and green olives from a glass dish as we waited for dinner to be ready. 

The beautiful part about these rollups is that you can pretty much throw whatever you want in them. I love this specific recipe, but when I make them for my husband I use cream cheese, diced onion, black pepper, and garlic powder. Some recipes you’ll find online have ham, cheese, even ranch (maybe not all three together). 

I’ll save you the 12 picture, mile long blog on how to make them as they’re pretty foolproof. But I will say, if you’re looking at them thinking they don’t sound appealing, give them a try anyway. It’s one of those foods I grew up trying to explain to friends and coworkers, always feeling so foolish because cream cheese and black olives don’t sound like they’d be good together. However, everyone who has tried them after my explanation has said they really liked them. I’ll never skip a combo of cream cheese with acidic foods. The way the fat from the cream cheese cuts through the acid of the tomato in the salsa makes it such a perfectly balanced little snack in my mind. 

I do make these more often than just the holidays. They’re so cheap and easy to make, I’ll usually make them randomly a few times throughout the year to settle a craving for them. They are the very first recipes I ever asked my grandma for, and I am so glad I did.