Bacon Cheddar Potted Cheese

When I was a kid, one of my favorite flavors of the holidays was those salty cheese spreads that came in the Christmas food packages.  I loved how they were so creamy and salty, and probably loved them partly because of the MSG.  A friend recently posted a recipe online for one of these spreads and when I saw it I knew I had to make it work for GAPS.  I think this is even better without the MSG.

INGREDIENTS:

2 T coconut oil
12 oz raw cheddar cheese
8 oz bacon (I used Organic Prairie brand)
2 shallots
1 T bourbon
1 cup kefir or homemade yogurt (you could probably use coconut milk if you don't have either)

METHOD:

Chop the bacon and cook in the coconut oil until crispy, remove and set aside.

Fry the shallots in 2 T of the fat left from cooking the bacon, until caramelized.

Chop the cheese into small cubes and put into the bowl of a food processor along with the bacon, and pulse until well blended.  Add the kefir, bourbon, and shallots and continue to blend until the mixture is creamy. 

At this point the mixture is a thick spread or dip, that would go well with veggie sticks, apple slices, crackers, or coconut bread or nut butter bread..  You can easily adjust the consistency by adding in more kefir, if you want a thinner dip.  For an extravagant salad dressing, or dressing for vegetables, you could thin this down a lot with oil and vinegar as well as more kefir.