30 Days of Pumpkin-Day Twenty-eight: Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip

I decided to make this dip from A Spotted Pony because I had 4oz of cream cheese left over from a different recipe.  4oz of cream cheese made a half recipe. 

I thought that the half recipe was quite a lot of dip.  Perhaps this was because I didn't particularly care for the dip.  Perhaps the dip just wasn't  cheesecake-y enough for my tastes.  Anyway, Mrblocko loved the dip with graham crackers and apples.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip via A Spotted Pony
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 c powdered sugar
scant 3/4c pumpkin
1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
1 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon

Beat softened cream cheese with powdered sugar. Gradually add pumpkin, pie spice, vanilla and cinnamon; beat until smooth. Chill for at least 1 hr to blend flavors. Serve with graham crackers, apples, pears or gingersnaps.

30 Days of Pumpkin-Day Twenty: Savory Pumpkin Dip Fail

We're two thirds of the way through pumpkin month!  Can you believe it?  And because not every recipe turns out the way you want it, I'm writing about this Savory Pumpkin Dip from My Whole Food Life.

No one in the house liked this recipe.  No matter how much seasoning I added to the mixture, it still tasted like canned pumpkin.  While we all really enjoy pumpkin in this house, we don't like it enough to just eat it straight from the can all by it's onsie.

Here is the recipe I used:

1  1/2 white beans ( 1/2 c more than the original recipe)
1 c canned pumpkin 
1/4 c water
1 1/2 t smoked paprika (orig 1t)
1/2 t onion powder
1 t chili powder(orig 1/2t)
1/2 t kosher salt

In food processor combine all ingred til smooth. Serve immediately or refrigerate for later.  makes about 1 1/2 cups dip.

 It even looks just like the stuff straight out of the can.

Sadly, as much as I hate tossing out food, I had to pitch this dip.  I'm thinking that if it contained 1/4-1/2 c pumpkin it might have been better? Maybe you just have to be a bigger fan of pumpkin than we are in the Blocko house?  

Do you have any ideas how I might have salvaged this dip?

Deviled Egg Spread

I love deviled eggs.  

Sadly, I'm cursed with the "I can't peel an egg" gene.

They wind up looking like Freddy Kruger or Edward Scissorhands had a go at them.

It's really rather disturbing to look at.  Sort of like this cartoon.

via

C'mon.  Admit it.  It made you chuckle.

With this dip, you don't have to worry about how the eggs look when you peel them because you're just going to hack them up anyway.

Oh sure, you could call it egg salad, but Deviled Egg Spread tastes and sounds so much more fancy schmancy.


Deviled Egg Spread from The Cutting Edge
1 dozen large eggs
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
Salt & pepper
Paprika for dusting

In large pan, cover eggs with cold water; make sure water is  an inch above eggs. Add vinegar. Bring to rapid boil. Cover pan and remove from heat. Let stand 15 min. Drain water from eggs and cool under cold running water. Shake pan vigorously to crack shells. Let eggs cool in water.

Shell eggs and halve them lengthwise. Coarsely chop half egg whites and transfer to large bowl. Add remaining white and all yolks to food processor with mayo and mustard. Process til smooth. Scrape mix into bowl and blend with chopped egg whites. Season with salt and pepper and top with paprika.  Can be made ahead and refrigerated overnight.

Sesame Oil Hummus

I'm not the biggest fan of tahini. Whenever I've tried to make hummus the tahini always makes it taste funky.  I've tried a few different brands all with no luck.

Of course when I saw this recipe for hummus that used sesame oil instead of tahini at Are You Hungry?, I whipped up a batch right away.

Thing is, I don't really like it.

I'm thinking that I don't like a strong taste of sesame.  Sure sesame seed bagels are great, and give me a sesame seed bun over a plain one please!  I even like sesame seeds in my granola.  I guess I can have too much of a "good" thing.

At least Mrblocko liked this dip so it didn't have to go directly into the garbage can.  Funny thing is he would rather not eat anything with sesame seeds on it.  Guess we are opposites like that.


No Tahini Hummus from Are You Hungry?
2 cups chickpeas or garbanzo beans (if using canned drain, rinsed and towel dry)
3 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
4 - 5 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. garlic, crushed or minced
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. smoked sweet paprika
3 Tbsp. sesame oil

In a food processor, blend chickpeas, lemon/lime juice, and 4 T olive oil. Add garlic,spices, and sesame oil. Blend to a smooth paste.  If  too dry, add more olive oil a little at a time until dip is desired texture. Serve chilled.

'City Slicker' Corn Dip

I've renamed this corn dip.  Originally it was titled Cowboy Corn dip, but as I omitted ALL the jalapenos, it didn't seem fitting.  Whenever I see something called "Cowboy" whatever, I assume it's got some kick to it.  This dip sans jalapenos has no kick, but is still mega addictive!

I made it for a gathering over Memorial Weekend - Nerf War's at my friend Julie's house.  They've had Nerf wars for several years and this was the first time we'd been able to go.  It was a good thing too as this was the last Nerf War they were going to host as they are moving to Memphis!

Anyhow, back to the dip.  It makes A LOT.  This bowl contains about half of a full recipe.  There were 50+ people at the party and most of them BIG eaters.  Granted the table was filled with food of all sorts, but still only half of this dip was eaten.  And everyone LOVED the dip.  Several people even asked me for the recipe on the spot.  Luckily it was easy enough to make that I had it memorized and could share with folks.

We ran out of chips so we've taken to making sandwiches of a sort with the leftovers.  Think fancy grilled cheese with corn.  Gooey and messy, but super tasty!

Unless you are have a gigantic party, half the recipe or you will find yourself with a plethora of corn dip!

Cowboy Corn Dip adapted from The Kitchen Life of a Navy Wife
3 cans sweet corn with diced peppers/Fiesta corn, drained,11 oz each (Mine were 15.25 oz, but I just used the whole thing since I left out the jalapenos)
1 can chopped green chilies, drained (7 oz)
1 can chopped jalapeno peppers, drained (6 oz) (I omitted)
1/2 c green onions, chopped (I used one bunch of green onions, diced)
1 c mayonnaise (Don't use miracle whip, PLEASE!)
1 c sour cream
1 t pepper
1/2 t garlic powder
1/4-1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 package shredded sharp cheddar cheese (16 oz) (this comes to 4 cups of cheese)
2 bags of Frito Scoops or other salty corn chips

In a LARGE bowl, mix all ingredients except for the chips. Cover and chill two hours to overnight. (overnight is best so the flavors can meld) Serve with your favorite chips.

Chocolate Syrup

I want some chocolate milk!
I want to drink it now.

-Well, just make some faux quik mix.

But I don't want THAT kind of chocolate milk.  The mix kind has little foamy floaties.  That's great and all, but I want the smooth and rich sort of chocolate milk.

-So go get some chocolate syrup from the store.

 But I'm too lazy to go to the store.  That would require putting on jeans and a bra and that is way too much effort.  Ack!  What's a lazy creamy chocolate milk craver to do?

-Shut up and make this Chocolate syrup from Dough Puncher.

Boom.
Problem solved.  
Go about your daily chocolatified milky day.

Seriously, this syrup took 5 minutes to make.  Much less time than it takes me to go to the grocery store, let alone get dressed. 

The above photo is a half batch.  A half batch is enough to fill one of those 8 oz freezer jam jars.

Chocolate Syrup (full recipe) from Dough puncher
1 c water
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder ( I like penzey's cocoa)
2 c sugar
1/4 t vanilla
pinch salt

Mix water, cocoa, and sugar in med pan (a larger pan is better than one you think is just the right size.  This stuff will bubble up.) Over med heat, dissolve cocoa and sugar with whisk. Bring to boil and cook 3 min, watching carefully to make sure it doesn't boil over-- turn down the heat if necessary (You don't want to clean this molten lava off your stovetop.) After 3 min, remove from heat. Add   vanilla and salt.

Store in fridge up to 2 months. It will thicken to similar consistency of store bought syrup as it sets up in refrigerator, if you can wait that long.  

Maple Pumpkin Butter

I was rummaging through the freezer the other day and I came across some leftover canned pumpkin.  Hooray!  It's been months since I made something new and interesting from pumpkin.

Yes.  I wanted to make something new.

I've made a LOT of things from canned pumpkin: rolls, sloppy joes, pie, soup, cornbread, bars, granola, bread pudding, oatmeal, waffles, sweet bread, microwave mug cake for one, ice cream, pancakes, and bagels...just to name a few. 

Making something different was going to pose a challenge! 

I did some hunting and found a recipe for Maple Pumpkin Butter over at the blog called Chatelaine. 

How perfect and simple.  Blockette and Mrblocko both love pumpkin butter but I rarely buy it for them because it is always on the pricy side.  Not so with this version! 

I love pumpkin so I stock up when it goes on sale around Thanksgiving.  I also used my own pumpkin pie spice blend.  Then I used homemade maple syrup.  These things cut down on the cost as well.  Even if you buy your pumpkin full price, use real maple syrup and pricy spices, this will still be less costly, and taste better than the fancy little jars of pumpkin butter in your supermarket.

 The pumpkin I found in my freezer happened to be a scant 2 cups, so I used scant measurments of the rest of ingredients.  After cooking the concoction, the recipe yielded a heaping cup.

ingredients before cooking for a half hour.

Maple Pumpkin Butter from Chatelaine.
2 cups pumpkin purée
1/2 cup maple-syrup (I used home made maple flavored syrup)
1 tsp pumpkin-pie spice (make your own)

Combine pumpkin purée with maple syrup, pumpkin-pie spice and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan and set over medium. Cook, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens and turns dark brown, about 30 min.

One note of caution, I found that if I didn't stir the pumpkin butter constantly it bubbled up and made a mess over the stove.  So, I did what I do with most menial household tasks, I yacked it up on the phone.  Standing in front of the stove for 30 min just stirring and doing nothing else is boring!  So if you can't multitask, put on some good music before you begin this recipe.

After cooking...notice the deeper, darker brown color.

Salsa Bean Dip

Our local library has a reading program every year over the summer. The kids have to read a certain number and type of books to complete each part of the program. This year the theme was "Reading is Delicious" and one of the activities for Blockette's age group was to check out a cook book and make a recipe with the help of an adult.

One of the cook books we checked out was called American Grub, by Lynn Kuntz.  Each state had one or two recipes based off of something related to the state.  The book also had a little blurb about each state which I thought was fun too.

The recipe that caught my eye was the Anasazi Bean Dip. While I really like my go to recipe for Pesto Bean Dip, I get tired of it after a while and want to try something new.

I thought this bean dip was pretty good, and so did Mrblocko.  It's more of a chip bean dip, than a veggie bean dip, but we still ate it with veggies.  Blockette has decided that she doesn't like the new bean dip and has decided she'd rather eat her veggies plain until I make the pesto dip again.  I'm not sure if this is because she doesn't like the taste of the dip, or she doesn't like change.  Probably a little bit of both.

If you'd like to try this tasty bean dip here's the version of the recipe I made:
Anasazi Bean Dip adapted from American Grub by Lynn Kuntz
2 cups of cooked pinto beans
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper (use more or less to taste)
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c salsa

In a food processor, pulse beans.  Add onions and pulse.  Add spices and puree til mostly smooth.  Pour mixture into a bowl and add sour cream and salsa.  Stir until combined.  Let chill in the fridge for at least an hour to let the flavors combine.

Honey nut peanut butter

Hey! I just made my own peanut butter.

Isn't that neato?

All you do is dump some peanuts into a food processor and 

whiz it around for about 4 minutes until it's smooth and creamy.

Oh ho...but this is no ordinary peanut butter. It's made from honey roasted peanuts.

I'm a weirdo and actually preferred the Meijer's brand creamy peanut butter, 

but Mrblocko and Blockette thought it was 

super awesome.  

I even got a "best mom ever" from Blockette. She thought it was that good.

So there you have it...peanut butter from scratch...you're only four minutes from being the 

best mom EVER! 

"Fast Food" at Home

I saw this recipe for Warm bean dip over at Life as a Lofthouse back in February. I'd been drooling over it ever since, and hoping I'd get invited to some sort of gathering in which it would be appropriate to bring to share. Alas, no such invitation came.

For Mother's and Father's Day, Mrblocko and I each get to have the meal of our choosing on our respective parenting holidays, no matter how crazy it might seem.  I asked Mrblocko if it would be too weird for us to have this appetizer for dinner, as our main course, on Mother's Day. His reply was, "No, but only if we put shredded chicken in it."

What a stellar idea. So, Mrblocko grilled up two chicken breasts with our burgers on Saturday. I had him use some sort of hickory flavored grill seasoning so the chicken would have a smokey flavor.

Oh man.  This dip was THA. BOMB.  I used homemade taco seasoning, and half the amount of suggested cheese.  The only thing that could have made it better would have been some olives, and maybe a side of guacamole.

I figured olives might be pushing it.  Blockette, in the past, has turned her nose up at refried beans.  I told her it was Mother's Day, so she shouldn't complain about dinner, but that it was sort of like the bean dip she eats with carrots. I even cut up some carrots for her to dip in it.  Her reaction was, "Wow! This dip is soooo good. I love it.  It's like nachos, but even better."  Very high praise in deed.  I even ate the dip with carrots.  I don't know why, but it tasted really good that way.  (Mrblocko, don't knock it 'til you try it.)

If we had gone out to some place like Taco Bell.  I would have ordered something similar to this.  Only this tasted a million times better than anything you can get at Taco Bell.  The ingredients cost me around $8, including carrots, chips and a salad.  Aaaaand, if you notice, we only ate around a third of the dip.

This is why we hardly ever eat out.  Where could you go out to eat and feed three people for $8, with enough leftovers to feed all three of you for a whole other meal?  Plus, did I mention this TASTES better?  Oh, and I got to eat this in my PJ's on the comfort of my couch. Oh, sure, I or my husband, could go out and bring the food back home and then I could eat it on the couch, but it's a good 10-15 min drive to the nearest fast food place. By the time the food would get back home it would be cold.  Cold fast food is disgusting.  I don't know about you, but I'm not into congealed fat.  Doesn't float my boat.

As I'm a dessert obsessed girl, and so is my daughter, we couldn't forget about our after dinner treat.  I wanted to stick with that fast food vibe so I made some slushies/icees like the ones you might find at Sonic.

I had seen this idea for homemade icees over at Real Mom Kitchen.  All you do is stick pop your ice cream maker.  (Yeah, super hard work involved there!) I used Cherry Dr. Pepper for ours.  I was surprised how red the slushy was.  It looks like the normal brown pop color in the 2 liter bottle.  I only made a liter of pop into icees.  We weren't super hungry after dinner, as the bean dip was so filling.  Because I only used half the bottle of pop, the total cost of our slushy was a mere $.50.  I'm guessing what I made would be about the same size as a large icee, and we all know, a large squishy costs more than $.50 at the Kwik E Mart.

Oh sure, I DID have to do dishes. There weren't very many though, and I saved them for the next day.  (I don't do dishes on Mother's Day.)  It probably took me 15 minutes, max.  I think the money I saved more than made up for any output of effort made cleaning up the kitchen.

A Million Times Better Than Taco Bell Bean Dip Nachos adapted from Life as a Lofthouse

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (I used the low fat kind)

1 cup low fat sour cream

2 cans (16 ounces, each) Or 1 (30oz) can low sodium refried beans (or make your own for even lower sodium)

1 packet taco seasoning (3T homemade salt free taco seasoning)

two cooked and shredded chicken breasts

1 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cups monterey jack cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together cream cheese and sour cream in a large bowl. Mix in refried beans until combined. Stir in taco seasoning. Stir in chicken. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray. Spread mixture evenly into the bottom of the baking dish. Sprinkle the top with both cheeses. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until cheese in melted and slightly browned. Serve with tortilla chips and carrots.

Homemade Icees from Real Mom Kitchen
4 1/2 cups of chilled soda pop (or more if your ice cream maker is larger than 1 1/2 qt)

Place soda in your 1 1/2 qt ice cream maker and freeze accordingly for 20 minutes. Serve in 4 glasses.

15 Minute Dulce De Leche

I think by now I have fully established the extremes of my laziness. What is slightly lesser known is that I am impatient.  Ah, lazy and impatient.  They go great together, like milk and sauerkraut.

Last year I made Dulce de leche in the crockpot. And while the potential of having molten hot caramel sauce erupt all over my kitchen was thrilling, it took a whole 12 hours.  Ugh.  That is like a half a day.  Then you've got to wait for those cans too cool enough to be opened.  Who has time to do all that waiting? 

All my dulce de leche woes were solved when I found the recipe for Dulce de Leche from Cooking for Engineers.  You cook it...are you ready?  In the microwave!

The first step is to open the can of sweetened condensed milk.  Do not use your teeth to do this.  I recommend a can opener.

The second step is to put your condensed milk in a large microwave safe bowl.  Use the largest bowl you have. The bowl MUST be able to hold a minimum of two and a half quarts. If you don't use a bowl this large you will be very, VERY sad.

Thirdly, you microwave the condensed milk on MEDIUM power for 12-16 minutes, whisking after every 2 minutes.

This is the reason why you want such a hugemongous bowl. While the condensed milk is in the microwave, it is going to bubble up like there is no tomorrow.  Mine more than doubled in volume.  You can see the line on the picture above as to how high the milk got while it was cooking.

I stopped cooking mine after 14 minutes. I could have gone another 2 minutes, but I didn't want it to get any thicker than it already was.

The only down side to this was that the Microwave Dulce De Leche didn't get as dark as the slow cooked version. So there's your trade off.  I think there's a place in the universe for both versions.

Cooked Dried Beans

It seems like I'm making Pesto bean dip every week now.  This is super awesome because it means that we are all eating lots of veggies.  I wondered how hard it would be to make this bean dip totally from scratch.  It seems like it would be at least a little bit healthier in the sense that canned beans contain a LOT of salt. In addition to being healthier, dried beans are loads cheaper.

Meijers doesn't carry cannelloni or great northern beans in bulk. They do carry something called Peruano Beans.  They are sort of yellowish, but as you can see from the photo above they cook up on the brownish side. 

Since I had never cooked dried beans I used my handy dandy internet to find out exactly how to go about doing it. I knew that some dried beans contain a toxin that has symptoms like food poisoning if the beans aren't cooked properly. I found this informative recipe for cooked pinto beans from Tammy's Kitchen.  I wasn't sure if Peruano beans needed to be cooked any differently, so I referred to this recipe on how to cook mayocoba beans from Livestrong.com.  (Mayocoba is another name for Peruano Beans.)  Yup.  Pretty much the same directions.

Apparently, there is a debate as to weather or not to add salt to the beans in the cooking process.  Some people say that it is the only way to flavor the bean, and others say that adding salt increases the toughness of the bean.  Since I was adding lots of flavors to the bean dip, and salt, I decided to omit the salt in the cooking process.  I think if I was making refried beans, where the beans are the highlight of the dish, I would boil them with salt.  For the purposes of this dip, it just isn't necessary.

The first time I made beans I cooked them for a whole hour and a half.  I have found this to be overkill for the purposes of making dip.   I'll usually boil them from anywhere between 20 minutes to a hour, depending on how much time I have, and other activities that are going on in the kitchen.

When I cook up beans, I make up somewhere around a whole to a half of a pound, depending on how much room I have in my freezer.  I use a generous cup of cooked beans per batch of dip, and I freeze the remaining beans in similar portions.  The cooked beans freeze wonderfully.  They just need to defrost in the fridge the day before, and they are ready to be zipped around in a food processor.

Skinny Taco Dip

Whoops! No picture for the skinny taco dip. I made this for a cook out at a friend's house and it was a big hit. I actually brought my camera to the party to take pictures, but did I remember to take the camera out of its case and actually take pictures?  No.  Of course not!

The recipe for Skinny taco dip can be found on Skinnytaste.com, along with a nice photo.

I altered the recipe slightly.  Here is what I did:
Mix 1 package (8oz) Neufchatel cheese with half a container of fat free sour cream (8 oz).  Stir in 1-2 cups of salsa.  (I only used 1 cup of medium pace picante because it is a bit more liquidy than regular salsa.)  Add in 1 packet of taco seasoning or 2-3 T of your own taco mix. (I used 2 T.)  Spread this mixture in a 9x13 pan.  Layer with shredded lettuce.  (I used 1/4 head of ice berg lettuce.)  Top with a layer of diced tomatoes. (I used 2 smallish sized tomatoes that I seeded to eliminate excess moisture.  Add more if you actually like tomatoes.)  Next add a layer of shredded cheese.  (I used about 1 cup of longhorn colby and 1 cup of sharp cheddar because I really like cheese.)  Add black olives on top.  (I only used a few olives because Blockette hates olives.  If I was making this just for myself I would have put the entire 2.25 oz can of black olives on top, because I really like black olives.)

Baked Cheese and Bean Dip

I made this White bean and cheddar dip from Mommy's Kitchen for a girls get together back in June.  It is a warm dip so I baked it at my friend's house, so that means I never snapped a picture of it.

I used to take my camera with me everywhere when Blockette was a baby.  Now, I'm lucky if I remember how to use a camera.  How is it that kids give you amnesia?  What was I talking about again?  Who are you? Who am I? Huh?

Oh yea White bean and cheddar dip.  Yes. Of course I made changes to the recipe. I used homemade stock instead of from the can.  Because I did this I added extra salt and pepper to the dish.  I also used 2 huge cloves of garlic. This was waaaay too much garlic.  I have no idea why I put so much garlic in the dish.  Next time, I'll just use one clove.  It will be plenty.  Finally I put a cup of cheese inside the dip, and topped it with another 1/2 cup of cheese.  I can never have too much cheese, especially in a dip.

For some reason my dip was a bit more liquidy than I would have liked.  Next time I think I'll start with 1/4c of liquid and see how that works.  Maybe the beans I used just had a higher water content than normal.


White Bean and Cheddar Dip from Mommy's Kitchen
1 - can (15.5 oz) cannelleli beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 - cup low sodium chicken broth
1 - garlic clove, minced
1/2 - tsp cumin
1 - 1 1/4 - cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the beans, chicken broth, garlic and cumin in a blender. I used my Cuisinart hand blender with the blade attachment. Process until smooth. Add 3/4 cup of the grated cheese and blend by hand until combined. Place the bean mixture in a oven safe baking dish. Sprinkle on the remaining cheese all over the top. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with tortilla, pita chips, crackers or vegetables.

Black Bean Bip AKA The "Chocolate" Dip

More bean dip. YAY! This is for when you and your family gets tired of the Pesto Bean dip I wrote about earlier. I mean I love the stuff and it gets me to eat veggies, but sometimes you just need a bit of variety.I found the recipe for Black bean dip from Tidy Mom, and altered it slightly to fit the ingredients I had on hand. Below is the recipe with my changes:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 small onion
1/2 T balsamic vinegar
3/4 t kosher salt
1/2t smoked paprika
heaping 1/2 t dried parsley
4cloves garlic, minced

saute the onions until translucent in some olive oil. puree everything in a food processor. stream in olive oil to get dip to your desired consistency.

------------

As a final note: Mrblocko made the mistake of telling Blockette that this dip was made from black beans. Upon hearing this, Blockette immediately refused to eat any more. I kicked Mrblocko under the table and told her "Daddy was just joking. The dip is really made from chocolate. That's what gives it that dark color." Since my white lie, she asked for the dip every day at lunch, until it was gone. Chocolate makes everything better, even if there isn't any in the dish at all.

Rockin Pesto Bean Dip

Mommy, what smells so good?
It's a new veggie dip. Wanna try some?
Sure! This is really good mom. What's in it?
White beans.
Beans?
Yup.
Not black beans?
Nope. White beans.
Oh. Good. Cause I don't like black beans and this is really good.I think this has to be the easiest dip I've ever made. Not only is it easy, it is down right tasty. Even Mrblocko and Blockette love it as much as I do. This is awesome cause any way to increase our veggie intake is a good thing.

Here is what you do:
1. Drain and rinse one can of white beans and place it into the bowl of a food processor. (I used Great Northerns.)

2. add about 3 T of pesto. (I used Classico Basil Pesto. This is a really garlic-y pesto which imparts a ton of flavor to the dip. If you have a more mild pesto, you will need to add more.)

3. Add 2-3 teaspoons of lemon juice, about the juice from 1 lemon. (I've forgotten this before and the dip still tastes wonderful.)

4. Turn on the food processor and stream in some olive oil until the dip is your preferred consistency. (The amount of olive oil I use is different every time I've made this. It's going to depend on the humidity, your beans and how much pesto you use. If I had to guess I'd say somewhere around 1/4 c oil.)

5. Add salt and pepper to taste.

6. If you have time, this dip tastes even better if left to sit in the fridge for a few hours so the flavors can marry.

I found the basic recipe for white bean and pesto dip over at epicurious first, but I've seen versions of this same recipe all over the web.

Chocolate Cran-cherry Almond Butter

Hey! Apparently it is nutty spread week! Just to clarify, no I did not make all of these butters this week. They were all made at various times in January and February. I'm only just now getting around to writting about them!

This "butter" turned out much better than the Chocolate Pecan Butter I posted yesterday. Look! No oily separated ugly mess! Whoo hoo! Like the other spreads, I found the recipe for chocolate cherry almond butter at How Sweet It Is. I made a few tweaks to the recipe to suit my tastes. I added a Tablespoon of Sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. I also swapped out regular cocoa powder for the dutch processed variety, and used cherry flavored cranberries instead of dried cherries simply because it was what I had on hand.

So the almond butter LOOKED good, but how did it taste? Wonderful. I loved the balance between nutty, chocolaty, sweet and tart. My favorite way to eat this was smeared on a slice of freshly made toast. This is a rarity for me. Usually I make toast and by the time I get around to eating it, it's room temp. Because of this, it took me a looong time to work my way through this small amount of almond butter.

Sure, Blockette and Mrblocko said they thought it tasted good too, but then why could I never get them to eat it? Blockette still preferred chunky peanut butter. She wants that EVERY day for lunch. I'm not sure what Mrblocko's excuse was. Senility? Amnesia? He saw a bug? Whatever. He claims he could never remember to use it at meal times...even though it was sitting right on the counter the whole time.

Even though I liked this butter, I don't have any plans to make it in the future, not unless I can get a guarantee that I will have someone to help me eat it.


Chocolate Cherry Almond Butter from How Sweet it is
1 cup almonds
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup dried cherries
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
pinch of sea salt

Add almonds to food processor and blend until smooth. Add in the rest of ingredients, streaming in canola oil, and pulsing to combine. Blend until smooth.

Chocolate Pecan Butter

I was browsing Tasty Kitchen, you know cause I was killin time, and I came across a recipe for Salted Chocolate pecan butter. The recipe is from Jessica of the How Sweet it is blog. I really like this blog so I thought I'd give it a try.

The recipe got really rave reviews, but didn't turn out so well for me. I think the biggest problem was that the oil in the nuts separated and I could not get it back in. You can see from the photo below just how oily the spread was.
I stirred and stirred this stuff. No luck what so ever. What went wrong? Maybe I just needed to stick the whole thing back into the food processor. Maybe I mixed it up for too long in there. Maybe because I roasted the pecans it released too many oils. I don't know. I do know that with the oil separated it was next to impossible to spread on toast.
I couldn't get Mrblocko or Blockette to eat it. Not even a taste. It just looked so unappealing. It tasted OK, but it was nothing I wanted to eat on a regular basis. So what was I going to do with all this pecan butter?

I make peanut butter cookies all the time, so why not use this pecan butter in place of peanut butter? I used the same recipe from Baking Bites that I used to make Dark Chocolate Flourless peanut butter Cookies. My Pecan butter yielded just over 1/2 c so I used regular smooth peanut butter to equal the cup of spread needed in the recipe. Because of all the oil in the Pecan Butter, these cookies spread out a lot more than their full peanut butter counterparts. Their texture was also very different from the original. The original recipe yields a very grainy, crumbly cookie. These cookies were thin and chewy. The cookies lasted a week in our house and remained soft and chewy the entire time.

Although no one in our family really cared for the pecan butter, everyone loved the cookies. I mentioned that the cookies lasted a week in our house, but that was only because I hid them in the pantry!

Salted Chocolate Pecan Butter from How sweet it is
1 cup Pecans
1-½ Tablespoon Organic Cocoa Powder
¼ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup, More If Needed
¼ teaspoons Course Sea Salt

In a food processor, add pecans and pulse until smooth. Add cocoa powder and pulse until combined. Add vanilla and drizzle in maple syrup until desired consistency is reached. Add sea salt 1/4 teaspoon at a time, tasting after each addition. Feel free to add more syrup or salt depending on taste and consistency.

Peanut Butter Hummus

I am really REALLY picky about my hummus. For the longest time I thought I just didn't like hummus. I even tried to make my own. (I thought it was disgusting.) The only hummus I have found that I like is made by Sabra, oh and the stuff they sell at the Holy Land Restaurant in Minneapolis. I could eat that by the vat.

So knowing that I am picky about my hummus, I have no idea why I decided to test out the recipe for peanut butter hummus from How sweet it is. The combination of peanut butter and chickpeas sounded intriguing. I think the main thing that sold me was that this was a hummus that didn't require tahini. I think that tahini can make or break the dip. (So can a low quality olive oil for that matter. )

I absolutely love this hummus. The peanut butter makes it extra smooth and creamy. I spread it on toast and dip anything from crackers to carrots in it. Blockette and Mrblocko think it is weird and gross. I am totally OK with this. There were plenty of things my mom ate that grossed me out. It's only fair that I get to have some fun and gross out my family! Plus, if they don't like it, I don't gotta share!

One thing to remember when you are making hummus is to make sure you remove the little skins around the chickpeas. I'm sure there are all kinds of good nutrients in there, but it makes the hummus on the gritty side if you leave them in.

As for the substitutions, I only made one. I hardly think it counts though. We were out of ground black pepper so I used white instead. I guess white has a milder flavor, but in this dip, I couldn't tell. Also, the recipe said to start off with 1/4 c olive oil. I had to add 3/4 c to get the consistency I wanted. And even then the hummus is still very thick! Maybe I got some extra dense garbanzo beans or something.

For some reason none of the pictures of the hummus turned out. The focus on the camera was just off and I couldn't get it to manually adjust. I think it was because of the yellow light in the kitchen and the color of the hummus. It made the camera go all wonky.


Peanut Butter Hummus from How Sweet it is makes about 1 1/2 cups
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

Shell chickpeas if you wish. Add chickpeas to food processor and process until finely ground. Add peanut butter and mix until combined. With the food processor on, stream in olive oil through the top. You may need to add more to meet your desired consistency. Add salt, pepper and paprika and mix. Garnish with a sprinkling of smoked paprika. Serve with veggies and pita chips.

Pickle Roll Up Dip

Raise your hand if you like those appetizers that consist of meat schmeered with cream cheese, wrapped around a pickle, that gets sliced and placed on those mini pieces of rye bread? OOOOH! Gimme gimme.

The last time I was at a party that had these little guys (And I feel really old because I just realized how very long ago that actually was) I ate half the platter. Now I didn't sit there and shove my face...hmmm well, maybe I did. I seem to remember someone asking where I was putting all the food I ate. I guess that is polite way to say, "Gee you really are being a pig. You should save some for the rest of us."

Yes. I love those pickle wrap slicey thing-a-ma-jigs. I never ever make them though. They are just too fussy. The time it takes to eat an entire plateful is so disproportionate to the time it takes to prepare them. Call me selfish, but I don't want spend all this time in the kitchen to discover there is an empty plate before I get to eat a single one. If I don't get any, then nobody gets any. Guess I'm an all or nuthin kinda girl.

It doesn't have to be like that anymore thanks to chopped up dip from Tasty Kitchen. I came across this recipe by accident. I was searching for a recipe to bring to my friends house at the end of September. (I settled on Roasted Artichoke dip.) I filed the recipe away and thought it might be a good way to make the leftover pumpernickel bread a bit more exciting.Well I was sure wrong. This dip is as disgusting as it looks. It is so disgusting that I am hiding it in the back of my fridge so that no one has to be exposed to its gross disgustingness. Yup. Way in the back so Mrblocko can't find it and I have to eat it all myself.

Ok seriously, this dip is awesome. Mrblocko has been using it as a spread for turkey sandwiches. I've just been eating it huge scoopy globs on top of crackers. I like to fool myself that this is actually a healthy lunch. There is meat from the corned beef, dairy from the cream cheese, veggies from the relish and whole grains from the crackers. Just add chocolate for dessert and you've got all the major food groups covered.

I made a half recipe but bumped up the amount of relish because I am from the school of thought where you can never have too many pickles. Here is the recipe I used:

Pickle Roll Up Dip
3 2oz packages of corned beef lunch meat
1 8oz package of cream cheese (softened)
3 T dill pickle relish

Chop up the lunch meat and mix all the ingredients together!