Taco Dip

This super ooey gooey messy looking dish is taco dip, recipe from Closet Cooking. I made it as a snack for a day of crafting for a friend's wedding. She and I had already started digging it into it before I remembered to take a picture, so you'll have to excuse the corners. The dip was delicious, and four of us finished the whole pan. It was basically our lunch. I modified the recipe a little bit, and I've added my adaptation below. This is a great party dish.

Taco Dip
(recipe adapted from Closet Cooking)
1/2 lb ground turkey
4 oz room temperature neufchatel cream cheese
1 cup salsa
1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese, plus extra for topping
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup light sour cream
taco seasoning, to taste
2 Tbsp water

Optional Toppings
shredded romaine lettuce
sliced black olives
diced tomatoes
diced avocado

Brown the ground turkey, then add taco seasoning and water. Mix well until seasoning is blended into meat. In a medium-size bowl, add turkey, cream cheese, salsa, cheese, mayo, and sour cream and stir until well combined. Spread into a medium size baking dish and top the dip with additional cheese. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Add any optional toppings. Serve with tortilla chips.

Stuffed Squash Blossoms

My friend Katy is visiting for the week, and I took her to the Sunday farmer's market where we found squash blossoms! We picked some up to experiment with and made it to go along with last night's dinner. We stuffed the blossoms with either goat cheese or an herbed havarti and for a few of them I added a little bit of prosciutto. Then we dipped them in an egg wash and rolled them in corn meal and fried them each blossom in a inch or so of olive oil for about 15-30 seconds, each blossom. They turned out delicious! The corn meal gave it a nice crispy crust but then it was soft inside, and the goat cheese ones were especially, deliciously gooey. The blossoms were a little more than I would spend on a regular basis, but definitely an interesting curveball to throw at a (small) dinner party.

Carrie: ICBC Thanksgiving

For this week's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge, Lauren chose Thanksgiving leftovers. However, I didn't have any Thanksgiving leftovers, and it would have been weird anyway because my family chose an untraditional Thanksgiving dinner of seafood, egg rolls and assorted vegetables. But! As it turned out, I found this turkey meatball recipe with cranberry sauce that I wanted to make because I needed to review these fusion brands appetizer spoons for work (Kitchenware News & Housewares Review), and it sounded like a good recipe. The thought behind it is good, but I thought the turkey meatballs were too dry and I didn't like the cranberry sauce. Oh well. The appetizer spoons were cute.

Herbed Turkey Meatballs with Cranberry Sauce (adapted from Pink Parsley)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped (I didn't use any celery since I didn't have any)
1 lb ground turkey
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 egg (Pink Parsley suggest subbing 1/4 cup pumpkin puree for the egg)
2 Tbsp fresh oregano, minced (I used dried)
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, minced (I used dried)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2/3 cup orange juice
1 shallot minced (I didn't have any shallots)
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and lightly oil a baking sheet.

In a small skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and cook until softened about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl combine the celery and onion, turkey, bread crumbs, egg, oregano, poultry seasoning, parsley, salt and pepper. Gently incorporate with your hands. Form the mixture into meatballs and drop onto your cookie sheet.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until cooked through.

Prepare the cranberry sauce while the meatballs are in the oven. Combine orange juice, shallots, cranberries, and sugar in a medium skillet. Cook over medium heat until the cranberries pop and the mixture begins to thicken.

Serve the meatballs with the cranberry sauce.

ICBC Tomatoes

So one of the secret ingredients recently were tomatoes, and I wanted to do something that was at least a little original. I make plenty of marinara sauce, and I can make a pico de gallo, and I can make a bruschetta, but what's something I've never done? So I of course went straight to FoodGawker and discovered fried green tomatoes. Of course! So genius. I found some green tomatoes at the Sunday St. Philips Farmer's Market last weekend, and I chose an unfried green tomatoes recipe I found via FoodGawker. I actually really liked them. We dipped them in a little ranch, and it was a fun and new side. And my sister who doesn't really like tomatoes said she liked the green ones a lot more.

Unfried Green Tomatoes
2 green tomatoes, sliced
1 cup panko crumbs
1 cup shredded Italian cheese
sprinkle of cayenne
pinch of ground black pepper
dash of salt
1 egg

Slice the tomatoes. Beat the egg. Blend cheese and panko with spices. Dip a slice of tomato into the egg, then the panko and place onto a lightly sprayed cookie sheet. After you finish all the tomato slices, spray them with an olive oil cooking spray. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. They should be crispy and lightly browned. I dipped the unfried green tomatoes in ranch dressing.

Bridal Shower Menu

I hosted a bridal shower today for my friend Suzie who is getting married next month. As with most parties, it was delightful to me to have the opportunity to plan a menu. I decided to choose something simple, that would look nice but be easy to prepare. I chose to create an antipasti platter, roasted garlic hummus, Greek orzo pasta salad, and a fruit platter. There were M&M and chocolate chip blondies with ice cream for dessert. I was going to make the hummus myself but got too lazy. Oh well. I did make the pasta salad and the blondies.


The antipasti platter consisted of Genoa salami, hard salami, Wisconsin provolone, white cheddar, pepperoni, antipasti olives, roasted red peppers and marinated artichokes.

Look for coming entries with recipes for the pasta salad and the blondies.

Carrie: ICBC Black Beans

I'm several weeks behind in ICBC, and it's been a combination of laziness and cheapness. But a few weeks ago, I chose black beans as my ingredient. It's a pantry staple for me, and I thought it'd be interesting to see what people came up with. Sarah Michelle made Black Bean Brownies and Becky made a Turkey Chili with Black Beans. Michele also prepared a chili recipe.

So for black beans, I decided to make a black bean and corn salsa. I was hosting a smaller dinner on Friday night, and I thought a salsa would help tide us over until dinnertime. Measurements of spices are inaccurate since it's all been by taste. In the end, I think it was a pretty good salsa. I would definitely make it again.

Black Bean and Corn Salsa
one can of black beans
about 3/4 of a package of frozen corn, thawed
three tomatoes
two small cloves of garlic
jalapeno, to taste
1/4 of a red onion
1/4 of a bunch of cilantro
juice from half of a lime
salt
cumin

Combine ingredients and stir together. Add salt, cumin, jalapeno, cilantro and lime to taste.

Carrie: Iron Chef Blogger Challenge Cream Cheese

There are some obvious choices when the ingredient cream cheese comes up, like cream cheese frosting, but then my obsessive stalking of other cooks' blogs came in handy because I thought of this recipe instead. I'm a pretty big fan of spinach artichoke dip, and this looked like a particularly fun twist. It's an artichoke bread, basically artichoke dip baked into the bread, by Kevin over at Closet Cooking. I'd say this recipe gets an A, especially when Jake bit into it and went "This is awesome, Carrie!" I probably could have left it in the oven a little longer so the cheese on top could brown a little more, but I was so so hungry, and it still tasted delicious. Be warned, though, it's very, very filling.

Artichoke Bread
4 oz. cream cheese
1 14-oz can artichokes
2-3 green onions, sliced
few cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream
big handful of mozzarella plus some to sprinkle on top
slightly smaller handful of Parmesan plus some to sprinkle on top
half of a loaf of Italian bread

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cream, artichokes, green onions, garlic, mayo, sour cream, mozzarella and Parmesan together in a bowl. Hollow out your bread just a little bit to stuff the artichoke cheese mixture in it. Spread it in the bread and top with more cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake until cheese melts and turns golden brown.

Wednesday Night Dinners: Shrimp with Shallot-Tarragon Sauce

I've been taking a break from cooking the last couple Wednesday night dinners and finally jumped back in this week to test out a recipe from my new cookbook. As a birthday present, Vanessa gave me Bon Appetit's Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook. I served a Shrimp with Shallot-Tarragon Sauce on Wilted Spinach and a side of Grilled Brie and Tomato on Crusty Bread. Two thumbs up on both recipes and I was impressed with how quickly the shrimp dish came together. It looks really fancy but cooked really quickly.



Shrimp with Shallot-Tarragon Sauce on Wilted Spinach
(from Bon Appetit's Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook, page 350)

10 uncooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
5 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon, divided
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger, divided
1/2 cup finely chopped shallots (about 2 large)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1 6-ounce package fresh baby spinach

Toss shrimp, parsley, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 3 teaspoons tarragon, and 1 teaspoon ginger in medium bowl. Sprinkle mixture with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add shallots, saute 5 minutes. Add shrimp mixture; saute until shrimp are almost cooked through, about 3 minutes. Add butter and cream; bring just to simmer. Add remaining 1 teaspoon ginger. Season with salt and pepper. Set shrimp aside.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in another large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add spinach and remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss until just wilted, about 25 seconds. Mound spinach in center of plates; surround with shrimp and sauce. Sprinkle shrimp with remaining 2 tablespoons tarragon.

Serves 2.

Grilled Brie and Tomato on Crusty Bread
(from Food Network)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
6 (1/2 inch thick) slices of crusty bread
1/2 pound brie, sliced thin

Heat the broiler. Put the cherry tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Broil them until they burst; set aside.

Butter the bread on both sides and top each with several slices of brie. Broil until the cheese is bubbling and slightly browned. Top with the tomatoes. Serve immediately.