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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.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Just to prove I still cook, and even a couple times a week, here's a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread I made with my mom about a month or so ago. The recipe is here, and I just didn't include raisins.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

These cookies were pretty much some of the best cookies I've ever made. I made them for the family Christmas party and then for a New Year's Eve party. Delicious, all the way around. And the great thing is it's a basic chocolate cookie recipe that I just modified by adding peppermint chips, so you could just make chocolate cookies or modify them again by adding something else. I've been thinking of trying coconut, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, etc. I made them the first time using white flour, and the second time using whole wheat flour, and I'm told you can't tell the difference at all.

Recipe adapted from Dine & Dish
1 1/4 cups butter softened
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup Andes red peppermint chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add the vanilla.
In a separate bowl stir together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually mix into the creamed mixture.
Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheets.
Bake 9 minutes in the preheated oven. Cookies will be soft and still look slightly doughy.
Let set and cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes then remove from sheet onto wire rack to cool completely.

Holiday Coconut M&M Cookie Bars

This is a picture of the awkwardly cut Coconut M&M Cookie Bars I made for Thanksgiving. Very simple, and the red and green M&Ms make it kind of festive. This is a very coconutty recipe, so you should definitely enjoy coconut if you're going to make this. The recipe comes from Satisfy My Sweet Tooth. I love making cookie bars, because they're so easy.

Coconut M&M Cookie Bars (adapted from Satisfy My Sweet Tooth)

Ingredients
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups M&Ms (red and green for a holiday feel)
Note: I didn't measure the coconut and M&Ms, and just added them by sight.

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 9x13 glass pan.
Melt butter in medium saucepan, remove from heat and let cool slightly.
In a large bowl and using an electric mixer, cream together melted butter and sugars. Add eggs, vanilla, and salt and beat until combined. Blend in flours. Finally, mix in coconut and M&Ms.
Pour into prepared pan and bake 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.
Cool completely before cutting and serving.

Mini Cinnamon Muffins

I bought these really adorable mini muffin pans a couple weeks ago at Home Goods, and I figured a holiday is a great day to bake. It can be hard for me to find the time and the energy to bake. And I don't think it's that baking is terribly time consuming, unless you're making a bread. I think it must just be a combination of clean-up and the fact that I don't really eat baked goods. Anyway, so these muffin pans were cute, and I was going to make mini apple muffins, but seeing as how I didn't want to peel and core apples, I found this recipe instead (through FoodGawker, of course).

I substituted whole wheat flour (because I didn't want to open our white flour and hey, this is healthier, anyway, right?) and almond milk (because we don't keep regular cow's milk anymore). I thought the muffins were pretty good, maybe a little too dry (because of the whole wheat flour or the almond milk or perhaps overmixing?), and I would probably add a little more cinnamon and maybe a little nutmeg too next time. Also, they came out perfect looking. I was quite pleased with the lovely round muffin tops.

Mini Cinnamon Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup almond milk
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease mini muffin pans or line with mini cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
Melt butter in the microwave, about 30-40 seconds.
In another bowl, beat together the butter, eggs, milk, brown sugar, and vanilla.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated.
Drop the batter into the pans, about a tablespoon for each muffin.
Mix together sugar and cinnamon for the topping and sprinkle mixture over the top of each muffin.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, until muffin tops bounce back or a toothpick comes out clean.
Enjoy!

Breakfast Potatoes

I am a really big fan of three-day weekends. I decided to do a relaxing/super productive Labor Day, part of which included making a good breakfast at home. Normally during the work week I have a scrambled egg or a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I eat at my desk when I get to the office. However, since I had today off, and that giant bag of russet potatoes, I decided I would make some breakfast potatoes and an egg after this morning's session at the gym. I've always made skillet breakfast potatoes before and I'm never satisfied with them, so today I decided to do them in the oven. Best decision ever. I didn't have to keep an eye on the potatoes, and I could just let them bake while I showered and folded laundry. Such multi-tasking! It was a perfect weekend breakfast, and I have leftover potatoes that will probably be terrific for breakfast tomorrow too! Win!

Breakfast potatoes
3 russet potatoes
1 red bell pepper
1/2 of one giant onion
paprika
salt
black pepper
Cube the potatoes. Cut the onions into wedges. Dice the bell pepper.
Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray, and add onions and potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and paprika. Toss together and bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, tossing once at the 10 minute mark.
At 20 minutes, pull out the baking sheet and add the red bell pepper and toss together. Stick back in the oven and broil for 3-5 minutes. Serve with an over easy egg on top.