Yes please.

I thought it was going to be a close poll last week, but a dip of some sort won by a landslide!

I’m big believer in the general philosophy that almost any appetizer can be made into a dip of some sort. It’s really just simple physics. If it tastes good on it’s own, it’ll probably taste good processed down, baked, and put on a piece of bread or chip.

Sometimes, the dip is even easier to make then the original appetizer which is an added bonus.

That’s definitely true for this recipe.

There are two ways to make jalapeno poppers that I know of, both of which are delicious but a bit of work. This recipe pushes both of those methods aside and just mashes a metric ton of jalapenos with cheese.

How could it not be delicious?!

Jalapeno Popper Dip

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound cream cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
5-6 jalapeno peppers, minced
1 poblano pepper, minced (opt.)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup butter, melted
Tortilla chips, for serving

Directions:

1) Mince jalapenos and poblano. Leave the seeds in.

2) Add olive oil to a skillet and saute peppers over medium heat for about 4 minutes until they soften.

3) In a large bowl, mix together sauteed peppers with cream cheese, grated cheddar, and mayo. Stir well to combine.

4) In a small bowl, mix together Panko, butter, and parmesan cheese.

5) In a 1 1/2-2 quart buttered baking dish, scoop in the dip and spread it evenly in the dish. Top with panko topping.

6) Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and topping is browned.

7) Serve immediately with tortilla cheese or toasted bread.

Adapted from a Tablespoon recipe.

Pepper Overload

I know. This recipe has a lot of jalapenos in it. In fact, I’d bet that the only recipe you would ever make that has more jalapenos is if you were to make actual jalapeno poppers.

The truth though is that there is so much creamy stuff in this dip that the heat of the jalapenos is really reduced. If you only did one or two, you wouldn’t get any heat at all from them.

And don’t worry about seeding the things. Just wash them and dice them up. I like to quarter mine into segments and then dice them.

Leave the seeds.

I threw in a poblano in my batch just for fun, but I’m not really sure it gave the final dip much flavor. You can leave it out without too much worry I think.

Once you have all your peppers diced, saute them in a skillet with a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes. You just want them to soften a bit and cook off some of the liquid.

Just a few minutes will do the trick.

Trust me on this.

Mixing the Dip

There’s a lot of creamy stuff in this dip. No doubt about that.

I just did the full fat version because, hey… this is for the Super Bowl!

If you wanted to make this somewhat healthier though you could:

1) Cut the mayo amount in half.
2) Substitute the mayo entirely for Greek yogurt.
3) Sub out a quarter to half of the cream cheese for whipped silken tofu.

The third one might change the texture slightly, but I doubt it would be very noticeable. It’s a substitution that I frequently use in dips like this.

The creamy business.

But like I said… this is for the Super Bowl so why not just do it all the way?!

Once your peppers are done cooking, just stir everything together. Pretty straightforward!

This will even smell spicy.

The Topping

Probably the most common type of jalapeno popper is the fried ones with a golden crust. To get the same effect in dip form, just mix together some Panko bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and melted butter in a bowl.

If you don’t have Panko, you can definitely use normal bread crumbs.

Butter is important.

Baking the Dish

In a medium-sized casserole dish, scoop in your dip mixture and top it with your bread crumb topping.

I’d recommend buttering the dish before adding the dip just to make sure it doesn’t stick badly. It would be horrible to lose some dip!

Don't forget to butter the dish!

Bake this whole thing for about 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

It’s done with the cheese is all melted and the topping is nice and browned.

Really nicely browned.

Serve this sucker as soon as possible with lots of tortilla chips or toasted bread.

The chip to dip.

This is about as easy as a dip gets. It’s definitely way easier than making actual jalapeno poppers, but the flavor is really very similar.

If you happen to have leftovers, let me tell you a little secret. Put a few spoonfuls of it in a rice and bean burrito. Amazingness.

An army!

You guys happened to pick one of my favorite dessert flavors for the poll last week. It’s a rare day that what I want to win actually wins. I got lucky this time around!

Besides using something with almond, I also wanted to make something super-easy to make.

In fact, these guys are so easy to make you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

This was my first attempt at making truffles and while they didn’t turn out perfectly shaped and I would probably need a few professional lessons before getting hired by See’s candy, I was completely happy with the result.

Almond Truffles

Yield: Makes about 40.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
4 ounces almonds, about a cup, ground
1/4 cup cocoa powder, for coating

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Food Processor

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and cream cheese using a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is fluffy and smooth.

2) Toast coconut in a dry skillet over medium-low heat until it's a light brown color, about 4-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the coconut.

3) Process almonds in a food processor until they are a rough meal.

4) With cream cheese/butter mixture, add in extracts and powdered sugar. Then stir in coconut and almond meal.

5) Make teaspoon sized balls of the dough and roll them into a tight ball with your hands. Toss them in cocoa powder until completely coated.

6) Chill for storage or serve immediately. These are best served at room temperature.

Adapted from a Food52 recipe.

Truffle Basics

I had never made truffles before and the first thing that shocked me was how little material actually goes into the balls. To make about 40 truffles, I only used 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese.

Sure, there are a lot of add-ins and stuff, but the actual binder for the truffles is just a very tiny amount of these two ingredients.

The basics.

Add the butter and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat it until it is a light and smooth texture. I used my stand mixer for this, but you could just as easily use a hand mixer.

After a few minutes of beating you should be all set.

This actually makes a lot of truffles.

After this, mix in your extracts (vanilla and almond) and also the powdered sugar.

The Add-ins

Now for the fun stuff. This is where all the flavor and texture comes from for these truffles.

No need to peel.

For the almonds, just measure out 4 ounces (about a cup) and quickly process them in a mini-food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I would just put my almonds in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or something.

Your goal is to get a really nice almond meal.

Easy breazy.

Besides the almonds, there’s also coconut in this recipe. I’m not always a huge coconut fan, but I really liked it in this recipe.

The key to coconut is to make sure you toast it lightly before using it. I just toasted mine in a dry skillet for a few minutes over medium-low heat. Be sure to keep an eye on the coconut and stir it frequently.

It can go from toasted to burned in about 30 seconds.

This is what you’re shooting for!

Don't burn it!

Add in the almond meal and coconut to the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Stir this all together and your truffle mixture is done!

Try to not eat this with a spoon.

Making the Truffles

Keep in mind that truffles are supposed to be bite-sized treats. This stuff is pretty rich and nobody wants a candy bar sized truffle.

I literally used a teaspoon to measure out my truffles. To make one, scoop out a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and then lightly roll it into a ball using your hands.

See how small it is?

Small is good.

Toss the ball into a bowl of cocoa powder and shake it around to coat it completely.

You can do more than one at a time.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do 5 or 6 at a time and then just toss them all with the cocoa powder at the same time.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to pop out about 40 of these bite-sized goodies.

As I finished them, I just set them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The paper just makes it a bit easier to clean up. There’s really no danger of the truffles sticking to anything.

Not bad for my first truffle.

While these are supposed to be one bite treats, I bit one in half so you can see the story.

Pretty delicious stuff. The cocoa powder is sharp and intense and then then the whole thing just melts in your mouth.

Chomp!

Store these in the fridge, but they are best served at room temperature. So, if you can, take them out of the fridge 10 minutes before eating them.

I find this next to impossible because when I open my fridge, there they are, and I just pop one in my mouth.

So, that serving method works too.

These are really unique and they look and taste way harder than they actually are. Give them a shot if you’re a truffle fan, an almond fan, or a fan of good stuff that requires very little work!

Pretty Omelet

Growing up in a small Wyoming town, I wasn’t privy to the deliciousness of bagels and lox until I was in college. Sure, we had a good amount of smoked fish growing up, but smoked salmon, capers, red onions, and cream cheese on a bagel?

That was completely new to me and I’m pretty sure I ate nothing but that for about six months after discovering it. It’s one of my absolute favorite flavor combos so I try to sneak it into dishes every chance I get.

Some people (my wife) have a serious aversion to capers for some reason and you could definitely leave them out of this omelet if you want. To me though, they make the whole thing work.

The Lox Omelet

Yield: 1 omelet

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1-2 ounces smoked salmon
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons red onions, diced
1-2 ounces cream cheese
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Fresh dill

Helpful Equipment:
Omelet pan

Directions:

1) Roughly chop or shred smoked salmon and dice red onions.

2) Add butter to a small omelet pan until melted over medium-high heat and then add the smoked salmon, red onions, and capers. Try to distribute the fillings evenly over the surface of the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, whisk eggs together with milk with a fork to scramble them.

4) Pour eggs over the filling mixture in the pan. Turn heat down to medium and cook eggs. As the eggs cook, use a flat spatula to push the cooked eggs to the center and tilt the pan slightly to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outside.

5) Cook the eggs until they are almost all the way cooked. There will be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top and that's fine.

6) Add cream cheese to one half of the omelet and use a spatula to fold the egg over to form an omelet.

7) Cook omelet for another 30-45 seconds on each side to melt the cheese and finish cooking the eggs.

8) Serve omelet with fresh dill.

The Basics

It’s true that smoked salmon is a pricy ingredient, but the good news is that you don’t need to use a lot to get a lot of flavor from it. The same goes for capers. A little go a long way.

This four ounce package of smoked salmon set me back about $7, but it’s enough salmon for four omelets so that isn’t too bad.

It’s not my normal weekend omelet, but it’s a fun treat every once in awhile.

Not pictured: red onions

To get the fillings ready, dice the red onions pretty finely and just kind of shred the smoked salmon so it’s in pieces. Again, you don’t need a lot of each filling to get the flavors going.

Good looking plate.

Cooking the Omelet

In a small nonstick pan (this is a good one), add your butter over medium-high heat. Once it’s melted then go ahead and toss in all your filling ingredients: capers, onions, and salmon.

Let this stuff cook in the butter for just a few minutes. Basically, you just want to cook the onions a bit and heat everything up nicely.

Just a light saute.

While that’s cooking, you can go ahead and scramble your eggs. Just mix together a few eggs with some milk and whip them together until they are nice and fluffy.

I snapped a cool action shot of my scrambling. I was even using my left hand!

Action shot!

Go ahead and pour your eggs right over your fillings in the pan. It’ll sizzle and hiss and complain, but that’s good.

As the eggs cook, use a spatula to kind of push the cooked eggs into the center of the pan. Tilt the pan a bit then to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outer parts of the pan and cook.

After doing this for about 2-3 minutes you should end up with a lovely almost 100% cooked egg. There will still be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top, but that’s okay. It’ll finish cooking after we add the cheese.

Just a few minutes of cooking

For the cheese, just kind of toss a few spoonfuls of cream cheese on one side of the omelet. Don’t worry about smoothing it out or anything. Cream cheese melts quickly and as it melts it’ll even out.

Cream cheese melts pretty easily...

Then just take your spatula and fold over the omelet like so…

Looking good.

Put this back on the heat and cook it for about 30-45 seconds per side. When you’re flipping this guy, don’t be nervous about it. The melted cheese should keep everything together.

Cooking it briefly on both sides will make sure the cheese is melted and also finish cooking any uncooked egg on the inside of your omelet.

Serve this bad boy just like that or if you want to get fancy you can sprinkle on some chopped dill.

I could've eaten two of these...

This was one of the more flavorful omelets I’ve made for Macheesmo actually. All these flavors together just work.

It’s really delicious and would actually be a nice treat for the holidays also.

Assuming you can get your hands on some good smoked salmon, you’ve got to give this a shot!

I don't recommend the grilled cheese approach.

This idea started as a sandwich and it ended as a sandwich. A very messy sandwich as you can see. A sandwich that I wouldn’t really recommend you make unless you own stock in a napkin company.

I had dreams of making a creamy pumpkin grilled cheese sandwich, but cream cheese doesn’t do a great job of holding together when it gets hot so the whole thing kind of just melted all over the place. Don’t get me wrong though… it was very tasty! I had no problem scarfing it all down, but it’s definitely easier to just use it as a spread.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spread

Yield: 1 Cup

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 Tablespoons honey
1 orange, zest only
Pinch of chili powder
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
- Zester

Directions:

1) Mash pumpkin and cream cheese together in a small bowl.

2) Stir in honey, spices, and orange zest.

3) Use on toast, bagels, or almost any baked good.

Making the Spread

You could go the complete sweet route with this spread by mixing in standard pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc.), but I decided to give it a slightly different flavor with some chili powder and orange zest.

Orange isn't optional.

It’s very important when making spreads like this to make sure you get just canned pumpkin. You don’t want the canned pumpkin pie filling with lots of crap in it. If you’re in doubt, take a look at the ingredients. They should only have pumpkin listed. Nothing else.

Once you pop your can open just mix the cream cheese and pumpkin together really well. I just used a fork and kind of mashed it all together.

These two things play nice together.

It’s okay if there are some lumps. The only way to get rid of those would be to beat the mixture with a hand mixer or something and that’s more work than it’s worth in my opinion.

Once your base mixture is mixed, you can add in your spices. The orange zest really makes the whole thing pop so try not to leave it out.

Then just add a pinch of chili powder and salt to taste. The finished spread should be a lovely light orange color.

Well that turned out bright!

Honestly, I recommend stopping here. Use the spread like this for toast, bagels, or heck. Just eat it with a spoon if you want. It’s really delicious.

But if you want to venture into the world of the messy, I have a sandwich for you!

The Pumpkin Sandwich

The key with this sandwich, if you are daring enough to try it out, is to do the exact opposite of what you would normally do with a grilled cheese. Normally, I recommend cooking grilled cheeses on medium-low heat which lets the bread toast slowly while the heat radiates into the cheese, melting it.

If you do that with this sandwich, you’ll have a huge mess on your hands.

Instead, you want to cook the sandwich on a high heat for about 45 seconds per side. That will toast the bread nicely, and just warm through the filling.

Butter a piece of bread and set it in a hot skillet. Add a few dollops of pumpkin spread to the bread.

Work quickly!

Top it with another piece of buttered bread (butter side up) and set it over medium-high heat. After about 45 seconds, carefully flip the sandwich and you should have a lovely browned toast.

Cook it for another 45 seconds and your done. If you do it right, none of the pumpkin mixture will spill out.

Hot and quick!

Let this cool for a minute before eating it. I cut mine in half just so you could see the runny (but delicious) mess that this sandwich is capable of.

Just spread it on, people.

By all means make the pumpkin spread in this post. It’s very Fall-ish. It would go great on a huge number of breakfast foods.

Maybe don’t try to do what I did with the whole sandwich thing. If you wanted a sandwich you could always just toast two pieces of bread and stick them together with some spread in the middle!

Don’t make something delicious harder than it needs to be.

I got the BLUES!

Blue corn is all the rage these days. You can find blue corn tortilla chips and blue corn tortillas in stores and restaurants pretty readily.

When I was stumbling through the grocery store recently (something I do pretty much every day), I saw a whole bag of blue cornmeal! I’m sure that this has been available for a while, but this was one of the first times I’ve seen it.

So I grabbed a bag and figured that I would work out something with it later.

Fast forward two weeks and I’m starving. I open up my pantry and there’s that darn blue cornmeal staring me down.

So I made some really good muffins!

Blue Corn Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1/3 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1/2 Cup milk
1-2 Serrano peppers, minced
3 ounces cream cheese
1 Cup cheddar cheese, grated
1 Cup blue cornmeal
1 Cup flour
2 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Stand mixer or hand mixer

Directions:

1) Cream together the butter and sugar. Dice the peppers and grate your cheese.

2) Add the eggs one at a time to the butter/sugar mixture. Then add the milk, cheeses, and peppers.

3) In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.

4) Add dry ingredients 1/3 at a time. Mix together until batter is mixed but try not to over-mix it.

5) Grease or butter muffin tins and spoon batter evenly into tins. You can almost fill up each muffin cup.

6) Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Check to make sure muffins are cooked through.

7) Let cool for a minute or two and then remove muffins from tin. Serve hot or warm.

Adapted from a Bobby Flay Recipe

Making the Batter

This is a pretty standard corn muffin recipe plus some delicious things.

I wasn’t really sure that blue cornmeal has a different flavor than normal cornmeal, but after making these muffins I do think it’s a bit more flavorful somehow. You could definitely sub regular cornmeal for this recipe though if you wanted to.

There's some interesting things here...

One cool part about this recipe is that it starts similarly to a cake batter.

You start by creaming together your butter and sugar. You can use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer for this job. Either will work fine.

Just mix together the butter and sugar until it’s light and creamy.

Kind of like a cake...

There are some really flavorful things going into these muffins that make them really surprising.

For starters, chili peppers! You could use one or two Serrano peppers (or jalapeno peppers) depending on how much heat you want. I left the seeds in and everything and just diced them pretty finely.

Spicy guys...

Cheese is a natural addition to muffins like this also.

Cheddar gives some awesome flavor and cream cheese makes the muffins really rich and delicious.

Adding both is a solid plan!

Two kinds of cheese? Why not.

After you’ve creamed together the butter and sugar, mix in the eggs one at a time and then mix in the milk, peppers, and cheeses until the batter is relatively smooth (there might be a few chunks which is fine).

In a separate bowl, stir together your dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt). While the muffins will end up just subtly blue, the cornmeal itself is this beautiful blue (almost purple) color.

Strange stuff!

Add the dry ingredients to your batter 1/3 at a time and mix it until it’s well-combined. Try not to over-mix it though.

Anytime I see a batter like this, I can’t help but try a taste of it before cooking it.

This batter was really good on its own!

Delicious batter!

Baking the Muffins

The most important step for these muffins is to make sure you grease your muffin tin really well before adding the batter. If you don’t, you’ll be prying the muffins out with a crowbar.

I used butter and just rubbed it all over my muffin tin. Then just portion out your batter into each muffin cup.

In hindsight, I could’ve filled my tins up even more than I did.

You could fill them up even more...

Bake these guys at 375 for about 20 minutes. Check them at that point and see if they are lightly browning around the edges. If so, they are probably done.

Good stuff.

Once the muffins cool for a minute or two, you should be able to pop out each muffin. I think it helps to run a butter knife around the edges of each muffin and then they should just pop right out.

These muffins were really flavorful and had an amazing texture. I love the speckled blue color with them also.

Great texture.

These are perfect with some butter on them and would be a great side for any kind of Tex-Mex brunch or breakfast.

Maybe serve them with some delicious migas?

Has anyone else tried blue cornmeal? What do you think?

Bang!

Betsy and I are always on the hunt for a quick treat that’s easy to make, somewhat healthy, and very flavorful. It’s a struggle to not just reach for a bag of chips every single time.

Recently though, I was walking through the store and there were some pretty good looking strawberries and right next to them were these big bunches of basil.

I picked some up and the next time we were hunting for a treat, this idea just popped in my head. It’s a really simple dish that’s just some marinated strawberries and fresh basil on an English muffin with a good schmear of cream cheese.

It’s so easy that I almost didn’t post on it, but it turned out to be so good that I figured everyone should know about it.

Strawberry Basil Snacks

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 English muffins, toasted
1 1/2 - 2 Cups strawberries, diced (8-10)
2 Tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
4 ounces cream cheese

Directions:

1) Cut off strawberry stems and dice. Add to a bowl with balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt and sugar. Stir and set aside for a few minutes.

2) Chop basil and toast english muffins until well-toasted.

3) Add cream cheese to each half of the muffins.

4) Top with strawberry mixture and fresh basil!

Marinating the strawberries

It’s not even clear if you can call this a recipe really. It’s about as easy as recipes get if it is one. In any event, I took some photos because strawberries are fun to photograph.

Keep it simple.

Chop off the stems and dice up the strawberries. Then mix them with a good drizzle of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt and sugar.

Let this sit for a few minutes while you prep the other ingredients.

Plus a drizzle of balsamic.

Making the treat

Chop up some basil. Not rocket science.

A little goes a long way.

Slice up a few English Muffins. I used store bought, but if you’re feeling ambitious you could try making your own English Muffins.

The nooks and crannies!

I like my English muffins really toasted and I’ve found that the best way to get them there is actually in the broiler. I crank it up to high and lay them out on a baking sheet.

After 4-5 minutes, they are perfectly toasted. You could, of course, just use a toaster though.

I like using a broiler, but a toaster works also.

Take each half of the muffin and add a good schmear of cream cheese to it.

Technically a schmear.

Then top each half with a good heap of the marinated strawberries and sprinkle on some basil!

Pretty things. Delicious also!

This is a record short post for me, but it’s just that easy.

The flavors are fantastic though.

If you make it once for friends or family, they will definitely be asking for “that strawberry thing” all the time.

The cool gun napkin in this post was nicely provided by Oh Little Rabbit, one of Betsy’s favorite Etsy stores.

Best cream cheese ever.

I’ve developed a weekly ritual where I trek down to a local bagel shop and work for a few hours just to get out of the house. I always order the exact same thing (so far) which is a bagel and their delicious crunchy veggie cream cheese.

Last week I probably weirded out some of the workers there by obsessively dissecting my cream cheese to figure out all the veggies that it included.

Yep. I reverse engineered cream cheese. And you should be glad that I did.

Adding a bunch of really crunchy vegetables to cream cheese just takes it to another level. Not to mention it makes it somewhat healthier.

Crunchy Veggie Cream Cheese

Yield: 8-10 bagels worth

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound cream cheese, room temp
1 large carrot, or 6-7 baby carrots
3-4 radishes
1/2 red pepper
1 stalk celery
3 scallions
2 Teaspoons fresh ground pepper
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Food processor or heck, just a box grater

Directions:

1) Take your time grating or mincing veggies until they are evenly shaped and fairly small.

2) Mix in cream cheese. This will be a lot easier if your cream cheese is room temp.

3) Season with salt and pepper.

4) Schmear it!

Prepping the Veggies

Ideally, you want to end up with about 2-3 cups of very finely minced or grated veggies for this recipe. The above measurements are far from scientific and you should feel free to add more or less if you want.

This ratio worked great for me though. I thought it ended up with the perfect mix of veggies and cheese.

You don't need a lot.

The fastest way to get the veggies to a nice even mince is to use a grater. I was being pretty lazy on this day and decided to try out my grater disc on my food processor. It worked pretty well except on the celery and scallions. Those I just diced by hand.

Say hello to my little friend.

As you can imagine though, the most important thing for this recipe is just making sure your veggies are minced or grated super-fine.

So take your time and use the best tools you have to get the job done. Even a box grater would work great for this.

Here’s my finished veggies.

Colorful stuff!

Mixing in Cream Cheese

Mixing in the cream cheese is really easy if you let it come to room temperature before you try mixing it. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a workout.

I, of course, forgot to take my out of the fridge so I had two hard blocks of cheese in my bowl.

It helps it your cream cheese is room temp.

The Secret Ingredient

Once you get everything mixed up, you can add the secret ingredient: LOTS of crushed black pepper.

It gets mixed in with the veggies and everything and just works beautifully.

Lots of pepper is the key.

Once everything is mixed together, you’ll have a nice and thick mixture. It’s creamy, but crunchy.

It looks a bit like a hot mess, but trust me. It’s good.

BAM.

Of course, the first thing I did with my cream cheese is deploy the traditional schmear.

Definition of Schmear.

This is a quick and simple recipe that you can make it just a few minutes and it keeps fine for a week or two.

It really does take the standard bagel to another level and is vastly better than the veggie cream cheese that you can buy in the store.

You'll have a ball!

If there’s one dish that reminds me of the holiday season (from Christmas to New Years), it’s a good cheese ball. I remember as a child I used to help my mom make a dozen or so of these and we would give them out to neighbors and friends.

We’d save a few for ourselves of course and I would snack on them for days on end.

It really is one of my favorite appetizers. I’m not sure why but I don’t make it at any other point in the year than in December.

There are a lot of cheese ball recipes out there but this is my favorite one which I stole straight from my mom.

Cheese Ball

Yield: 1 Cheese Ball

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice (I used 1/2 a lemon)
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (be sure to use vegetarian if you're feeding vegetarians)
1 Teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 bell pepper, minced
2 scallions, minced
1/2 Cup pecans, chopped
Crackers for serving

Directions:

1) Combine cheeses, chopped vegetables, and spices in a bowl. Stir well until combined.

2) Chop pecans and roll ball in pecans.

3) Chill the ball before serving if you have time.

Mixing the ball

This is a great recipe for kids to help out with. It has just a few ingredients and takes only a few minutes to pull together.

This will work just fine.

This is easiest to make if you let your cream cheese come to room temperature before you start. It’ll make the mixing easier, but you should be able to mix it no matter what.

Combine your cheeses in a medium bowl.

So cheesy.

Then dice up and add all your green stuff. Make sure to mince the veggies finely so there aren’t any huge chunks.

Toss those into the mix.

Crunch and flavor!

Next, add all the spices! Remember that Worcestershire sauce isn’t vegetarian. It has anchovies in it! So if you have vegetarian guests you can use the veggie version which tastes almost identical in my opinion.

Stir this all together really well.

Sloppy but tasty.

Rolling the ball

If you’re lazy, you could just use the dip like this and spread it onto crackers right out of the bowl, but if you like a good presentation then chop a few handfuls of pecans and roll the cheese ball out in the pecans so it forms a tight round ball.

Givin' it some shape.

I think this is best if you let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two to set up but it’s definitely not essential.

You can also just eat it right away.

I only ate three. Yea right.

I like my cheese piled high and deep on my cracker.

Food porn shot.

While this appetizer reminds me of the holidays, I’m not really sure why. This is such a quick and delicious appetizer you should feel free to use for any occasion. Say New Year’s which is right around the corner!

Even though I ate 2 or 3 of these by myself over the last few days, looking over this post still makes me want more!

Layers of delicious.

Ok. So I cheated on cookie week. These aren’t technically cookies. But they are dessert that you eat with your hands and they also happen to be really good.

So I hope that you’ll forgive me that I abandoned my own cookie week on Day 3 to bring you a bar instead of a cookie.

These bars are filled with a creamy coffee mixture that is pretty awesome for anytime you need a little pick-me-up.

Coffee Cream Bars

Yield: 16 bars.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

Crust:
1 Cup graham crackers, crushed
2 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
1 Teaspoon gelatin
2/3 Cup strong coffee
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Eggs
Pinch of salt

Chocolate toppings:
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Directions:

1) Line an 8x8 baking dish with foil, laying a sheet in both directions.

2) Combine crumbled crackers, butter, and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Pack mixture into baking pan and use a flat instrument (measuring cup) to press the crust down until it's flat.

3) Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes and then cool.

4) For filling, add room temp coffee and sugar to a mixing bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over liquid and let sit for 5 minutes.

5) Add other filling ingredients and mix either with a hand mixer or stand mixer with whisk attachment until the filling is smooth.

6) Pour filling into graham cracker crust.

7) Bake in a hot water bath for 45 minutes at 325 degrees.

8) Cool at room temperature for 2 hours, then cover and chill in fridge for an hour.

9) For topping, melt chocolate and butter together over a double boiler or in the microwave if you're careful. Let chocolate cool a bit and then pour over cream bars and spread out evenly.

10) Chill until chocolate hardens, 30 minutes to an hour.

11) Lift up foil to remove bars. The foil should peel right off.

12) Slice with a hot knife and wipe the knife clean between each slice if you're concerned with having really clean slices.

13) Serve in cupcake cups.

Adapted from a Smitten Kitchen recipe.

The First Layer

These bars have three basic layers to them. The most intimidating layer is probably the middle one, but let’s start at the beginning.

These lovely bars sit on a graham cracker crust which, if you’ve never made before, it’s dumb simple to do.

Start with these three simple ingredients.

Makings for a crust.

Then line an 8 inch baking dish with foil. It’s best to lay overlapping sheets of foil going in opposite directions. Make sure you get the foil pressed nicely against the dish walls.

In a small bowl, combine the crumbled graham crackers with the sugar and melted butter.

Next, pour down all your graham cracker mixture into the bottom of the pan and use a flat surface like a measuring cup to pack in the crust really well.

Bake the crust at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes.

The crust should end up lightly browned around the edges. Let this cool before you do anything with it.

Lightly browned.

The Second Layer

This is the layer that’s worrisome. It seems like there’s a lot that could go wrong, but have no fear, the custard/gelatin mixture is really sturdy and will hold up just fine.

You just need a few ingredients for this layer, the most important of which is very strong coffee. Note that if you’re using gelatin, then these guys become a non-vegetarian deal. It might be possible to make a custard that’s sturdy enough without the gelatin, but it would be tricky I think.

Strong coffee is important.

Add your coffee (room temp) and sugar into a mixing bowl and sprinkle gelatin over it. Let the gelatin dissolve for 5 minutes. Mix together with a hand mixer or stand mixer with the whisk attachment. You could also just use a whisk, but you might be in for a workout.

Next, whisk in the cream cheese and eggs together and add a pinch of salt. Mix this until the mixture is really creamy and there are no lumps. This might take a few minutes but it should eventually smooth out.

Then just pour the mixture into your graham cracker crust!

Action shot!

Slow Food

Getting the bars ready for step 3 requires a bit of time. Here’s the procedure I used to make sure the coffee/cream layer is set nicely.

1) Bake the dish in a water bath for 45 minutes at 325 degrees. Your 8 inch baking dish should fit perfectly into a 9×13 inch dish so just add that setup to your oven and then pour boiling water into the larger pan until it comes halfway up the side of the smaller pan.

2) Remove the dish and let it cool at room temperature for 2 hours.

3) Then cover it and chill it in the fridge for an hour.

If you’re keeping track, that’s about 4 hours of stuff. It’s pretty important though if you want your bars to be set nicely. So watch a movie or something while you wait for these guys to set up.

Layer Three

Once the center layer is chilled and set, you can prep the top layer of chocolate.

The chocolate layer is really easy to make. Just add chocolate and butter to a double boiler (I use a metal bowl over a pan with some boiling water in it) and whisk until chocolate is melted.

Let the chocolate cool for a few minutes just so it isn’t too hot and then pour it onto your bars!

Chocolate on top.

Spread this out and let it chill thoroughly for another 30 minutes to an hour so the chocolate and set up firmly as well.

Slicing the bars

I got a bit sloppy with my slicing, but if you use a sharp hot knife (heat it under hot water and then dry it off), it should slice right through the bars. Be sure to take your bars out of the pan and foil before slicing them!

Be sure to wipe off the knife after every slice. I did a four by four slicing pattern which yields 16 good sized bars.

If you’re traveling with these bars, it helps to have some cupcake tins to keep them in because they are kind of messy.

Cupcake papers are important.

Even though the filling looks light, it actually ended up having a pretty rich coffee flavor. There’s not a lot of other flavors going on so you can really taste the coffee.

Sure, these things do take some time, but they are a pretty unique treat I think. If you’re baking cookies or something on a weekend, you could make these while you work on other stuff.

Sorry for cheating. I’ll be back tomorrow with an actual cookie!

That said, I did want to make something. Betsy is from Pennsylvania originally and they have this tradition there of doing cookie tables for desserts at weddings instead of a big expensive wedding cake. Basically you just get a few family and friends to make a bunch of cookies and people can eat as many as they can stand.

We used that idea for our wedding, but had other desserts besides just cookies. For example, my one contribution to the wedding food was these cute little red velvet cupcakes.

How cute are these?

I really like red velvet cupcakes because well A) they are delicious but B) they are a prime example of the old motto that you eat first with your eyes. One time I made a batch of these and ran out of red food coloring so my cupcakes were more rust colored than RED. They somehow did not taste as good.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Yield: 2 dozen cupcakes

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup unsalted butter, room temp.
287 grams cake flour (not self-rising). About 2 1/2 cups.
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
2 Cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 Teaspoon salt
1 1-ounce bottles of red liquid food coloring
3 Tablespoons lukewarm water
1 Cup buttermilk (very important)
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon white vinegar

Basic Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer (Not essential, but it sure does make it easy.)
Digital Scale (Essential if you want consistent results.)

Directions:

1) To make batter, whisk cake flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder in a bowl.

2) Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer until it's nice and fluffy.

3) Add eggs, one at a time, to the creamed butter. Then add water, salt, vanilla, and red food coloring.

4) Add 1/3 of your dry ingredients to the mix, followed by 1/2 of you buttermilk, then another 1/3 of your dry stuff, followed by the last 1/2 of your buttermilk. Finally, stir in the last 1/3 of the dry stuff.

5) Combine the baking soda and vinegar in a separate bowl and then stir that into the batter.

6) Fill cupcake tins with liners and fill 2/3s full.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

8) For the frosting, cream together the butter and the cream cheese until it's very light and fluffy. Definitely whip it for 3-4 minutes. Then stir in the vanilla. Stir in the powdered sugar in 2 or 3 batches.

9) Let cupcakes cool completely and then frost with the buttercream frosting.

Adapted from Martha Stewart.

Making the batter

I’m not a huge fan of box cake mix. My deal with it is that if I’m going to be eating something sweet and fattening, I want it to be as good as possible and I just really feel like that the made-from-scratch version of most baked goods is substantially better than the boxed version if you have the time to do it.

The line up.

What you’ll realize after you start making stuff like this from scratch is that the whole boxed cake thing is kind of a scam. I mean, it doesn’t take that much longer to just make it from scratch and assuming you have a decently stocked pantry, it’s not necessarily more expensive either.

Anyway, to make this batter, start by whisking your cake flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder in a bowl. Cake flour is extremely important for any cake recipe hence the name.

Just to make sure that I have no clumps in my dry ingredients, I usually sift them once, but I’ve made these by just whisking them for a bit to combine well and it worked fine also.

A whisk is what you need.

The only other thing I’ll mention about the dry ingredients is that it’s pretty hard to measure out the flour correctly without a digital scale. If you’re baking even occasionally, this is a kitchen tool you should have. If you don’t have one then check this one out!

Back to the batter… once your dry ingredients are combined, add your butter and sugar to your mixer and mix on medium for about 3-4 minutes until the butter and sugar are combined and really fluffy. This is the creaming step.

If you don’t have a stand mixer you could definitely use a hand mixer.

Light and fluffy!

Next, slowly add your eggs, one at a time and then add the water, salt, vanilla, and red food coloring.

This will stain your counters...

Be careful with the red food coloring. It’ll stain anything it touches. It especially stained the white shirt I was for some reason wearing while I was making these…

Once you have the base for your batter done, you just need to incorporate your buttermilk and dry ingredients. Start by slowly adding 1/3 of your dry ingredients, then 1/2 your buttermilk, then 1/3 of your dry ingredients, then the last half of your buttermilk. Finally, the last of your dry ingredients. So: dry, wet, dry, wet, dry.

At the very end, you’ll want to combine your vinegar and baking soda to provide some fizz to the finished cakes.

Fizzzz.

You’re final batter should be really light and fluffy and very, very red. If you’re using a stand mixer, remember to scrape down the sides of your bowl occasionally. This was something that I did a kind of bad job at for this batch.

There ya go!

Baking the cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your baking cups with cupcake liners. Fill up your cupcakes until they are about 2/3 full. I also, without fail, overfill my first batch.

For example, these are overfilled.

I always overfill the first batch.

Assuming you fill them correctly, they’ll need to bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

These were my overfilled ones.

My cake overfloweth.

The good news about cupcakes is that even if they overflow a bit they’ll still taste good as long as you slather on some good cream cheese frosting.

The Frosting

In my opinion, there’s really only one option when it comes to frosting a red velvet anything: cream cheese frosting. It’s sweet and tangy and just perfect with the subtle chocolate flavor of the cake.

This frosting is about as easy at it gets to make.

A simple frosting.

Just add your butter and cream cheese to a stand mixer or bowl with a hand mixer and start mixing until the mixture is light and fluffy. Don’t be afraid about over-whipping. I whipped mine for 3 or 4 minutes. Then add your vanilla and mix it in.

Next, start adding your sifted confectioner’s sugar in two or three batches. Mixing it in well after every batch. You should end up with a fluffy but very flavorful frosting.

I put mine in a pastry bag to pipe it onto the cupcakes, but you could definitely just smear it on.

The Most Important Thing

The most important thing to remember before frosting these guys is to make sure they’re completely cool. I cooled mine on a wire rack for about 30 minutes before I even thought about frosting them.

I think these were sellable honestly.

These were really good. For the wedding, I even made them two days in advance and they were still one of the first desserts to be devoured!

So if you’re in the market for a good cupcake recipe, give this one a shot!