Dips, Pasta, Chili, and Cookies (New Recipes of the Week ~ 8)

Dutch Babies/Ocean Cakes

These aren't a new recipe for our family, but we had never tried baking them in a jellyroll sheet instead of a 9x13 glass baking dish. I just love how these eggy pancakes puff up, so bubbly! The recipe didn't take as long to bake in a larger pan either. Dutch Babies are a kid favorite around this house.

Strawberry Dip

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese

2 T. honey

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 pint fresh strawberries, sliced

graham crackers

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, honey and vanilla until smooth. Add strawberries; beat for 1 minute. Serve with graham crackers. Yield: 2 cups

This was served for breakfast on homemade sourdough English muffins. Everyone enjoyed the creamy fresh taste and the bowl was licked clean.

Hot Pastrami Spread

2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. sour cream

2 packages (2 1/2 oz each) thinly sliced, pastrami or pepperoni, chopped

1/2 c. finely chopped green pepper

1/3 c. chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

thinly sliced pumpernickel and light rye bread

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sour cream until smooth. Add pastrami/pepperoni and green pepper; mix well. Transfer to a greased 1-qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with pecans if desired. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until heated through and edges are bubbly. Or put in pan and heat through on low. Serve pumpernickel bread with spread. Yield: about 3 1/2 cups.

Dips are my delight. I love all things creamy and cheesy, cold or hot. I remember devouring quite frequently the dried beef cheeseball my mom made often when I was growing up. This pastrami spread is very simple and tasty, if you don't mind having 2 packs of cream cheese get scarfed at one setting. (Cream cheese used to be on my expensive-do-not-buy-unless-necessary list). We used little rye cocktail breads (grocery mark-down) and more of those whole wheat sourdough English muffins to serve up the warm creaminess.

Turkey Tetrazinni

Pretty good, but still can't beat that creamy Alfredo chicken pasta!

Creamy Cilantro Dressing

After harvesting lettuce from the garden, I was in the mood for fajita salad. Since I didn't have a recipe, I looked online and found one with creamy cilantro lime dressing. That sounded pretty tasty, so we used up some of the profuse cilantro in the garden as well. We like a hint of fresh cilantro, but prefer the herb dried in more wintry recipes. This dressing was a bit strong to our liking. 

Beef-Cheese Spaghetti

This gourmet spaghetti with a cheesy garlic white sauce was a recipe I had tried and saved because it was good. It is good. It's just not as delicious as we once thought. So it gets weeded from the personal cookbook as well. Spaghetti with marinara is just as good and has fewer ingredients ($$) and has fewer calories (milk + cheese + butter = chubbers)!

Chipotle Chili

Using some chunked stew venison from the freezer, we ate chipotle chili with fried cornbread one evening for supper. The recipe was super easy and definitely edible, but I am a dump in and taste kind of chili girl. Plus I like more beans. Mostly beans. This recipe called for a piddly couple of cups of beans for TWO POUNDS of meat. 

Recipe rejected.

Chocolate Chip Cereal Cookies

3 1/2 c. flour

3 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

 1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. crushed cheerios

1 c. oatmeal

2 sticks margarine or butter

1 egg

1 T. milk

2 tsp. vanilla

1 c. oil (I use coconut oil)

12-oz. package chocolate chips

Sift dry ingredients. Add cheerios and oatmeal. Beat together remaining ingredients except oil and chocolate chips. Add alternately with oil to dry ingredients. Add chips. Bake at 350 for 6-10 minutes.

I have been thinking what a good idea it would be to have an assortment of cookie dough balls ready in the freezer to be baked for a short moment's notice...something easy for the girls to do in the kitchen.  Wouldn't they stay fresh longer? Wouldn't they not get snitched as much? Wouldn't that be an easy finger food or dessert for last minute company? Well. The unbaked balls are not hindering snacking. We still haven't had company since our latest remodel phase. And they certainly are not getting freezer burnt! But they sure are yummy to nibble as you're mixing up a batch or freshly baked from the oven. Mmmm. These have a little crunch and we like them.