Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

I actually made this dip awhile ago, and I've been struggling with what to say about it, because I really have mixed feelings - more on that later.

Recipe:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1/4 cup brown sugar

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add the brown sugar and stir until it dissolves.  Continue stirring over heat until the mixture just starts to boil.  Stir in vanilla and remove from heat.

Beat the cream cheese, add the powdered sugar and mix until combined.  Turn mixer to low speed and stir in the butter and brown sugar mixture.  Add salt and mix until well combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

Before serving, garnish with additional chocolate chips.  Serve with Nilla wafers, animal crackers, or graham crackers.

Now, as I said, I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, it went together very quickly, tastes good, and was quite popular.  On the other hand, I've been off sugar for awhile, and to me it was just overwhelmingly, tooth-achingly sugary after about two bites.  And this was after I cut the sugar down from the original recipe.  I also felt guilty about making something so obviously unhealthy since I've gotten into better eating habits.

So I guess if you're used to mass quantities of sugar, go for it.  If you're not, make it for your friends and have one or two bites.

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

So, as promised here's the second recipe for roasted almonds (the first being cocoa roasted almonds).

These are more traditional cinnamon roasted almonds, like the delicious smelling ones they make at the mall around Christmas.

Recipe:
2-3 pounds raw almonds
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp.) butter
1 Tbsp. vanilla
2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar

Spread almonds in shallow baking pans or rimmed cookie sheets.  Place in the oven, then turn heat to 350° (don't pre-heat) and bake 5 minutes.  Stir almonds and bake an additional 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.

Melt butter, stir in vanilla and 2 teaspoons sugar.  Pour over almonds and stir until coated.

Mix together cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and 1/4 cup sugar.  Sprinkle over the almonds 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition.

Spread almonds on parchment paper or foil and cool 1 hour.

These are nice and spicy, I used mostly Penzey's Vietnamese Extra Fancy Cinnamon, which is a very bold and spicy cinnamon.  The ginger and nutmeg help round out the flavor, giving these a very warm, comforting spiciness, like pumpkin pie or ginger snaps.




And, again, I'm packing these up into decorative gift bags:

So festive, and a fairly easy homemade gift.  I figure that each of these cost under $4 to make, counting the almonds, other ingredients, bags, decorative paper, et cetera.  So really, these are great gifts - homemade, festive, economical, and edible!

Cocoa Roasted Almonds

I love roasted almonds.  You know around Christmas when they put that almond roasting booth up in the mall?  I can't get enough of that.  It just seems so festive and I'm not entirely sure why.  There's absolutely no reason to only have roasted almonds around Christmas.

A few years ago I came across a recipe for roasted almond and it was great, but these days I don't feel inclined to boiling almonds in honey and then coating them in sugar.  I've been experimenting in small batches and here is the first of two recipes for roasted almonds.

Recipe:
2-3 pounds raw almonds
1 stick (1/4 pound) butter
2 ounces dark chocolate
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar

Spread almonds in shallow baking pans or rimmed cookie sheets.  Put them in the oven, then turn heat to 350° (don't pre-heat) and bake for 5 minutes.  Stir and return them to the oven and bake for an additional 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.

Melt butter and chocolate.  Pour over almonds and stir to coat.

Stir cocoa powder and sugar together and sprinkle it over the almonds 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Spread almonds out on foil or parchment paper and cool for 1 hour.

Pour the almonds into a large bowl, sprinkle with 1 additional tablespoon each of cocoa powder and sugar, and stir to coat.

Mmmm...toasty chocolatey almonds!

The combination of dark chocolate and cocoa powder gives them a nice chocolate truffle sort of flavor.  You could easily modify this to suit your own tastes, for example using milk chocolate instead of dark, adding cinnamon or other spices, or adding more or less sugar.

And of course homemade treats like this make lovely gifts:

All you need is a quantity of coffee tin tie bags (which is what they're called, you're welcome), decorative scrap booking paper, an attractive paper punch, a glue stick, and labels with an ingredient list.

And of course the time to punch out decorative shapes, glue them on bags, roast the almonds, and fill the bags.

Voila!  Thoughtful, attractive homemade gifts!

Salsa with Roasted Jalapenos

Today I decided to throw together some salsa.  I can mix vegetables now on this phase of the hCG Diet, which is exciting, and I've been wanting some kind of sauce or topping to put with things, but store bought stuff usually has sugar, which I'm still avoiding.  So, homemade pico de gallo style salsa!

Recipe:

3-4 Tomatoes, seeded and diced
2 Jalapeno peppers (I roasted mine, see below)
1/2 Onion, diced
3-4 coves Garlic, minced
Cilantro or parsley
Lime juice
Salt

Dice tomatoes.  Carefully seed jalapenos (I wore gloves until I was totally done handling the peppers) and dice.  Dice onion and garlic.  Mix tomatoes, jalapenos, onion and garlic.
Stir in 1-2 tablespoons cilantro or parsley, juice from 1/2 lime, and salt to taste.

This makes about 1 pint of salsa.

Voila!  Yummy fresh salsa.

This ended up being about medium-hot to my taste, which is fine with me.  For milder salsa I would either add more tomato or less jalapeno.  And this ended up being nice and garlic-y with only a hint of onion, which is about as much raw onion as I like.

And it pairs quite nicely with thin sliced beef.



















About the jalapenos:

I roasted my jalapenos, using my handy kitchen torch (in a skillet, because I didn't want to set my cutting board on fire).  You can also use a broiler or an open flame on a gas stove.  Basically, you want to get them evenly blackened.

Then, while it's hot, put it in a plastic bag and seal it up.  The bag will quickly fog up with steam from the pepper.  Let it sit for 10-15 minutes.

Take the pepper out of the bag and use a paper towel to scrub off the blackened outside.  You should be left with a nice, roasty smelling, skinned pepper.  Take the seeds out and you're ready for anything!  Well anything you'd want to do with a jalapeno.

Be careful when handling the peppers.  I wore gloves until I had washed the knife and cutting board, because getting pepper juice in your eye is one of the worst things ever.

Peanut Butter Popcorn Balls

I'll be honest -- I'm not a fan of popcorn.  I don't especially dislike it, but I don't choose to eat it often.  Usually, at the movies, if I have a taste for popcorn, I'll just snag a handful of someone else's (that I'm with, of course) and that satisfies my popcorn craving.  Well this afternoon I was at a movie, I had a taste for popcorn but was by myself, so I actually ordered a thing of it.  And ate less than a quarter of it before I was totally over my craving for popcorn.

Being thrifty, I brought it home thinking that I'd just eat it later, but then I realized it would be totally gross by the time I felt like eating it.  So I hit the internet, hoping to find a way to use up a giant bag of movie popcorn, and found this.

Recipe:

4 cups Popcorn
1/4 cup Honey
2 tablespoons Sugar
1/4 cup Peanut Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Measure the popcorn into a large bowl.
Melt honey and sugar in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a boil and simmer 2-3 minutes.  Stir in the vanilla and peanut butter.  Mix until smooth.
Pour over the popcorn.  Stir to coat the popcorn.
Form into small balls while still warm, and store in an airtight container.

Now, I wore a pair of surgical gloves while forming the popcorn balls and this served two purposes.  First, it provided some protection from the hot peanut butter mixture, and second, I was able to form the balls without getting my hands all messy.

Quick, easy, and delicious!  And yes, apparently I'm also the kind of person who has surgical gloves around.

Sweet, salty, buttery, peanuty...yum!

And I had enough popcorn left to make a double batch.  Yes, 8 cups of popcorn.  Because my local theater has psychotic servings.  Seriously, a small drink is 32 oz.  Ridiculous!

Hummus

Hummus is so easy to make, and it's good on so many things.  Since I figured out how I like my hummus, I've been eating it with crackers, with veggies, and on sandwiches.  This recipe is basically a combination of a few different ones, plus I adjust the seasonings depending on what I'm in the mood for.

Recipe:
1 can Garbanzo Beans, drained
1/4 - 1/3 cup Olive Oil
1/4 - 1/3 cup Tahini
2 - 3 cloves Garlic
2 - 3 teaspoons Lemon Juice
Sea Salt

In a food processor, combine garbanzo beans, olive oil, and garlic.  Add tahini and lemon juice.  Remove mixture from food processor and stir in sea salt to taste.

Here it is with feta cheese and parsley.  If I have fresh parsley on hand I like to add some to the hummus itself (usually with the tahini).  It's also good with a little Greek seasoning, oregano, or cilantro.

Crackers

Crackers probably seem like a weird thing to make at home, but I love these!  They're easy, if a little time consuming, and so delicious.

Recipe:

2 cups of plain flour

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons softened butter

3/4 cup of water

2 tablespoons Saco buttermilk powder (optional)

2 tablespoons spices or seasoning blend (optional)

Preheat oven to 325'F.

Add the salt and buttermilk powder to the flour, and in a mixing bowl or food processor, cut the butter in until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.  Slowly mix in enough water to form a soft, but not sticky, dough.

Divide the dough into two portions, knead seasoning into dough, and roll out one at a time, until paper thin. You can do this on a lightly floured surface, or you can roll it out onto a large, ungreased cookie sheet. This recipe makes enough for two 10" x 15" trays.

Prick the surface of the dough with a fork.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned.  Remove from the oven and cut into crackers.  Reduce heat to 300, and bake on top rack until crisp, 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool on the tray, then store in an airtight container.

I cut mine with scissors, for a couple of reasons -- first, it doesn't scratch up my one and only cookie sheet, and second, my kitchen scissors are very sharp, and washable.  However you choose to get your crackers into cracker shape, it's important to bake them for awhile first.  If you cut the freshly rolled out dough into squares, the sides will pull up, and the crackers won't be thin and crispy, they'll be thick and tough.

And here they are!  I added Greek seasoning and sesame seeds to this batch, and they're delicious with hummus and feta cheese.

I've tried a lot of different spices and seasoning blends in crackers, I've also added sesame seeds, flax seeds, and parmesan cheese, and these are all really good.  I add them with the seasoning (if it's sprinkled on top it just kind of falls off after baking).

Here are some successful cracker flavors:

Sage and parmesan cheese

Italian herb

Rosemary and flax seed

Oregano

Krakow Nights (Polish style seasoning)

Tandoori

Paprika and sesame seed