Terry's Hot Mexican Dip

Hey look, I still exist--and whoa, so does this blog! Sort of. Yeah, I know; I am a horrible updater. Let's not talk about it.

Anyway, here's a quick, super yummy (and embarrassingly easy) dip that I made tonight. I got several requests for the recipe, so I figured I may as well post it. Please forgive the poor quality photo; my brother is the photographer of the family, plus I was in a hurry, plus I'm tired (excuses, excuses, I know).

Terry's Hot Mexican Dip

- 1 cup sour cream

- 3 oz. cream cheese

- 16 oz. can refried beans

- 1/2 cup Picante sauce

- 2 tsp. chili powder

- 1/2 tsp. cumin

- 2 cups cheese

Blend together all ingredients except cheese.

Spray individual ramekins or one large casserole dish with non-stick spray.

Layer dip with 1 cup each cheddar cheese and Monterey Jack.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

See? I told you. Embarrassingly easy. Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies

How very convenient that I've recommenced my recipe blogging on the eve of Vintage Recipe Thursday (which, at the moment, is a whole 4 minutes away). This recipe is credited to my grandmother and is the one that my family has always used for our Christmas cookies. They're simple, they're yummy, and, best of all, they're fun to decorate.

circa 1995

This year (err, I guess it's last year now), due to extreme busy-ness, the only traditional Christmas baking I did was to make cinnamon rolls (which is a recipe for another Thursday); I completely failed to make Christmas cookies. However, I did make these sugar cookies back in November, due to a sudden patriotic whim on Election Day. The goal was to decorate the cookies with red, white and blue frosting...but...as I have yet to succeed in keeping red food coloring from turning pink, I made an executive decision that a temporary alteration in our national colors was in order. Pink's pretty, right? :)

Gramma Dunwoody's Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

3 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup milk

4 tsp. baking powder

5 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp. vanilla

1. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar.

2. Add vanilla and beaten eggs.

3. In smaller bowl, sift flour and baking powder.

4. Add milk and flour mixture alternately to butter/sugar mixture.

5. Roll dough on floured surface.

6. Cut with fun cookie cutters (or, if you don't have cookie cutters, use the rim of a cup/wine glass).

7. Bake at 400 degrees, about 6-7 minutes.

8. Allow cookies to cool before frosting.

Icing

1 box powdered sugar (approximately 3 3/14 cups)

2/3 stick melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

3-4 tbsp. milk

Mix all ingredients together. Add food coloring as desired.

Spread icing onto cookies.

Happy baking! :)

15 Bean Soup

Hey look, I'm back! Again. Hopefully this isn't going to become my standard greeting for these posts; hopefully I'm going to start doing better about posting more frequently. You'd think that with the amount of time I spend in my kitchen I could have a post up nearly every day, but...clearly that hasn't been the case. Yet. I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the time when I'm baking/cooking, I'm in too much of a hurry to take pictures--and, mediocre though my photography skills are, I still like to have at least one photo to accompany these recipes.

But, excuses aside, here (finally) is the recipe for the 15 Bean Soup that I made waaaaay back in the year 2010. I'm pretty sure I made this during my VIA baking spree...and I know that for some [highly intelligent] reason I decided to make this in the middle of the night. [Brilliant, I know.] Actually, the majority of my baking that month occurred in the wee small hours of the morning (accompanied, incidentally, by my Frank Sinatra Pandora station); I didn't sleep much in October.

But I digress; enough of my rambling. Here's the recipe, which was a huge hit with my coworkers (and our milkman, actually). I mostly followed the recipe on the package, but I did add my own little twist to it...

15 Bean Soup

20 oz. package 15 Bean Soup (I used Hurst's)

1 lb. sausage, cooked

15 oz. can stewed or diced tomatoes

1 tsp chili powder

Juice of 1 lemon

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 packet VIA Ready-Brew coffee (I used Italian Roast)

1. Soak beans in 2 quarts of water overnight, or at least 8 hours.

2. Drain the water. Add 2 quarts of water and sausage.

3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 2 1/2 hours.

4. After simmering, add onion, tomatoes, chili powder, lemon, garlic, and VIA Ready-Brew.

5. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

6. Add contents of ham packet (included in the soup package) 1-2 minutes before cooking is completed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I also made homemade French bread to go with this, which (I think) worked quite nicely.

Enjoy!

Blueberry buckle

I know, blueberries aren't exactly in season anymore...but...this will be an exercise in using your imagination. Pretend it's a lovely June day (but don't pretend you're in Texas; you'll melt. Try Indiana or Pennsylvania or somewhere up north). Clear blue skies, a few wispy clouds here and there, an occasional breeze. You're relaxing on a hammock, perhaps with a book in hand (put away your iPod; listen to those birds chirping!). Lunch was a few hours ago, and what better mid-afternoon snack than a piece of blueberry buckle (coffeecake), perhaps topped off with a dollop of whipped cream?

Sounds good, huh? Terribly sorry if this now has you longing for those relaxing summer days of yesteryear. You may not be able to lounge on a hammock right now (or at least not without a couple of blankets and a stack of [home]work), but you can still enjoy the deliciousness of this blueberry buckle recipe. You don't even have to have fresh blueberries (though fresh is always preferable); I used frozen berries when I made this, and it turned out just fine.

Blueberry buckle

For the cake:

2 cups and 1-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (separated)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup milk

1 pint blueberries (again, I used frozen blueberries; I let them thaw a little in the refrigerator before using)

For the topping:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (like yesterday's recipe, I keep the butter cold and then cut into recipe with a pastry blender)

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 375. Grease an 8-inch springform pan (I just used a regular 8x8 baking dish). Set aside.

2. Sift together the 2 cups of flour, the baking soda, and the salt. Set aside.

3. In separate bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk.

4. Toss the blueberries with the remaining 1-2 tablespoons of flour (to separate and scatter evenly through the batter). Fold into mixture.

5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Set aside.

6. Combine topping ingredients with a fork or pastry blender to make a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle over batter.

7. Bake for one hour, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Cranberry apple crisp

'Tis the season for cranberries and apples, and so I was super excited recently to come across this recipe for cranberry apple crisp. Sweet and tangy and bursting with color (I know, now I sound like a commercial), this is the perfect dessert to enjoy on a cool fall day (perhaps topped with a bit of vanilla ice cream!).

Cranberry apple crisp

3/4 cup orange juice

2 cups white sugar (the second time I made this, I reduced the amount of sugar to about 1 1/2 cups)

5 cups fresh cranberries (I think I probably only used about 4 - 4 1/2 cups)

4 Gala apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

3/4 cup chopped pecans

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup butter (the original recipe says the butter should be softened, but personally, I think it works better if it's cold -- but that's probably because I use a pastry blender to cut it in)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x12 baking dish.

Heat the orange juice, sugar, and about half the cranberries in a saucepan over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Simmer until the cranberries pop, stirring occasionally.

Mix in the apples and the rest of the cranberries. Remove from heat, allow to cool for several minutes, and then pour into prepared baking dish.

In a bowl, mix together the pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and oats. Stir/cut in the butter until thoroughly incorporated. Pour over fruit mixture.

Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling and the oat topping has begun to brown.

Enjoy it warm (with vanilla ice cream!) or cold.

"Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns!"

-- George Eliot

Homemade applesauce

Surprise, it's me! I am sooo far behind on posting, but I've been so busy recently there just hasn't been time for it. I have still been baking, though, so maybe eventually I'll get around to posting the recipes and photos from some of these ventures.

Originally I planned on doing my Vintage Recipe Thursday post today, but about two paragraphs in, I realized that I don't actually have the recipe with me...yep, that's a fail. I'm in Florida right now sibling-sitting while my dad and stepmom are out of the country, and though I considered bringing my little recipe book with me that contains all the family recipes, I ended up leaving it at home. What was I thinking? Not smart. But, nothing I can do about it tonight, so rather than posting a vintage family recipe, here's a super easy and incredibly yummy one that my brother and I used yesterday:

Homemade Applesauce

- 8 apples (peeled, cored, and sliced)

- 1 cup water

- 1/4 cup sugar (note: the original recipe called for 1/2 cup, but the apples I used were pretty sweet, so 1/4 cup was plenty)

- cinnamon to taste

James using this super cool, handy-dandy gadget that peels, cores, and slices the apples for you. Amazing.

1. Put the apples and water in a saucepan; cover and bring to a boil.

2. Let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Stir in sugar; let dissolve.

4. Add cinnamon.

5. Mash/blend apples to desired consistency.

6. Serve warm or cold.

So delicious!

Raspberry peach cobbler

This week's recipe is one of my favorites as of late; I've made it probably 4-5 times over the past month or so because not only is it really easy, but it's also pretty popular with my coworkers (to whom I pass off the majority of my baked goods in order that I won't eat them all myself!).

This recipe comes from my Gramma Dunwoody (as did the apple crisp recipe I posted the other day). Though most of my childhood baking was done with my mother, I do have a vivid memory of helping my Gramma make granola in the cozy kitchen of her mountain farmhouse in North Carolina (though "helping", I'm sure, is a relative term!).

Such a fun memory! So grateful for the time I was able to spend with my grandparents when I was younger, as well as for more recent visits I've had with them.

Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

- Alex Haley

Raspberry peach cobbler

1 stick margarine

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

approximately 2-3 cups fruit (I've been using one large peach and 1 pint raspberries)

Preheat oven to 325F (350F for metal pans). Melt margarine in 8x8 baking dish as the oven heats.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in milk; batter may be slightly lumpy. When butter has melted, pour flour/milk mixture into baking dish; stir slightly but do not combine.

Spread fruit over mixture.

Bake for approximately 1 hour, or until cake tests done. (The original recipe says 35-45 minutes, but I usually have to leave it in longer.)

Enjoy by itself or topped with vanilla ice cream!