7 Layer Taco Dip and Party food!

My youngest turned 12 on Valentine's Day. 

We had already passed out party invitations for Saturday, when I found out my mom would be having emergency surgery on her broken hip on Saturday morning.

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Mom came through the surgery just fine!  We are so thankful.

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I spent my morning at the hospital with her and around lunch quickly ran home and started getting the party food together.

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I had already planned the menu along with Brooklyn and we had everything ready to go.  My hubby made the Tuna Sandwiches while I was at the hospital and Brooklyn made the Ham Rolls the night before.

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Everything turned out to be delicious!

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Our Menu:

Cocktail Weiners

7 Layer Mexican Dip and chips

Tuna Sandwiches

Ham Rolls (will share recipe soon)

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries (these were yummy!)

Skillet Cake with pourable Chocolate Icing

...oOo...

So on to the 7 Layer Mexican Dip recipe!

This is my first time making it and believe me, I will make it again!

Combine the refried beans and taco seasoning.  Spread on a large plate or tray.

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Spread the combined sour cream and cream cheese over the bean layer.

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Spread the combined salsa or picante sauce ove the cream cheese/sour cream layer.

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Spread shredded lettuce over the salsa layer.

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Finally, top with shredded cheese and chopped green onions.  Grab some chips and dig in!

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7 Layer Mexican Dip 

1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix

 1 (16 ounce) can refried beans

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 (16 ounce) container sour cream

1 (16 ounce) jar salsa or picante sauce

1 bunch chopped green onions

1 small head iceberg lettuce, shredded

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1 (6 ounce) can sliced black olives, drained (optional)

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In a medium bowl, blend the taco seasoning mix and refried beans. Spread the mixture onto a large serving platter.

Mix the sour cream and cream cheese in a medium bowl. Spread over the refried beans.

Top the layers with salsa or picante sauce.  Place a layer of lettuce over sauce and top with Cheddar cheese and chopped onions.  Optional: Garnish with black olives.

Super Bowl Party Time!

If you're planning a Super Bowl Party, here's some great recipes to get you started.

Whether it's burgers, wings, chips and dip, cake, brownies...lots of great recipes can be found online.

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Below are some of my favorites places:

The Pioneer Woman Cooking

Tasty Kitchen

About's Super Bowl recipes and Party Tips

Deep South Dish

Taste of Home Super Bowl Recipes

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No matter what you make, enjoy the game, family and friends and may the best team win!!!

 

Glazed Applesauce Pecan Snack Cake (no eggs)

Being blessed with several containers of applesauce,

I went in search of an easy applesauce cake or bread recipe.

I'm all about easy and quick recipes.

I like to know there's something yummy

baking in the oven

while I'm surfing the web or working

on my ever-growing

 pile of laundry,

but I don't want to spend a lot of time

on a recipe with tons of ingredients

that I probably

don't have anyway.

...

Yesterday the girls and my hubby went sledding (again!)

and so I decided to use

up some of

the applesauce I'd been blessed with.

I thought it'd be nice to

come home to a warm house

smelling like sugar and cinnamon. 

I found an easy  recipe here

and  tweaked it

according to my preferences.

The result was wonderful!

(That's right - no eggs!)

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Quick. Simple. Easy.

Here's my tweaked version.  Make it soon!

Glazed Applesauce Pecan Snack Cake

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

pecan pieces, optional

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Preheat oven to 350º.   Grease and flour a 9 inch square baking dish.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, and salt.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Dissolve baking soda into applesauce and mix into creamed butter.  Add flour mixture. Mix until smooth.

Pour batter into prepared dish.  Sprinkle pecan pieces over cake batter.  Bake at 350º for 30 -40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1 T milk

2 T melted butter

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Mix together and drizzle over slightly cooled cake.

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CLICK  FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE

Beefy Rotel Cheese Dip and Chips

Beefy Rotel Cheese Dip

1 lb Velveeta

1 can Rotel tomatoes and chilies

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup prepared taco or chili flavored ground beef

In microwave safe bowl, add cheese and Rotel tomatoes.  Nuke until cheese is fully melted, stirring once or twice.  Remove from microwave and add sour cream.  Stir; then add the cooked ground beef.  Serve with your choice of chips or other dipper.

Chips shown in pic above: Fried low carb tortilla triangles.  Frying them instead of baking them made them crispier.  I cut the tortillas into chip size triangles as best as I could, then pan-fried in about a 1/2" of oil until golden brown.  As I drained them on paper towels, I sprinkled with a touch of salt.

Enchiladas for everyone!

These are made using low carb tortillas.  No non-low carbers complained.  This is a very tasty dish and higher carb low carb treat.  :)



I followed no particular recipe, just tried to use lower carb ingredients. 

Enchiladas

Ground Beef

Enchilada seasoning

Enchilada sauce or crushed tomatoes

diced onion

Low Carb tortillas

Mexican blend cheese, shredded

Brown the ground beef and onion.  Drain; add the enchilada seasonings and sauce (follow package instructions if using a prepackaged seasoning blend).  Simmer beef mixture.  Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of beef into tortillas, roll up, place into 9 x 13 dish, sprinkle with shredded cheese and bake at 375 º until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

For the Enchiladas with a side of Caesar Salad, Lime, Avocado, Rotel Cheese dip and LC baked tortilla chips, see my low carb page here.

Grilled Burgers and Spicy Fries

My Grillmaster lights the grill once again! 

It was a weeknight and I was wanting a simple supper, something that didn't involve messing up a bunch of mixing bowls, pots and pans, and dinner plates.  I didn't feel like the clean-up. 

So I picked up some burgers, already pre-formed!  I was looking for easy, too.   I glanced at the prices of the french fries in the freezer section and remembered the half bag of whole potatoes I had at home just waiting to be turned into delicious homemade fries.

As I went through my mental list at the grocery, I picked up some buns, a Vidalia onion, some iceburg lettuce (I know), and some hamburger sliced dill pickles, our favorite. 

When we arrived home, my Grillmaster set about preparing the grill...charcoal only for him.   I prepared the condiments for the burgers and my youngest daughter scrubbed and helped slice the potatoes for the fries.

What a meal!  I took my mom (who is fighting cancer, on a bunch of meds, and nothing tastes good) a burger.  She ate half of it and declared it was the tenderest grilled burger she'd ever had.



I know the cheese is not melted.  Poor fellow, I forgot to give it to him and it never entered his mind to put some cheese on the burgers those last few seconds on the grill.  So when he brought them in, I took a few of the hottest ones and threw some cheese on them.  

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TIP: When we light the grill, we usually do enough meat and veggies for more than one meal.  This night we grilled a huge pack of barbequed chicken legs and some deer tenderloin wrapped with bacon to have another time.  Leftover grilled goodies make for a quick and easy lunch!

Grilled Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin

My Grillmaster is at it again!  This time it's one of his specialties, wild game. 

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Grilled Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin

 

1 lb bacon

1 deer tenderloin, sliced

1 bottle Worchestershire sauce

1 T garlic

1 T lemon pepper

 

Marinate sliced tenderloin in Worchestershire sauce, garlic, lemon pepper for 4 hours or even overnight.  Remove slices from marinade, wrap with 1/2 a slice of bacon and grill over hot coals until done, 8-10 minutes per side.  Serve with a green salad and warm buttered rolls.

 

Optional marinade:  Teriyaki sauce, yum!

 

Tip: If you run out of bacon, skewer the rest of the deer meat with sliced veggies for kebabs.  :)

 

Sour Cream Pound Cake

You can always count on a good friend to give you a good recipe.

My friend, Karen, comes from a long line of good cooks.  Her grandmother was a great cook and her mom is "The Pie Lady".  She can whip up a Caramel Pie or a Coconut Cream Pie in the blink of an eye.  She always has the ingredients on hand.

Karen has turned out like her mom in that respect.  She's a great cook.  This is a recipe that she shared with me recently.  It's so easy, yet so delicious!

I've made this cake twice this week.  I polished off most of the first one myself, but took the second one to my inlaws' family get together.  I had to get that evil thing out of the house!  My hips have gotten wider just this week.  I'm trying to low carb, I really am.  I try to save my treat for that one-hour span, like the Carb Addict plan suggests, but it sure is hard with this treat around!

Karen prefers the cake 'nekkid', but I made an Orange Glaze to pour over the warm cake.  Most of it pooled up in the middle, but I just spooned that right out of the middle and onto my slice.  Mmm-mmm, good.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

1 butter recipe yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1 half cup sugar
1 cup oil
1 cup sour cream

Mix well pour into bundt pan and bake at 325 until golden brown, 45-60 minutes.

Orange Glaze (optional)

1/4 cup orange juice
2 T butter, melted
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Mix together and pour over cooled cake.

Deep Fried Cauliflower Florets (Low Carb)

As I was deep frying these little golden bites, different ones wandered through the kitchen and asked what it was that I was cooking. My Handyman finally decided that this was our pre-dinner appetizer.  I didn't tell him they were low carb.  They wouldn't have come within an inch of his mouth had he known.  ;)

These can be served without or with any tasty dipping sauce you like.  We chose Ranch and Heinz LC Ketchup.

Deep Fried Cauliflower Florets (low carb)

One 16oz bag frozen cauliflower

1 egg

3 T cream, half and half, or water

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup grated romano cheese

seasoning spices (garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, etc)

hot oil for deep frying

Rinse and thaw the frozen cauliflower.  Drain off the water.  With a fork or whisk, mix the cream, half and half, or even water with the egg.  Set aside.  Add your preferred spices to both cheeses, stir and set aside.

Put about a cup of cauliflower florets into the egg mixture, stir around until the florets are coated with egg.  Next put the florets into the cheese mixture (I put the cheese into a quart size freezer bag) and shake around until the cauliflower florets are well coated with the cheese mixture.

Carefully drop into the hot oil.  Deep fry 6-8 minutes or until golden brown.  Continue until all the cauliflower is cooked. Drain on paper towels and serve with your preferred dipping sauce.

Another Brownie Recipe

Honest, that's the title of this recipe.  I considered calling it Easy One Bowl Brownies, but decided to go with what I wrote down on the card.  This is another from my vintage recipe collection.

This recipe is very forgiving and I have made substitutions in the past with great results.

Another Brownie Recipe
 
1 stick butter, melted ( I have used 1/2 cup oil or 1/2 cup applesauce)
5 T cocoa ( I used 2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate)
2 eggs
3/4 c flour
1 cup sugar (I added 1/2 cup brown sugar)
1/2 cup pecan pieces, optional

Mix all together.  Pour into 7 x11 dish for thicker brownies. 

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.