Spicy Sausage Cheese Dip

Armed with a Superbowl food hangover, I'm here today to report on my absolute favorite treat from last night. And by the way, I'm totally that girl who sits in front of the TV for the entire football game, only looking up from her plate of junk food when the commercials or half-time show comes on. So don't get any crazy ideas that I can chat scores or plays with you... but food? Oh yes.

This little gem of a recipe was shared with me by my friend Shanna. It's so easy. And fat free. I swear. Here's what you need to make it happen.

Much to your chagrin, I didn't make this dip for a Superbowl party. Nope, last night it was just me and David. Wait, you don't make entire crock pots full of cheese dip just for you and your hubs? Hm. Yeah, yeah, we didn't either... I promise, this was just the appetizer for our super healthy dinner we had later.... Ok fine. You caught me. I ate an entire bowl of this for my dinner. Judge away. It was goooood.

If you actually are making this for a party (ie. more than two), I'd double the recipe. 

Step One. Brown the sausage.

Step Two. Mix the sausage + cream cheese + (drained) tomato mix together in a crock pot.

Step Three. Simma. 

Step Four. Serve with tortilla chips. Oh and then proceed to eat enough for you, your hubs, your neighbor... heck, your whole neighborhood. Why not.

 It doesn't look like much, but I promise it's amazing. Like, so amazing that we ate half of it before I remembered to take a picture.

So there you have it, my favorite Superbowl treat. What did you cook up last night?

Sharing with: The Girl Creative

Christmas Cake Pops

Every year, I make a "signature item" for the Christmas season. Usually it's a baked good- last year it was my peppermint chocolate cookies, the year before gingerbread men. But basically I make a ton of whatever item I pick and then pass them out to co-workers, take some to neighbors and bring them to just about every holiday party that I'm invited to. Makes life easy!

And this year's signature item? Christmas cake pops, baby.

Here's what you need to make yourself some Christmas cake pops:

INGREDIENTS:

 -cake mix (and whatever you need to prepare according to box)

-can of icing

-candy melts

-lollipop sticks

-sprinkles

DIRECTIONS:

Let me just say that for those of you who haven't noticed, I'm sort of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of chef. I spend my time in the kitchen with "a dash of this" and a "hint of that" and measuring things to taste. Needless to say, I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to baking, which you can see in my crooked sloppy silly completely unprofessional hot mess cake pops. They certainly don't look like the fancy ones at Starbucks! But trust me, they are goooood. 

1. Bake cake according to directions.

2. Once cooled, spoon the cake into a bowl. Add about 3/4 cup canned icing and mix.

Just a thought... I actually put a whole can of icing in at this point. I think it's easiest to use whipped icing so that it was easier to mix. But next time I plan to use about 3/4 of a can of icing- I think that will give the perfect icing + cake mix.

3. Roll your cake + icing mix into little balls.

This is where I had trouble. My balls are not exactly even. (TWSS) I was kind of thinking that the candy shell would cover up my glitches in the ball-making department, but um... it doesn't. But I'm sure all of you won't have a problem and are better ball-makers than I. (Humor me again... TWSS)

4. Melt a small amount of your candy melt. Coat the top of each lollipop stick with candy melt and then stick into each ball. Refrigerate.

The hardened candy melt helps the lollipop stick adhere to the cake mix.

5. Once the candy melt and mix have been refrigerated for at least a couple of hours, melt the rest of the candy melts in a bowl. I used chocolate and peppermint candy melts for these. Simply swirl each cake ball in the candy melt and sprinkle with fun holiday sprinkles. 

I let the cake pops dry in the cake pop carrier that I made. I simply wrapped a foam block with wrapping paper and stuck each stick in the foam. Voila! A festive cake pop holder.

So there you have it, my holiday cake pop recipe.  My mix made about 40 cake pops.

And yes, friends and family... get excited because I will be bringing these to all of our holiday functions this year! Speaking of... who wants to help me make 200 cake pops for this weekend?

Now it's time to link up your holiday recipe over on Natasha's blog, Schue Love!

 

I'm also sharing with Lisa over at Shine Your Light, Stephanie at Under the Table and Dreaming,  Katie at Bower Power and Kate at Centsational Girl.

Our Thanksgiving Menu

Thanks so much to all of you for your sweet comments on our simple and sweet Thanksgiving table! Now I'm just ready to fill this bad boy with some amazing food!

In my family, we take food seriously. It's go big or go home! We're big on tradition, so when one of us says "it's not Thanksgiving without ________" we've got to make sure we have that dish! Which kind of turns into about twenty dishes for about ten people. Thank goodness for leftovers, right?

Want to know what's on the menu this year?

I wasn't lying... we've got a LOT of food planned : ) And, of course, it's all done Southern style. Many of the recipes are from either my family or David's family, but I did pull a couple from other sources. 

I'll be using Paula Deen's cornbread stuffing recipe, but I plan to add more fresh sage + onions like my great-grandmother used to do. The candied sweet potatoes will come from Betty Crocker (minus the Cheerios... weird!). Oh and of course, we can't forget Paula's famous ooey gooey pumpkin cake recipe (which I frequently tell my family is my own recipe because it always walks away with a lot of love!).

So there you have it! The Thanksgiving table at Ten June. What are you cooking up this year?

On the Burner: Gourmet Hamburgers & Zucchini Fries

As the dog days of summer are drawing near, we're all scurrying around trying to soak it all up. Only a few more afternoons by the pool, picnics by the lake or romps through the sprinklers.

One last thing to hold on to? Summer food. There's nothing like it- the perfect summer meal is simply firing up the grill and adding fresh vegetables from your garden. David and I recently made an amazing summer meal straight from the pages of Barefoot Contessa's How Easy Is That?

The recipe is actually for sliders, but we decided to do full-sized burgers instead. We were hungry. Increasing the size made the patties slightly crumbly, but it certainly didn't bother us. It was gooood.

INA'S HAMBURGER SLIDERS

INGREDIENTS

• 2 pounds premium ground beef (80 percent lean and 20 percent fat)
• 1 tablespoon good Dijon mustard
• 3 tablespoons good olive oil, plus extra for brushing the grill
• 1 teaspoon chopped thyme leaves
• 3 teaspoons chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 6 ounces grated Gruyere
• 12 small Brioche buns (I used whole wheat onion buns)
• 4 ounces baby arugula
• 3 medium tomatoes, sliced in 1/8-inch-thick rounds
• 2 small red onions, sliced in 1/8-inch-thick rounds
• Ketchup, for serving

DIRECTIONS

1. Build a charcoal fire or heat a gas grill.

2. Place the ground beef in a large bowl and add the mustard, olive oil, thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix gently with a fork to combine, taking care not to compress the ingredients. 

 3. Shape the meat into 12 (2-inch) patties of equal size and thickness.

4. When the grill is medium-hot, brush the grill grate with oil to keep the sliders from sticking. Place the sliders on the grill and cook for 4 minutes. Turn the sliders over with a spatula and cook for another 4 to 6 minutes, until medium-rare, or cook longer if you prefer the sliders more well done.

5. For the last 2 minutes of cooking time, place 1/2-ounce Gruyere on the top of each burger and close the grill lid. Remove the sliders to a platter and cover with foil.

 6. Slice the buns in half crosswise and toast the halves cut side down on the grill.

Divide the baby arugula among the 12 bottom buns, top each with a slider, and finish with a slice of tomato and red onion. Cover with the top of the bun and serve hot with ketchup. 

You can find this recipe here.

As a side dish, I made amazing zucchini fries that I found here over on Natasha's blog, Schue Love.

AMAZEBALLS ZUCCHINI FRIES

INGREDIENTS 

• 3 zucchini
• 1 egg white
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup of seasoned Italian breadcrumbs (I used Japanese Panko crumbs- fabulous texture!)

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Spray two cookie sheets with cooking spary.  

 

2. Slice up the zucchini into little french fry slices.  

 

3. Mix the milk and the egg white in a bowl.  Mix the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese in a separate bowl. Dip each zucchini slice first into the milk/egg mixture then coat in the Parmesan/breadcrumb mixture.  

 

4. Bake at 420 degrees for 20 minutes.

Yum, right?

David and I were happy campers at the end of this meal!

Are you cooking up anything fun to celebrate the end of the summer?

On the Burner: Scallop Pasta & Shrimp Salad

Thank you all so much for your sweet words on yesterday's bathroom vanity makeover post! I am still hoping that this week will be the big final reveal of the entire bathroom... I'll keep you posted! : )

Last weekend, I decided it was high time that I utilized the Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That? book that the hubs got me for Christmas. So I pulled a recipe that looked amazing- Lobster and Shells (which you can actually find here). David was craving scallops, so I substituted those for the lobster and I think it worked out well. Here is my take on Ina's recipe!

Scallops & Shells

 INGREDIENTS

-salt and pepper

-olive oil

-1 lb. wheat pasta shells

-6 cups of corn

-3 to 4 sliced scallions

- 2 chopped yellow, red or orange bell peppers

- 2 pints sliced cherry tomatoes

-I threw in a few tomatillos because they were in our fridge

-2 lbs. of bay scallops

- 1 1/2 cups mayonaise

-1 cup sour cream

-1/2 cup of lemon juice

-fresh dill (to my chagrin, I left out b/c D hates dill!)

 *was using basil for another project, oops!

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of salt and some olive oil. 

2. Add the pasta and cook it for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente. Add the corn to the pasta and cook it for another 2 minutes, until the corn is tender. 

3. Drain the pasta and corn together in a colander and pour them into a large mixing bowl.

4. Add the scallions, diced pepper, tomatoes, and scallops, tossing gently to combine.
Allow to cool slightly.

 5. In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, 4 teaspoons salt, and 2 teaspoons pepper until smooth. Pour over the pasta and mix well to bind the ingredients. Stir in the dill. 

6. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for up to 6 hours to allow the flavors to develop. Check the seasonings and serve chilled or at room temperature. 

Yes, it tasted as good as it looks!

I also added one more dish to the mix- I guess we are always were hungry that night! 

It's just a really basic shrimp salad that I kind of made up as I went.

Lemon Shrimp Salad

 INGREDIENTS

-1 lb. bay shrimp (deveined, no shells)

-one lemon

-olive oil

-salt and pepper

-basil leaves

-2 garden tomatoes

-arugula

DIRECTIONS

1. In a mixing bowl, zest about 3/4 of the lemon and then squeeze the remainder of the juice into the bowl. Add 3 tblsp. of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

2. Mix the shrimp with the lemon marinade so that it is completely coated.

3. Cook shrimp on the grill or saute in a pan, until pink throughout.

4. Toss the shrimp with arugala, tomatoes and basil leaves. 

 

I told you it was simple! But gooood. 

Add a bottle of white (plus one of my favorite dessert's- Cassie's strawberry cake) and we had the perfect little summer seafood meal. Have you cooked anything delish lately?