I think my neighbors will thank you after the next block party!
I plan to try this one too.
There are a lot of other things here I want to try also (notably Mr. Excellent’s) but I have a large, picky family. Keep 'em coming!
Fruit Pizza
Sugar cookie dough crust (refrigerator section)
1pkg of cream cheese softened
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Sliced fresh fruit (blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, mandarin orange)
Press the cookie dough into the bottom of a pan forming a crust and bake to directions.
Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla
When the crust is cool, spread the cream cheese mixture on it
Add the fresh fruit in whatever design you like.
Everyone thinks its the best thing since sliced bread…er pizza.
Take cream cheese, beat with a mixer with a little whipping cream, spread thinly on the bottom of casserole dish. Take small tub of caramel dip (usually in the apple section of the grocers), spread on top, break SCORE bar into many pieces and sprinkle on top. Slice apples and stick them into the dip. Serve.
One of the few things I make from prepared food and guaranteed to get a rave.
Yeah well, and there are many kinds of Spanish chorizo, but I’ve done this recipe with dulce (“sweet”, meaning less hot), picante (hotter), de asar (intended for roasting), chistorra (no translation) and several varieties of casero (homemade) and it was yummy every time.
Unless Mexican chorizo is something other than “any of many varieties of red pork sausage,” I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t work.
I have one that comes to mind, but I can’t remember the specifics. It involves crushing a bag of Oreos, then mixing the crushed Oreos with softened cream cheese and forming it into balls. After that, you can either dip them in melted chocolate or cover them with powdered sugar.
People sometimes complain that they’re too rich, but they never seem to stop eating them.
RR
People usually rave over my version of pasta aglio olio.
Cook a package of long skinny pasta in salted boiling water for however long the package says to cook it (spaghetti, spaghettini, bucatini, linguine, fettucine, or anything else that remotely ressembles one of these). Drain.
In the same pot, over medium-high heat, throw in half a package of good quality bacon that has been cut into small pieces and a small dribble of good olive oil. Cook until the bacon reaches the cooked-but-not-crispy stage, then add 4-6 cloves of finely minced garlic and keep cooking until the garlic starts to soften.
Now throw in a couple handfuls of pine nuts and a generous pinch of hot pepper flakes (or more, if you like heat), and cook some more until the pine nuts start to go golden-brown, stirring every so often.
Remove your pot from the heat. Throw the cooked pasta back into the pot, and toss with a generous glug of good quality olive oil, lots of black pepper, a handful of fresh grated parmesan and a handful of chopped parsley. Serve with more parmesan sprinkled on top.
If you want a bastardized carbonara, you can sub 1/4 cup of heavy cream for the olive oil when you toss everything together. Nom nom nom.
Either way, you’ll be sitting down to a fine meal in less than 20 minutes. Rachael Ray can kiss my ass.
There’s a couple of desserts I’ve done that people have gone wild over, even though they are really, really simple.
- Fourth of July cake. (I just made up that name)
1 storebought round angelfood cake. (I refuse to ever make it from scratch again)
1 can blueberry pie filling.
1 container fresh strawberries, 1 of fresh blueberries.
1 container of Cool Whip.
Pour the pie filling evenly around the top of the cake so it runs down the sides of the cake. Spread a layer of cool whip along the top of the cake. Place strawberries in a ring with the small pointy ends up. (the cool whip keeps them standing. Cut them in half length wise if needed) Spread a small layer of cool whip around the base of the cake, arrange strawberries and blueberries ‘artfully’. The rest is up to your own artistic tastes.
- Baked Alaska.
Not going into a recipe here, but people get really excited that you ‘baked’ ice cream.
Hummus is really easy, the trick is getting the right consistency.
My hummus starts out with a can or two of chickpeas, water drained and reserved, pureed in a blender. Then blend in a bit of lemon juice, olive oil, and tahini. I do this by eye instead of measuring and sample the results until I’m satisfied with the taste and consistency. If the mix is too thick, add some of the reserved water; too thin, add more tahini.
Last time I made this, I also blended in some cashew pieces and a can of black olives with most of the water drained. Cashew butter is a good subsitute for tahini if unable to obtain the latter.
Actually, they’re two entirely different things, so someone trying to sub one for the other would get some unpleasant surprises.
Mexican chorizo uses ground meat and has a very different consistency from Spanish or Portuguese chorizos, which have big chunks of pork.
Most of the places who sell Mexican chorizo around here also sell it as a fresh uncooked sausage, while the Spanish/Portuguese are fully cooked dry-cured/smoked sausages. Because it’s fresh and has very finely minced meat inside, it’s not uncommon to have Mexican chorizo served crumbled up like ground beef instead of as a whole sausage.
Lute, let me ask you this: have you tried making hummus with a food processor? If so, did it come out better, worse, or about the same as with a blender?
Thanks,
RR
It’s a fresh sausage, very fatty, would be rather difficult, if not completely impossible, to cut and cook it in the manner described, hence my warning. Your chorizo is fermented, cured, sliceable, and edible without cooking. Mexican choizo is most assuredly not.
Here’s a typical Mexican chorizo recipe. It is stuffed into casings and sold fresh, or just crumbled up as is as an ingredient to many Mexican and Mexican-influenced dishes.
Chili-Cheese Dip
Can of Hormel chili
Package of cream cheese
Dump in a pot or slow cooker. Stir as it heats.
I make this for parties because it’s easy, but it’s the thing that everyone raves about and requests for every subsequent party. I don’t get it.
Another one…
Garlic Bread
Loaf of french bread
Margarine
Garlic salt
Cheap Kraft parmesean
Cut the french bread lengthwise. Spread it with a layer of margarine, top with garlic salt and fakey cheese. Broil in the oven until the edges of the bread turn dark brown.
Also gets raves. I’m all, “I spent hours slaving over a homemade tomato sauce and the five-minute bread is what you guys want six helpings of???” Go figure.
I’d like to but our food processor isn’t suited for this sort of thing. It’s a blender attachment but works more like a hand-held.
elfkin477, try your same recipe, but instead of nuts, substitute crunchy chow mein noodles. YUM!
Sinfully easy homemade doughnuts: Separate a package of Pillsbury biscuits into individual biscuits, poke your thumbs through the center and pull apart a hole in the middle of them, then drop in a pot of hot oil. Turn after a minute or two, wait another minute or so, then remove to a paper towel and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar or cinnamon sugar. For glazed doughnuts, add a little water to a small bowl of confectioner’s sugar, mix until smooth, then drizzle over doughnuts.
Spaghetti with asparagus and prosciutto:
Put spaghetti on to boil. Slice up 5-6 stalks of asparagus per person, shred about two slices of prosciutto per person. Dice two cloves of garlic, saute in olive oil, add the asparagus, prosciutto, and juice of 1/4 to 1/2 lemon once the garlic starts to get brown. Drain the spaghetti and toss it with the asparagus / prosciutto / garlic bits. Serve with the cheese of your choice. About 15 minutes prep time, max.
You can also do the same thing with salmon (fresh or smoked) instead of the prosciutto.
Here is an incredibly easy, incredibly unhealthy, but very popular thingie that I’ve been making for decades:
SAUSAGE PINWHEELS
Dump one pound of ground pork sausage into a frying pan (I like Jimmy Dean sage-flavored sausage, but any kind will do). Add one yellow onion, minced. Fry over medium heat, stirring and separating so that the mixture browns evenly, and is crumbly, with no big lumps of meat. Open a package of refrigerated crescent rolls and press the triangular dough segments together to make rectangles. Spread the sausage/onion mix onto the dough and roll up like a jellyroll. Chop into 3/4 inch segments (thinner or thicker as desired). Place the rolls in a shallow pan or on a cookie sheet and bake at 375F until the tops are pale golden brown.
I have taken these sausage rolls to parties umpteen times, and there were never any leftovers to take home. Even my food-snob mother loved them (although she would never have touched them if she’d known about the prefab crescent roll dough).
Rice Krispie Treats. Bring them to a potluck, watch them dissapear.
Bananas Foster! Take ripe bananas, sautee them in dark rum, butter, and broen sugar. If you want to get fancy, light the rume while serving. Serve over vanilla icecream.
Dump cocktail weinies into a crock pot.
Add BBQ sauce.
Heat and hand out the toothpicks.
Quick and Easy Buñuelos - take one package of good flour tortillas (thicker brands tend to work better. I like to use 6" tortillas, but any size works), cut them into strips about 1 1/2" wide, deep fry in corn oil, just drain off the excess oil, then toss them with cinnamon sugar.
My mom made them as a kid, and I’ve been making them since 9th grade. The only thing I have to take home is the serving dish.