7 Layer Nacho Dip

Growing up I ate dinner at my Grandma and Grandpa's house about once a week for several years.  Grandma was a good cook and I always looked forward to meals at her house.  With a dozen or so regular recipes, her style was simple and pretty all American...some of my favorite dishes were pan fried pork chops served with rice and gravy, spaghetti and meatballs and her good old fashioned potato salad.  Grandma rarely veered from her rotation of recipes.

But lucky for my family she found a recipe in the newspaper one day that she had to try.  I'm not sure when the dip made it's first appearance, but I do remember being surprised she made it.  It was definitely not part of her normal repertoire and neither were the ingredients.  It was a pleasant and very tasty surprise!  The 7 layer nacho dip was an immediate hit and went on to grace a number of family events through the years.

Last month Grandpa turned 96 (wow!) and my parents hosted a big party to celebrate.  Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!  :) When deciding what appetizer to bring to the party, I immediately thought of Grandma's 7 layer nacho dip.  It's been a few years since I've had it, but it was just as tasty as I remembered.  Thanks Grandma!  Miss you bunches!

Enjoy!

7 Layer Nacho Dip
source unknown

1 lb ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
2 15 ounce cans refried beans
1 small can of mild diced green chiles
2 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 15 ounce bottle of red taco sauce (such as La Victoria)
1 pint sour cream
4 green onions, thinly sliced

Optional items: You can personalize the dip to your tastes.  Some other suggestions would be using canned sliced jalapenos in place of green chiles for extra heat.  Or sprinkle top with sliced black olives in addition to the green onions. My family usually serves the dip with Nacho cheese Doritos...but any chip will work!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 9 x 13 glass or ceramic baking dish with cooking spray.

In a non stick skillet brown the ground beef until cooked through.  While beef is cooking, season with salt and pepper to your taste.  Drain off fat.

Spread refried beans evenly across the baking dish to start the first layer.  Top with ground beef.  Scatter green chiles over the beef.  Top with cheese and use your hand to lightly pat it down.  Pour taco sauce over the cheese so that all the cheese is completely covered.  Bake for about 25-30 minutes until edges start to brown and the taco sauce is bubbling.  Remove from the oven and cool for at least 30 minutes (you will be putting cold sour cream on top so you don't want it to melt).

Just before serving, spread sour cream evenly over the cooled dip.  Sprinkle green onions on top.  Serve at room temperature with tortilla chips. 

Cheesecake Fruit Dip

Hubby and I went to a friend's house for dinner last night.  It's fairly customary with our friends that we usually bring dessert since I have a "thing" for baking and all things sweet.  And last night was no different.  Except there was no time for baking.  I had about an hour at home, after stopping by the grocery store, before we had to leave for dinner.  I kept thinking I could quick whip up a batch of cookies.  But cookies just weren't doing it for me. 

It hit me on the way to the grocery store.

Fruit dip. 

Perfect!  Why didn't I think of it sooner?

Years ago Hubby and I went to a dinner party. A fancy, catered, dinner party that my boss at the time hosted at her home.  The spread was impressive and delicious.  Though I don't recall most of what was served, one thing stood out.  A wonderful, creamy, cheesecake like dip in the midst of a tray of the most beautiful ripe plump strawberries.  What a heavenly little bite.  I had never had anything like it.  I couldn't get enough and must have eaten at least a dozen. 

So simple yet so memorable.

I have made a few variations of this dip over the years.  The original recipe had sour cream in it, however I used Greek yogurt last night and this new version will be my go to recipe from now on.  The dip has body but is light enough to easily dip into.  It comes together in minutes and couldn't be easier to make. 

It's a blank canvas for whatever cheesecake combination you can dream up.  Fruit, such as a strawberries, green apples, nectarines, pineapples and grapes are all great choices.  Chocolate wafer cookies, shortbread cookies or graham crackers also pair nicely.  And if you want to go salty, try dipping in pretzels and topping them with a slice of fruit. 

Though I haven't done this yet, I had the idea of placing a small bowl of graham crackers crumbs on the serving platter along with the fruit and cheesecake dip.  Plunge your fruit in the cheesecake dip then swipe it through the graham cracker crumbs for the total cheesecake experience.  Definitely trying that next time. 

If you are heading to a Memorial Day BBQ this weekend cheesecake fruit dip is an easy crowd pleasing dessert.  I'm quite certain you wouldn't come home with any leftovers.

Enjoy!

Cheesecake Fruit Dip
from The Ginger Snap Girl

8 ounce package of cream cheese
6 ounces plain non fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in a deep medium sized bowl.  Using a hand mixer, starting on low and increasing to medium high speed, blend until fully combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. 

Can be made two days ahead.  Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. 

Serve with fresh fruit, cookies, graham crackers or whatever your heart desires!

Guacamole

My Husband is from the midwest, the Chicago suburbs to be more specific.  Apparently Mexican food wasn't one of the food genres that his family ate.  It was more of a meat, potato, veg situation.  And the veg did not include avocados (though technically a fruit).  Hubby moved to Southern California to finish out his college years in the late 90's.  A place where you can find an abundence of little taco stands and Mexican restaurants.  We first met during my last semester of college, his second to last.  When I found out that Hubs didn't really do Mexican food, I took it as a personal challenge to introduce him to some of my favorite local Mexican inspired flavors, including guacamole. 

I have a funny story to share that really doesn't have anything to do with guac, but recalling the humble beginnings of Hubs and my relationship reminded me of this.  The first time I met my Hubby's family (including Mom, Dad, sister, aunts, cousins, etc.) was when Hubs and I were graduating from college(even though we finished school a semester apart, they only hold one walking ceremony per year).  His whole family came to town for the graduation and one evening we were planning to have dinner with his Dad. I suggested we go to a steak house.  His Dad with a surprised expression said, "You eat steak?".  With a somewhat puzzled look I said, "Yes, of course!"  He replied something to the effect of, "oh I thought most California girls were vegetarians."  Ha! Stereotypes run the gamut I guess with all us granola crunching, liberal, veg heads in So Cal.  Which couldn't be further from the way I grew up.

But let's get back to stereotyping my Hubs with his midwestern meat and potato ways.  For the record, he doesn't eat that much meat, but he is a total carb junkie, namely pasta and bread.  Over the years, I've gotten Hubs to eat at Mexican restaurants and he always orders the same thing, fajitas.  Okay, it's a start.  He does venture into the occasional burrito if we are more of casual dining place.  But Mexican food is by no means his favorite.

I cannot pinpoin where and when it happened, but my avocado hating husband magically started eating and enjoying guacamole.  First at family events (guac has always been a popular dip).  Then even at restaurants.  He actually asks me to make guacamole.  Which I'm more than happy to do.  But please note, despite is fondness of guac, he still stands strong on not liking avocados that are not mashed up with onions, spices and herbs.  When I tried to serve him an avocado cup salad in place of a side salad for dinner one night, he ate everything off the avocado and handed me his naked avocado.

Small victories though.  Maybe in the next decade he will embrace the avocado in all its creamy rich goodness.  In the meantime, we'll keep eating guac!

As the heat indexes continues to soar across the nation, I wanted to share something requiring no cooking or baking.  This guacamole is easy to make and very tasty.  It's a mild version, so if you like to heat things up add in half (or whole if your're really brave) finely diced jalapeno and/or a few dashes of hot sauce.

Enjoy!

Guacamole
from The Ginger Snap Girl

4 ripe medium avocados
1/2 cup finely diced red onion
Juice from 1 1/2 limes
1/2 teaspoon salt (I use fine sea salt)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup of finely chopped tomato, seeded (I use grape tomatoes and squeeze out the excess juice and seeds)
1 tablespoon of finely chopped cilantro

To cut your avocado, hold the avocado standing on its long end and run your knife through the top middle cutting lengthwise around the pit until you come full circle.  Place the avocado in both hands and twist to reveal two halves.  To remove the pit, hold the avocado pit side up on your cutting board and take the fat end of a chef's knife and give it a little whack it into the dead center of the pit.  Be careful here! You don't want  to lose any digits! Once the knife is in the pit, twist the knife around to release the pit. 

Scoop out avocado with a spoon or peel away the skin.  Place the peeled, pitted, avocado halves in a medium bowl.  Using a fork lightly mash the avocado until you have large chunks.  I like to keep my guac somewhat chunky.  Stir in remaining ingredients and taste for seasoning.  You may need to add more lime juice or salt and pepper depending on your preferece.  Serve immediately with chips or fresh veggies. 

If you want make your guacamole ahead, I recommend doing so the day you want to serve it, a few hours ahead.  Take your finished guacamole and place plastic wrap directly on the surface on the guac, pressing down so that no air is between the plastic and the dip.  Air makes guac turn brown pretty quick.  Place another sheet of plastic over the top of the bowl (or close with a lid if you have one).

Sun-dried Tomato BLT Bites

When I was planning our menu of New Year's Eve appetizers I wanted to include a little something green.  But I wasn't sure what.  I had planned to make Ina Garten's sun-dried tomato dip with rosemary crackers.  I was also making a baked sweet onion dip with crackers and rosemary cheese straws.  Too many carbs. 

I opened up the fridge for inspiration. 

Persian cucumbers jumped out.  I knew they would be a good alternative for crackers and serve as a nice canvas for the tangy sun-dried tomato dip. I was going to leave it at that. But then I caught a glimpse of pre-cooked bacon slices that I had bought to use in salad...

Bacon, Cucumber, Tomato...BCT

Cucumber is green, cool and crisp....a lot like lettuce, right? A play on the BLT came together in this little crunchy, creamy, tomatoey bite. It was a refreshing veggie addition to our all appetizer dinner.

These flavorful bites are easy to put together and can be made ahead and stored in the fridge.   I used a decorating tip to pipe on the sun-dried tomato dip.  If you don't have a tip, you can place the dip in a zip top bag and cut the corner off and pipe it on the cucumber slices.  It doesn't need to be perfect because it gets topped with bacon bits and sliced green onions. 

The sundried tomato dip recipe makes a lot of dip.  You can serve it with crackers or cut up veggies.  It would also make a nice spread on a turkey sandwich or really gear up a classic BLT sandwich. 

Enjoy!

Sun-dried Tomato Dip
from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and chopped (about 8 tomatoes)
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
10 dashes hot red pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 scallions, thinly sliced

Add all the ingredients except the scallions to a food processor and puree.  Add scallions and pulse twice.  Serve dip at room temperature

To make sun-dried tomato BLT Bites

Quantities can vary depending on how many you want to make.  I cut up 4 Persian cucumbers and used 2 slices of bacon and 1 scallion for Hubby and me.

Persian cucumbers cut into 1/2 inch rounds
Slices of crisp bacon broken into small pieces
Sun-dried tomato dip
Scallions, thinly sliced

To assemble:

Place sun-dried tomato dip in a pastry bag fitted with a large star attachment.  Pipe a dollop of dip on each cucumber slice.  It doesn't have to be perfect because....the next step is to top each bite with a piece of bacon and sprinkle with scallions to garnish.

These can be assembled ahead and stored in the fridge until you are ready to serve.