Givin' You My Best!

I thought I would share with you the best recipe I have.

Why is it the best?

1. It never fails to be completely gone from the bowl when I take it to parties or pot-luck lunches

2. It can be "spiced up" or "toned down" depending on your taste.

3. If the saying "A way to a man's heart is through his stomach" is true, then this is what got me my husband!

Cream Cheese Rotel Party Dip

2 - 8 oz. blocks of cream cheese, softened
1 - can of corn
1 - can of Rotel (this is where I like to use the HOT for the extra spice, but mild is just as yummy)
1 - packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix (secret ingredient!)

Put all in a bowl (I don't drain the corn all the way, about half the liquid) and mix together. Chill (or eat right away if you can't wait...like Ethan) and eat with corn chips, tortilla chips, Nacho Doritos, potato chips, pita chips or even veggies!

Trust me...it's a keeper!

Cake Cookies

I have recently discovered the perfect way to make a cookie.

Cheat.

For some reason I can never get my home-made cookies to turn out just right. They're either too flat, hard, or just plain burnt. Finally I found a great way to make semi-homemade cookies that taste great and turn out perfect every time.

Use a cake mix.

Yep, that's right. Any old cake mix that comes from a box. (My favorite ones for cookies are Duncan Heins Devil's Food). Add 2 eggs and a 1/2 cup of oil, toss in your favorite chips/nuts and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350.

Perfect every time.

Some of my favorite combos...

Chocolate Cake with peanut butter chips.

Chocolate cake with little Andes Mints

Chocolate cake with chocolate chips

Can you see a pattern forming here...

Red Velvet Cake with white chocolate chips

Lemon cake with powdered sugar frosting

Yellow cake with craisens...

The possibilities are endless!!!

Failure...

I love to try new recipes. Something different, new, or even sometimes strange. Most of the time the recipes I try are added to our normal rotation and we plan to make them again.

Not this last one.

I made potato pancakes. Sort of...

I have always wanted to try them, the sound so yummy.

I found a recipe in a magazine that looked like just what I was wanting. Mix two cups of mashed potatoes with an egg, cheddar cheese, garlic powder, parsley, and salt and pepper. Nothing about those ingredients sounded off. And they really tasted pretty good.

The problem came in the frying. The directions said to heat oil at medium heat and then drop the potatoes by 1/4 cup globs into the oil, press flat and cook for 3 minutes on each side. That's were it all went wrong.

You see...potatoes do not like to be pressed...they stick to the spatula or whatever you try to use to press them flat. Resulting in the flattened part splashing into the oil, spraying it all over...including on me.

The second problem...these did not like to be flipped. They fell apart so that basically I had a mess of random pieces of mashed potato laying in a skillet.

The end result would definitely had not won a presentation contest. The taste of the potatoes was good, but the mess, pain from hot oil, and frustration was not worth the taste.

Next time I think I'll just make "cheesy mashed potatoes" with the same ingredients and call it good!