Crab & Artichoke Dip

 Last summer we were fortunate enough to have a family vacation to BC to visit with our families.  For Canada Day my sister-in-law hosted a feast - really there is no other word to describe it.  For a fantastic appetizer she made a crab & artichoke dip that was better than most you'd get in a restaurant.  Since then, my husband has been asking me to make the same dip for us to enjoy here at home.  Not quite a year later I did.  I had a lovely chat with my s.i.l. yesterday and she gave me the recipe out of her head.  I thought I had most ingredients on hand, and I was right.  Just a few variations, which as she put it, once you have the basics, the rest is very forgiving. 

2 cups whipped cream
1 block cream cheese (250 ml)
1 dollop sour cream
1 tbsp mayo
1 package of artificial crab meat
1 can real crab meat
1 cup grated hard cheese (mozzarella or cheddar)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup jarred artichokes (drained)
few drops Worchester
few drops lemon juice
good shake of Old Bay Seasoning

In a large bowl whip cream, cream cheese, sour cream and mayo all together.  Add everything else and using a hand blender, blend it all (can put it all in a food processor too).  If it is too thick you can add a little milk in to thin it out.

Divide into pie plates, cover with foil and bake at 350* for 20 minutes.
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My variation last night with what I had on hand.

1 cup whipped cream
1 cup whole milk (3 1/2%)
2 blocks cream cheese
1 tbsp mayo
1 package artificial crab meat
1 can real crab meat
1 cup grated cheddar
1 cup jarred artichokes (drained)
1/2 cup chopped green onion
few drops Worchester
few drops lemon juice
few drops hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Follow mixing directions as above.  I baked everything in a large covered casserole dish together at 425* for 30 minutes (I have a slow oven).

Both were delicious.

 My Sister-in-law's crab dip at last year's Canada Day family gathering.

My husband with his sister in her kitchen.

Sliders

You see sliders everywhere now. They are so popular and it's no wonder. They are tasty little burgers. And they are a great size if you have kids. I'd like to thank Donna from My Tasty Treasures for posting her technique of making these burgers. Mine are made the same way, but I have a different recipe for my burger part.

2 pounds ground beef
1 onion - chopped finely
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste
16 cheese slices
16 mini rolls - I use dinner rolls and they work well, but you can use whatever
Ketchup
Mayonnaise

Heat oven to 425* (my oven is not hot so 425* works well for us, probably 350* would do well for a hotter oven).
Mix ground beef, chopped onion, bread crumbs, Dijon, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix everything in well (one of those times you want to use your (clean) hands for mixing).
Put the beef mixture on a baking sheet and press it flat, right out to the corners so it covers the sheet completely.
Bake for about 20 minutes.
Drain the grease by tipping the tray slightly over your grease catcher (coffee can or whatever you use). Make sure to hold on to the beef with an oven mitt to keep it from sliding off the tray. The beef will have shrunk a bit in size.
Spread the cheese slices over the beef to cover it completely.
(Here's the trust me, it sounds tricky but it makes sense part) Put the tops of the buns face down on the beef/cheese, leaving no gaps between buns.
Then, put the bottoms of the buns on top of the tops, face UP!
Put the baking sheet back into the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese and heat the buns.
Remove from the oven.
Get the mayo and ketchup ready. As you remove each bun bottom, spread a little mayo and squirt a little ketchup on each. Set aside on a plate for a few minutes.
Take a knife and cut out each burger on the tray. You basically have to just run it down and across in between each burger. Use a spatula to lift each burger out and place onto a bottom part. That's it. It sounds trickier than it actually is. (Check out Donna's site for pictures if you need them). Serve with onion rings or crispy fries (or both) and a homemade milkshake for extra goodness!

X-Wing Cake

My son started planning his 7th birthday party slightly before his 6th birthday party happened. His 6th birthday had a superhero theme with a fantastic Spider-Man cake, one of my favorite cakes I'd done. For his 7th he wanted Star Wars. I started planning an R2 D2 cake. I thought about a Millennium Falcon. Nope, he wanted an X-Wing. Really? Does he think I'm Cake Boss Buddy? He would do an amazing one. Me? My skills are limited. I couldn't quite figure out how to do the X wings, so they are closed on this one.
The body of the cake was made with a 9x12 pan, then cutting out the shape. The wings were made in 2 small bread pans (one recipe split into 2) and then cutting the shape. The cake is covered in vanilla icing. I then used a combination of licorace, ju-jubes, chocolates and oreo straws to make the decorative features. I know it isn't my best cake (that would be my other son's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake) but this worked and I was pleased with it.

Squash Pancakes

Pancakes once were a regular feature in our home and I still like to make them as much as I can. The fantastic thing about pancakes and a picky eater in the house (mine is 4) is that you can hide a lot of different fruits and veggies in the batter. This time, the veggie was squash. My kids loved them. My picky eater ate 3 or 4 of them the first morning. They are fantastic re-heated the next day too. I used some previously cooked butternut squash in the batter, making the batter more squash than anything else.

1 egg
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups flour
1 cup milk
1 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnimon
2 cups squash (guestimate) - previously cooked and mashed well

Mix everything together.  Heat the griddle or frying pan.  Spray with non-stick spray.  Pour 1/4 batter at a time onto the griddle.  (you can also add Mickey Mouse ears with a little extra batter for fun).  Let cook through on one side before flipping to cook onto the other.  Serve with butter and syrup.

Pizza Biscuits

My 6 year old calls these pizza pucks, my 4 year old just calls them yummy. This is a very easy twist on baking powder biscuits that helps me get a little more meat into my kids diets.

2 Cups Flour
1 tbsp sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup chopped pepperoni (I just used one 100 gram pepperoni stick)
1/2 cup grated cheddar
3/4 cup milk

Pre-heat oven to 450*
Mix the dry ingredients together. Use a pastry cutter to add in the margarine until it's really nice a crumbly looking. Add the pepperoni and cheese. Stir in the milk (dough will be quite sticky).
Flour a flat surface and kneed the dough until soft and workable (flour your hands really well too for this). Roll out about 1/2 inch thick. Use a circle cutter (I use one of my kids plastic cups, about 2'' in diameter) to cut out the biscuits. Place on non-stick sprayed sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. This recipe makes about 16 biscuits.

Sheep Cupcakes

Aren't these cute! This was my craft idea for last night's messy church at my church. Messy church is a once a month event that we have for families. Each "Messy"
involves a craft, an interactive lesson and dinner for families. Last night's theme was "The Good Shepherd knows his sheep". I knew we hadn't had a food craft in a while and have never done cupcakes, so I googled sheep cupcakes to see what I could find. I found the idea for these on the Food Network's Site. Their cupcakes are slightly different than the ones we did. You can see theirs here. We couldn't quite find all of the decorating ingredients that they used (the candy eyes and the gumdrop noses) so we improvised and used mini M&M's. I also didn't make their cupcake recipe so I don't know what that part tastes like. I did make their icing, but had to abandon it as it was too thick and tearing the cupcakes apart. Fortunately, I discovered this as I was making the sample 45 minutes before the event started and had time to head out to the store and pick up some ready made. The ready made worked well and was easy for the kids to use. The kids and parents really loved this craft. And that is what I would recommend it for, a craft. It is very time consuming - unless you are the kind of person who loves to spend all afternoon decorating cupcakes like this.

How to make:

Make the cupcakes first, try out the foodnetwork.com recipe, your favorite recipe or cheat like me and use a box mix - let cupcakes cool.

For decorating:
-frosting
-marshmallows (1 per cupcake)
-mini marshmallows (24-30 per cupcake)
-mini M&M's (3 per cupcake)
-purple mini jellybeans (4 per cupcake)
-pink mini jellybeans (2 per cupcake)
-licorice shoelaces (cut into 1cm and 3cm pieces - 1 each per cupcake)

Frost the cupcake. Stick a large marshmallow on top to be the sheep's body. Use the frosting like glue for the rest of the stick on ingredients, putting the frosting on it first and then sticking on. Start with the Mini M&M's for eyes and nose. Use the 1 cm licorice shoelace for the mouth. Start at the bottom and work your way up and around with the mini marshmallows to make the sheep's wool. Use the 4 purple jellybeans for feet and the pink ones for ears. Take the 3cm licorice shoelace, curl it and stick it on for a tail. So cute!

Sugar Cookie Icing

This week my husband and I celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary. These cookies were my anniversary gift to him. These are no ordinary cookies. These are our wedding cookies. Cookies were a significant part of our courtship. As such our wedding gift to our guests were these fantastic cookies (you know instead of mints, or whatever other token gift is on the reception place setting). A friend of my mom's (Lori) did all the baking for our wedding. She made these cookies, which my husband declared the best cookies he had ever had. They were 2 sugar cookies, iced and in the middle sticking them together was a little bit of jam.
This past Valentine's Day I made sugar cookies with cookie icing for the first time. Sugar cookies I had made lots before, the icing was new to me. As he ate them he told me that this was it, these were the cookies similar to what was at our wedding. So for our anniversary, I made the cookies, complete with the jam filling as a gift to him. I did the icing here yellow as yellow was our wedding theme colour.
Here is the recipe for Sugar Cookie Icing. It is so easy to make. I recommend putting the icing on with a butter knife or icing spreader, I found a pastry brush was too tricky to get the icing to spread just right.

1 cup icing sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup*
1/4 teaspoon almond extract**
assorted food coloring

*Can use honey or maple syrup in place of corn syrup
**Can use any flavor extract, I used vanilla

In a small bowl, stir together icing sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush (or spread with a butter knife).