Layer Dip

No Super Bowl party is complete without good dips! Layer dips are a classic part of any party for the big game, and they are quick and cheap to make if you need a last minute addition to your game day menu.

Ingredients:

1.5 C guacamole (you're in a hurry, store bought will work fine)
1 16 oz can refried black or pinto beans
½ C sour cream

¾ C shredded cheddar cheese

¾ C shredded monterey jack cheese

¼ tsp cumin

Directions:

In a 1.5 qt casserole, if you have a clear one this will look much more impressive, layer the guacamole, the refried beans, and the sour cream. In a separate bowl, mix the 2 cheeses together with the cumin (this can be substituted with a store bought taco cheese blend) before adding as the final layer. Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy! (Told you that was fast!)

Shrimp Bisque

Ok so I actually have a pretty lengthy history with this one. My parents used to do a thing called home exchanges, where a family from somewhere you want to go on vacation to comes and stays in your house and you go stay in there's. It is a good way to get cheap lodging on vacations. One time, when I was still in college, they did one over Mother's Day.

This Mother's Day coincided with my spring break, so I had to leave campus, but I couldn't go home cause there was someone else staying there. I ended up staying with my best friend and celebrating Mother's Day with his family. His mom picked 2 recipies for us to cook for her, a shrimp bisque and beef bourguignon (which my friend kept calling beef boing-boing).

Because Maryland is weird and all spirits stores are closed on Sundays, we ended up having to drive about 45 minutes to go buy the wine from the vineyard. I was helping mostly with the bisque and I liked it so much that I decided to make it my own and it's been one of my go to recipes ever since!

Ingredients:

1lb of shrimp
4 C seafood stock
3 tbsp olive oil
2 C chopped leeks
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 C heavy cream
½ C white wine*
⅓ C tomato paste
¼ tsp cayenne powder
2 sprigs of thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Peel and devein 1 lb of shrimp and reserve the shells. In a 2 quart sauce pan, pour in the seafood stock and the reserved shrimp shells and bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and reserve your new shrimp stock, straining out the shrimp shells.

In a 4 quart stock pot add the olive oil over medium heat and once the oil is shimmering, add the leeks and garlic. Sweat the leeks and garlic for about 3 minutes until the leeks are translucent. Add the butter and melt it down before adding the shrimp and cooking the shrimp until it is pink and opaque. Next, add the flour and stirring until the flour has soaked up all the liquid and the bottom of the pan is dry.

Reduce the heat to low and slowly pour in the heavy cream, stirring constantly. Once the cream is worked in, add the white wine, tomato paste, and shrimp stock. Stir to thoroughly combine everything. Increase heat to bring to a simmer before adding the remaining spices and cook for 3 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to puree to desired consistency. You can do this in batches in a normal blender, but it is way easier to keep it all in the pot. Salt and pepper to taste and serve.

To make it a meal I serve it with my roasted garlic tomato spread on crostini and some seared trout seasoned with cayenne.

*I recommend a semi-sweet riesling or gewurztraminer. If you go with a dry white it can make it too spicy and overwhelm the shrimp taste and too sweet can really clash with seafood flavors. If you are near or in MD and can get a bottle of Boordy's riesling, that is my personal favorite.

Roasted Garlic Tomato Spread

A friend of mine gave me a really great tip about roasting garlic for garlic bread a while ago, and I recently found myself wanting to make something else with roasted garlic since it has a such a complex set of flavors. I came up with this delicious spread that is a little sweet and a lot savory, with a hint of spice. It goes great on crusty bread like a baguette or ciabatta loaf. I'll also be suggesting it with a couple recipes coming up that I think it pairs well with.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes–1 hour

Ingredients:

3 bulbs of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
½ oz of sundried tomatoes
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Crusty bread

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. (Hint: this is a great recipe for a toaster oven since it uses such small amounts.)

Cut off the top of each bulb of garlic so that each clove is exposed. Pour one third of the olive oil on each bulb and gently work into the bulb. Wrap each bulb in tinfoil and roast for 45 min–1 hour.

I like my garlic to be pretty roasted, since it gets sweeter as the existing sugars caramelize. I recommend cooking for 45 minutes and then checking every 5 minutes till it is as dark as you would like. Once the garlic is cooked to your liking, remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool.

Put the sundried tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil into the carafe of your blender. Once the garlic is cool enough to be handled, simply squeeze each bulb into your blender. Blend until a smooth paste is formed. Feel free to add more extra virgin olive oil if you need to make it a little more spreadable.

Toast or grill some slices of your bread of choice, spread, and serve. This is pretty powerful stuff so a little goes a long way!

Quinoa Salad with Candied Walnuts

I love quinoa, as I'm sure you can tell if you are a regular reader of my blog. But, I have generally limited myself to serving it as a hot side. With spring upon us and unseasonably warm temperatures here on the east coast, I decided to branch out and try my hand at making a cold quinoa salad. Quinoa is a wonderful grain for making cold salads since, unlike many other starches, it doesn't get rock hard once it gets cold.

Ingredients:

1 C dry quinoa
2 C water
salt to taste

¾ C dried cranberries

¾ C candied walnuts

3 T basting oil*

Directions:

Cook your cup of quinoa in the water and salt to taste before refrigerating it to get to down to room temp or cooler. Gently stir in the cranberries and walnuts (which I made from my previous recipe, minus the sesame seeds) before drizzling on the basting oil and tossing to coat. Serve immediately for the best crunch on the candied walnuts.

*Basting oil is delicious herb infused oil that is great on everything from meat to pasta. If you live near a Wegmans you can easily pick some up there or you can follow their recipe, in the link provided, or make your own by combining some of your favorite fresh or dried herbs with a neutral flavored oil.