Fruit Salsa

Fruit Salsa

1 Bag Frozen Raspberries

1 Bag Frozen Strawberries Chopped

2 Green Apples Diced

3 Kiwi Peeled & Diced

3 Tbls Red Jam

2 Tbls White Sugar

1 Tbls Brown Sugar

Mix all of the fruit together in a large bowl, in a small bowl mix jam & sugar, once combined add to the fruit.

Serve with Cinnamon Chips.

Cinnamon Chips

24 8” or Fajita Size Flour Tortillas

1 Cube Butter Melted

Cinnamon & Sugar

Pre heat the oven to 350’

Butter and C&S both sides of the tortilla, then cut into wedges

Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 8 or 10 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Serve with Fruit Salsa

Baked Bacon

Mmm, Bacon! Want that crispy golden hue, that bit of crackly crunch that's not dried out, hard, dark brown and overdone at the corners, or grayish and limp from the microwave? Then you need to bake your bacon. Sure, you can get nicely cooked bacon on a griddle, but it's less hassle and less work in the oven.

Ingredients:
8~12 oz. Bacon (I prefer the uncured thick cut hickory smoked kind, like Hempler's)

Take a rimmed baking sheet, such as a jelly roll pan, and line it with foil. Lay out the strips of bacon on the foil. It's okay if they overlap just a bit, as they will shrink when cooking. Set the oven to bake at 400 degrees and put the pan with the bacon on a rack in the middle. Preheating is not required, though it doesn't hurt. Set the timer for 15 minutes. The bacon will probably require another two to seven minutes beyond this, depending on thickness, but it's a good checkpoint for doneness. Bake until it looks like cooked bacon ought to look, and remove from the oven. Set the pan at a slight angle to drain the grease from the bacon for a minute. Press the strips of cooked bacon in paper towels to remove excess grease. Pour the bacon grease from the pan into a container - not down the sink, unless you like unclogging drains. At this point, you can enjoy some bacon! Leftover bacon freezes really well and will perk up nicely in the microwave after a few seconds.

Appetizers

Crab Spread
Vegetable Pizza
Granny’s Sweet Pickles
Tortilla Stack
Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts
Fresh Fruit Dip
Asparagus Dip
Herbed Butter
Artichoke Dip
Salsa
Cheese Ball
Wontons
Western Burger Sliders
Nachos

Crab Spread

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese
2 tablespoons milk
2 cans King Crab or shrimp pieces
1 bottle cocktail sauce

Line a pie tin with plastic wrap. Mix cream cheese with milk and then press into the pie tin. Cover and refrigerate for one or more hours. Remove from mold. Cover cream cheese with King Crab or shrimp pieces and pour cocktail sauce over meat. Serve with crackers.

Vegetable Pizza

8 ounces cream cheese
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon dill
⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
2 tubes of crescent roll dough

Mix cream cheese, sour cream, dill, and garlic powder together and set aside. Press the 2 packages of roll dough together on a jelly roll pan and prick with a fork. Bake at temperature on roll instructions, but bake for about 9 minutes or until done. Cool and then spread with cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle with a variety of chopped or shredded vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower, cheese, etc.

Granny’s Sweet Pickles

From Granny Robertson (Scott’s mother)

Pickle-sized cucumbers
Un-iodized salt
Alum
1 quart white vinegar
2 quarts sugar (8 cups)
1 tablespoon whole cloves
3 sticks cinnamon

Soak cucumbers in brine salty enough to float an egg (use un-iodized salt). Soak for 10 days. Wash and cut. Soak in alum water (1 tablespoon alum/gallon of water). Change water each day for 3 days. Combine vinegar, sugar, cloves and cinnamon to make syrup and boil hard for 5 minutes. This amount of syrup is for 1 gallon of cut cucumbers after alum treatment.

While still boiling, pour over pickles. Next day, drain syrup from pickles and reheat to boiling. Pour over pickles again. Repeat for total of 5 days. Use no metal containers or bowls to soak or store pickles. You will need to weight down the pickles to keep them in the brine and syrup. Do this by covering with a plate and putting something heavy on the plate. Beth and Rosemary just store the pickles in big containers in their fridges, but they can be bottled. Just put hot (boiling) pickles and juice into hot, sterile jars and cap quickly with hot lids and rings. They should seal as they cool. Beth bought ½ bushel of tiny cucumbers and it made just over 3 gallons of pickles.

Western Burger Sliders

There are a few variants of this recipe floating around; this is the one I've used to make a popular pot-luck dish.

3 lbs Lean Ground Beef
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup Mix
3/4 Cup Barbecue Sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
24-pack of slider buns or dinner rolls

Put all the ingredients in your Kitchenaid and mix for about a minute on low speed until blended.
Turn out into a waxed paper or foil lined quarter sheet cake pan and mash it out into a rectangle about 1/4 to 3/8 inches thick. With a spatula, split the ground beef mixture into 24 squares approximately 3" on a side. (This won't be exact, but it doesn't matter, just leave a small gap between them on the baking sheet.) Place the baking sheet in the freezer for half an hour to an hour. This will stiffen the patties and help them hold their shape while they cook.
Peel the patties from the baking sheet with a spatula and grill or fry them until cooked through. They will shrink during cooking to just the right size for the slider buns. Place patties on buns and serve.
These have plenty of flavor even without condiments, but you can add your favorites.
Makes 24 - serves fewer, usually.

Tortilla Stack

1 cup Miracle Whip (can be light)
1 8-ounce package cream cheese
4 green onions
½ can ripe olives (can use small can chopped olives)
1 package (2.5 ounces) beef or ham (wafer thin kind like Buddig or Land O Frost)

Combine Miracle Whip and cream cheese. Chop green onions, olives and meat. Add to cream cheese and Miracle Whip mixture. Spread about ¼ cup on large, thin tortilla. Put a tortilla on top and follow same procedure using 8 or 9 tortillas, ending with a tortilla on top. Chill overnight or for several hours. Cut into 1-inch diamond shapes.

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Mom always seemed to make these to take somewhere – no fair, we liked them too.

1 can whole water chestnuts
1 pound bacon
1 cup sugar
⅓ cup ketchup

Cut chestnuts and bacon strips into thirds. (If some of the chestnuts are tiny just cut them in half). Wrap each piece of chestnut with a bacon piece and secure with a toothpick which goes through the water chestnut. Stand these in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan. Bake for 1 hour at 250°. Remove from oven and drain off as much of the grease as possible.

Mix the sugar and ketchup together and spoon over the bacon wrapped water chestnuts. Put back in 250° oven for 1 more hour. Serve hot.

Fresh Fruit Dip

1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
1 jar marshmallow cream
1 medium orange
¼ teaspoon grated ginger

Grate orange rind and beat with cream cheese, marshmallow cream and ginger in mixer. Serve with fresh fruit.

Nacos!

This delicious cross between nachos and tacos was inspired by the Disney Channel cartoon, Kim Possible - it's the favorite food of her sidekick, Ron Stoppable.

½ lb. Taco meat (ground or shredded beef or chicken, cooked and seasoned to taste)
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese
6 soft wheat tortillas
~24 Corn chips
Salsa

Place two tortillas on a baking sheet. Top each with taco meat, salsa, some corn chips (no more than one layer thick) and sprinkled cheese.
Broil the Nacos on low heat for about two minutes, or until the cheese is nice and melty. Fold each tortilla over like an omelette with a spatula (it's okay to break a few corn chips in the process). It's easy enough to cut in half with a spatula to make them easier to eat.
Repeat with the remaining ingredients. Makes six, serves three or four.

Asparagus Dip

1 16-ounce carton cottage cheese
1 can drained asparagus
1 package Hidden Valley dressing

Blend cottage cheese in blender until smooth. Add drained asparagus and blend until smooth. Add dry dressing. Taste test before adding all of the dressing. Chill before serving. Serve with raw veggies. This makes a large amount of dip.

Herbed Butter

From Aunt Beth Turner (Scott’s sister)

1 cube real butter (at room temperature)
1 teaspoon basil leaves
1 teaspoon parsley
¼ to ½ cup parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder

Mix ingredients well. Spread on French bread, pasta, fresh cooked vegetables, or stir fry.

Artichoke Dip

This stuff is great - but don't bother counting the calories!

3 cans artichoke hearts - drained and mashed
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1-½ cups shredded parmesan cheese
1-½ cups mayonnaise
Garlic powder (to taste)
Salt (to taste)

Combine ingredients then bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Serve warm with bread pieces (something sturdy like baguette) or with tortilla chips.

Salsa

1 16-ounce can stewed tomatoes
½ cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 small clove of garlic minced
⅛ teaspoon Tabasco

Add all ingredients to blender, mix quickly and serve with chips.

Cheese Ball

Kinsey's mom

1 4-ounce bottle of Kraft Roca Blue Cheese Spread
8 ounces of cream cheese
1 4-ounce bottle of Kraft Old English Cheese Spread
½ teaspoon garlic powder or salt
1 teaspoon diced onion
1 tablespoon Red wine vinegar
1 to1½ cups chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix and refrigerate all but nuts until firm. Wet hands and roll into ball with hands. Roll in chopped nuts and serve. (Can also divide in half and make 2 smaller balls, which are easier to roll.)

Wontons

Kinsey's mom

1 pound hamburger
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Pepper to taste
¾ cup cooked rice
2 cups shredded cheddar
Wonton wrappers 2 packages
Frying oil
Dipping sauce (recipe below)

Brown hamburger, onion, and garlic. Add rice and seasonings. Heat through and add cheese after slightly cooled. Fold in wrappers and fry. You can freeze these raw and fry later if you're not serving a lot of people.

Sauce for Wontons
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
2/3 cup pineapple juice
2 teaspoons soy sauce
¼ cup vinegar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup cold water

Bring all ingredients except cornstarch and water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir cornstarch into water. Add cornstarch and water mixture to saucepan. Boil 1 minute. Dip wontons into sauce.