Jalapeno Jack Fondue and a Giveaway

We’re on Day 3 of our entertaining theme for this week and the next party recipe comes from Great Party Fondues, a new cookbook from Peggy Fallon. This very adult dip is made with jalapeno jack cheese, beer, and tequila, and is a mouthful of flavor. Serve it in a fondue pot or a miniature Crock Pot, and offer tortilla chips, pita chips, celery, and pepper strips as dunkers.

Making a good cheese fondue requires some attention to detail. The cheese should be at room temperature before adding to the hot liquid, and stirring should be kept to a minimum, otherwise the sauce will be stringy. In addition, cheese sauces have a tendency to separate, leaving you with lumpy cheese in a soupy liquid. In her book Cookwise, Shirley Corriher gives a few tips on working with a cheese sauce. Read more

Caramelized Onion Dip and a Giveaway

And continuing the entertaining theme, we move on to dips, a key ingredient for any good party. I confess that I grew up on grocery store French onion dip, and boy did I eat my share of it. In fact a really good French onion dip such as this one and a few wavy potato chips could set me back weeks on my diet.

Party recipe #2 this week comes from Great Party Dips, a new cookbook from Peggy Fallon. Dips are a must for any party, and this book has tasty recipes for all kinds of dips and dunkers, giving you plenty of variety to choose from. This caramelized onion dip is creamy, rich, and full of flavor and is a great make ahead for parties as it can sit in the refrigerator for up to two days. At the minimum, let it rest for four hours to give the onion flavors time to permeate the sour cream mixture. The dip is easy to make, but caramelizing the onions properly takes some time, so plan for that. Read more

Roasted Tomatillo Jalapeno Salsa with Avocado

Creamy with a kick is what comes to mind when I dip tortillas or lavash into this salsa.

The September Daring Bakers challenge required the members to make both lavash and a dip or other condiment to serve with it, and considering our abundance of tomatillos and jalapeños coupled with my utter devotion to avocados, the choice was an easy one. I wanted to make it a little spicier than the previous version to help balance the rich creaminess of the avocado, so we roasted four of our homegrown jalapeños with the intent that we could use them all if necessary, but three seemed to be just right.

It comes together pretty quickly, and I had a batch ready in time for appetizers on a week night. Michael enjoyed it so much he had it for breakfast the next morning, spread all over an omelet and topped with mixed cheeses.

This recipe makes about four cups of salsa.

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Roasted Green Tomatillo Salsa

We didn’t expect our tomatillo plants to grow as large as they did, and Michael was downright skeptical when I brought them home.

M: “What kind of tomato is this?”

A: “It’s a tomatillo, not a tomato, and we’re going to try growing some this year.”

M: “What do you use them for?”

A: “Good Mexican salsa.”

M: “Whatever you want, Sweet Pea.” Thankfully he enjoys Mexican food and he’s very flexible about my garden and kitchen experiments.

Unknown to me at the time, I needed at least two tomatillos planted close to each other so they could cross-pollinate, and luckily the small pot I purchased had two plants in it, so we were set. I put them in the row alongside the grape tomatoes and then watched and waited.

They grew pretty quickly and it seems like they shot up to about nine feet (~3 meters) tall overnight. The blossoms showed up in July and seemed to hang around forever before we finally saw some little fruits sprouting. I checked it every day, watching for ripened tomatillos.

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Grilled Fish Tacos with Mango-Avocado Salsa

I wish I could come home after picking up the kids from school and have time to cook a nice meal. I long for a calm, zen-like cooking experience each day, but instead I find myself chasing after my sons who prefer to run amok, trying to keep them from raiding the refrigerator and the pantry even though I fed them a snack as soon as we got home. We had to put locks on to keep the Three Amigos from eating us out of house and home. Yesterday’s meal was supposed to happen on Monday, but the events of the day and the constant distractions left me disorganized and frustrated at dinner time and I pulled out some leftover pasta sauce and boiled some spaghetti. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, and in fact spaghetti with tomato sauce and/or meatballs is Michael’s favorite meal, but I had a grilling recipe up my sleeve for Cinco de Mayo which I had to grudgingly postpone.

I thought I could start some of the prep for dinner on Tuesday morning, but Monday night we remembered Top Gun, our three-year-old, had a project due for school the next day and I needed to finish some prep work on that before we could do it in the morning. So Tuesday morning was spent cutting photos and pasting them memory-book style onto a piece of paper describing his favorite things, and then we wrote our story about Spike’s visit (Spike is the class mascot, a stuffed kangaroo) and pasted more pictures onto that story. Read more

Roasted Red Pepper Dip

We first tried this dip over the holidays and really liked the flavor, and I now keep a jar of roasted peppers on hand specifically to make this dip on short notice. It’s a good dip for parties, Bunco, or brunch and it pairs well with crackers or crudités. The base is sour cream, but the flavor comes from the garlic, peppers, and the balsamic vinegar reduction. In fifteen minutes you can have this prepared and then toss it into the refrigerator to let the flavors marry. It’s a good make-ahead dip because the flavor gets better as it sits, just give it a good stir before serving. Read more

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