Category Archives: snacks

Guacamole

lunch, sides, snacks 5 Comments

On a trip to Hilton Head Island the Yankee and I discovered this dish: guacamole topped with crab meat. This is a win. I set out to recreate it as soon as we got home, and I’m pretty pleased with the result! This is a huge party hit, too; I highly recommend.

Guacamole

Ingredients

  • Two ripe avocados
  • Two Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
  • 1 jalapeno pepper, minced
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 cayenne pepper
  • Kosher salt to taste, but about 1/2 tsp.
  • Juice from one lime
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 medium onion, diced (or some onion powder if you hate the crunch of raw onion)
  • Eight ounces lump crab meat, drained
  • Chips (obviously)

Instructions

  1. Scoop out the avocado into a bowl and mash with a fork
  2. Stir in tomatoes, pepper, cumin, pepper, salt and lime juice, plus onion if you’re using it
  3. Top with crab meat and serve with chips

PB&J muffins

baking, breakfast, dessert, kids, snacks 3 Comments

Hello, lovelies!

Not to get all Bob Ross-ey on you, but these are happy little muffins. It’s a Paula Deen recipe (that involves only 3 Tbsp. butter, I might add) and were apparently quite a hit at The Yankee’s office. Yay!

PB&J muffins

Ingredients

  • 2 cups AP flour
  • 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 tsp. creamy peanut butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 3 Tbsp. butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup thick jam (not jelly!)
  • 1/3 cup honey roasted peanuts, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray
  2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the food processor; add in all the peanut butter and pulse till it looks like coarse crumbs (think biscuit making); add in milk, egg, and melted butter and pulse till just combined
  3. Scoop half the batter into the muffin cups, then drop a teaspoon of jam on each; cover with the remaining batter and top with chopped peanuts if you’re using them
  4. Bake until muffins are light golden, about 15-20 minutes; cool on a wire rack (or eat immediately — these are SO GOOD still warm)

 

Paula says these will keep for 1-2 days, but they lasted about 1-2 hours in The Yankee’s office. So there you have it. 🙂

 

Chocolate chippers

baking, kids, snacks 8 Comments

Isn’t that the most fabulous name? It just makes me smile. On a recent impromptu stop into The Roost in Nolensville I may have nearly hyperventilated at seeing this book:

The Better Homes and Gardens New cook Book, copyright 1953. My mother had this book and I just adored looking though the pictures when I was a little girl; I’ve been looking for another copy for years and years. I thought the candy page was the prettiest food I’d ever seen.

My mother thought it more appropriate for us to eat such things as oat bran and tofu. I’ll let you browse the dessert pages of One Particular Kitchen and come to your own conclusion about that. 😉

On to the cookies in the book! This is a super easy recipe, and Kiddo had a BALL helping me out.

 

Chocolate chippers

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 cup sifted flour
  • 3/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 6 oz. chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375
  2. Cream shortening, sugars, egg and vanilla till light and fluffy. Add in dry ingredients, mixing well, then mix in chocolate chips
  3. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (or greased cookie sheet) and bake at 375 for 9-12 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and cool on wire rack.

The recipe said this makes about 3 1/2 dozen; I got a little less than that. These are light and crispy and just fabulous. Even the Kiddo, who has been known to shun any chocolate chip cookies that “look different,” ate these right up to the tune of four in one sitting.

Magee’s caramel corn

baking, dessert, kids, snacks 6 Comments

This recipe is from the fabulous Magee. The fabulous Magee is the mother of my fabulous friend Lissa (perhaps you’ve heard of her here? Or here?). This is her recipe for caramel corn and it is to die for. Crazy good. The Yankee doesn’t like caramel corn (should I call a neurologist?) and of course the Kiddo doesn’t (since it’s not Cheerios), so I cut the recipe down to involve just one bag of popcorn, but I doubled the amount of caramel because hey, it’s caramel. So here’s what I used:

Magee’s caramel corn

 Ingredients
  • 1 bag popcorn
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. white Karo syrup
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda

Instructions

  1. Pop the popcorn and dump onto a parchment-lined baking sheet
  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan with sugar and Karo syrup, then boil for five minutes without stirring
  3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and baking soda
  4. Pour over popcorn carefully — this stuff is crazy hot and sticky; dangerous combo (just ask my pinkie finger)
  5. Bake at 250F for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes (the stirring will really help evenly coat the popcorn, so don’t worry if it’s not too even to start with)
  6. Slide parchment paper off cookie sheet (again, carefully) onto a rack and let cool. Store in an airtight container if any lasts that long

Notes

For the sake of reference, here are Magee’s original amounts: 4 bags microwave popcorn (6 quarts) 2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup white Karo syrup 2 sticks butter 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp baking soda

Chilpotle cheese dip

snacks 5 Comments

I’ve been doing a bit of desperation cooking around One Particular Kitchen.

In the initial thick of things with the flood we were trying to stay out of the way, stay home, and leave the available gas, water (oh the irony), roads and groceries for those who needed them far more than we did.

We figured since life gave us limes, we’d make margaritas. And margaritas call for chips and dip! A quick inventory of the pantry revealed no Ro*tel. How is that possible? So I threw together this.

Chilpotle cheese dip

Ingredients

  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 1 can chiles chilpotles
  • 1 lb. Velveeta

Instructions

  1. Pour can of tomatoes (undrained) into a large bowl
  2. Dice chilpotles and add to bowl
  3. Cut Velveeta into cubes and add to bowl
  4. Now melt this either in the microwave, stirring every minute or so, or by setting the bowl over a pan of boiling water, double-boiler style
  5. After it’s all melted either serve as-is or use an immersion blender (carefully! This stuff is hot) to make it totally smooth
  6. Serve with chips and mucho margaritas

Before I let you go make this, a note on my fair city: the water is going down. Nashville is open for business. We’d love to see you! Amazing things are happening here. The flood? We got this. Please come visit and see why I’m so proud to live here and why there’s no other place like this in the world. We are Nashville.