Carrot Dip

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I love cookbooks; I tend to read them like a novel. A couple of weeks ago my aunt, who is purging things, gave me a stack of cookbooks, and I have been having great fun. Not only did she give me full-sized hardback cookbooks, but also those small, soft cover cookbooks from Pillsbury and other companies that always appear (or used to appear, are they still there?) at the checkout stand at the market.

Because I went a little crazy chopping carrots, I had plenty left over to try this dip recipe that I found in a small cookbook from Midwest Living. Whether you’re a fan of carrots, or not, you will love the freshness of this tasty dip. I enjoyed it with crackers, but I also loved it with crudites (green pepper in particular), and used it as a sandwich spread. It made excellent tea sandwiches!

Carrot Dip

½ c. sour cream
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
¼ c. Duke’s mayonnaise
2 t. soy sauce
1½ t. prepared horseradish
¼ t. salt
¼ t. freshly ground black pepper
1½ c. finely shredded carrots
½ c. chopped scallions

In a medium mixing bowl, beat together, sour cream, cream cheese, mayonnaise, soy sauce, horseradish, salt, and pepper until smooth. Fold in carrots and green onions. Cover and chill for 4 to 24 hours. Stir before serving. Makes about 2 cups.

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Polish Egg Salad

I mentioned last week that I was interested in making peach cobbler cheesecake from the new Golden Girls Cheesecake and Cocktails Cookbook. Despite the fact that the store did not have any peaches, I still bought the cream cheese. What can I say? I am a slave to my list. So that started me looking for recipes that used cream cheese that I had not tried before, and I came across this at allrecipes.com. Now, if you are Polish, and consider this blasphemy, swearing that the Poles would never have egg salad with cream cheese in it, don’t shoot the messenger! I just tried this, liked this, and wanted to pass it along. The flavor is mild, but it intensifies over night in the fridge. I really liked it and the creamy texture. It makes a great topping on bagels making it perfect for breakfast, as well as a wonderful sandwich filling. It can also be mounded onto crackers to use as a snack. I thought it perfect as is, but if you’d like a little more zip, add a little cayenne, Sriracha, or spicy mustard to the mix.

Polish Egg Salad

 1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened

1 T. butter, softened, or more to taste

4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 T. chopped fresh parsley

Combine cream cheese and butter in a bowl and mash with a fork. If mixture is too thick, add more softened butter. Mix in eggs and onion. Season with salt and pepper; serve with parsley.

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BLT with Creole Mayonnaise

I know some of you have already been enjoying your tomato harvest, but where I live, red tomatoes don’t generally show themselves until July. My tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes, only just now beginning to turn red. When they finally do, I am going to have a bumper crop!

I was so desperate for a BLT that I went to the local farmers market, and picked up a couple of Arkansas tomatoes so that I could dig into their juicy goodness. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like this sandwich, particularly the way I make it, with a hefty dollop of Creole mayonnaise slathered onto the bread. If you’ve never tried this on your BLT, you are missing out. It is zippy, spicy, and delicious, but not so much so as to overpower the delicate fresh taste of your homegrown tomato, or smoky goodness of the bacon.

Here’s my recipe for Creole mayonnaise. It’s good on chicken sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, stirred into egg or chicken salad, pimiento cheese (I know, sacrilege!), even veggie sandwiches, but I think it’s at its absolute best on a BLT.

Creole Mayonnaise

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. finely minced garlic
1/4 tsp. Creole mustard
1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. hot sauce
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning

Blend all ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl, and store in the refrigerator for one hour to allow the flavors to meld before using. Will last in the refrigerator, covered, for up to five days.

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Greek Egg Salad

It’s not that I eavesdrop on fellow diners when I’m enjoying a meal out, but when I hear the word “marvelous” in a neighboring conversation during a discussion of a recipe, admittedly my ears perk up. In this case “marvelous” was paired with the words “Greek Egg Salad.” Intriguing, no? As a lover of egg salad, I can assure you that I pondered this for the rest of my meal, and continued to do so after I got home. The next day I came up with my own version and it is, indeed, marvelous!

Greek Egg Salad

¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup finely chopped scallions
½ cup finely chopped, seeded tomato
¼ cup chopped Kalamata olives
1 teaspoon drained capers
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
1 tablespoon Greek salad dressing (your favorite, or this one)
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Pinch Creole seasoning

Pinch oregano
8 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

 4 croissants, or other favorite roll 

Shredded lettuce, for serving

Combine ingredients in a medium bowl, and fold together carefully with a rubber spatula. Refrigerate for at least an hour to allow flavors to meld, or ideally, four hours or overnight. Serve generous scoop on croissants and top with shredded lettuce.

Serves 4.

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If unique egg salads are you thing, you’ll surely enjoy this Pimiento Cheese Egg Salad.

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Jicama Spinach Dip with Hearts of Palm

If, like me, you are unfamiliar with jicama, let me educate you. This root vegetable with its yellow and papery skin is creamy white on the inside with a crisp texture similar to that of an apple or raw potato. The flavor is slightly sweet, and the jicama is surprisingly juicy. It can be cooked, but is largely eaten raw, and, unlike apple or potato, will not turn dark if stored after slicing. It is high in dietary fiber, composed of 86-90% water, is low in saturated fat, and a good source of vitamin C. It’s also quite tasty!

Use a knife when you slice it — a vegetable peeler does not work well at all.

Slice it into cubes to toss in a salad, strips for dipping, or mince for including in this delicious dip/sandwich spread.

A word of warning, it makes A LOT (as Jed Clampet used to say “a heapin’ helpin’”), so be mindful of that. If you want to cut this recipe in half, you certainly can, in which case cut back on the soup mix(es) to 1/8 cup (2 Tablespoons). I served mine in these darling 5 oz. ramekins for which I never seem to run out of uses.

Jicama Spinach Dip with Hearts of Palm

1 c. mayonnaise

1 16-oz. container sour cream

1 1.8-oz. pkg. dry Leek OR Vegetable Soup Mix*

1 tsp. smoked paprika

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 c. peeled and minced Melissa's jicama

½ cup diced red pepper

½ cup diced Melissa’s Hearts of Palm

3 green onions, chopped

1 10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

Mix all ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl. Chill at least 3 hours or overnight. Keeps in the fridge for 2-3 days.

*I used half a pack of both (¼ cup of each)

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If you like Hearts of Palm like I do but prefer a warm dip, you will love this Baked Hearts of Palm Dip.

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Walnut Cream Cheese Spread

The beauty of having a container garden is that I am never overrun with any particular thing. In fact, I have been known to sit outside in a wicker chair, staring at the tomatoes, daring them to ripen. This past week I brought in a single tomato every day, and was fine with that. I also brought in four hefty cucumbers, two of which I gave to my number two son, who has already turned them into pickles. The other two I decided to use in fresh cucumber sandwiches. I have used cucumbers in veggie sandwiches before, but never made a sandwich where they were featured. I have been told that some of the best cucumber sandwiches contain cucumbers, slices of red onion, and cream cheese. I decided to take that up a notch by making my own bread (there is no better time of the year to proof bread outdoors than in humid, 90° mid summer heat), and make Walnut Cream Cheese.

Thai basil and cucumbers were harvested today.

First of all, let me tell you, this cream cheese is so good that I had to hide it from myself in the back of the fridge. Had I not, there wouldn’t have been enough to make the sandwich. Second, nothing beats homemade bread for a tasty sandwich. Mr. O-P used to favor sandwiches made with dense, chewy bread. I like that as well, but, when it comes to something as delicate as a cucumber, I need bread that’s going to be a bit softer without skimping on taste.

This is a delightful combination! You can remove the crust from the bread, and cut the sandwiches into triangles, rectangles, small squares, or heck, get fancy-schmancy and use a round biscuit cutter and cut out rounds. I wasn’t making this to serve with tea, I was making it to munch on during some tense innings of the ball game, so I left the crusts on. Sometimes, I like to take a walk on the wild side.

Try this sandwich, but even if you don’t, you must (I absolutely insist!) try this Walnut Cream Dheese. It is superb accompanied by grapes (Shown here with Melissa’s wonderfully sweet and juicy Champagne Grapes -- an excellent pairing.), or slices of apple. Delish!

Walnut Cream Cheese Spread

Adapted from Taste of Home

12 ounces cream cheese, softened
½ cup chopped walnuts, toasted
2 T. minced fresh parsley
1 T. finely minced green pepper
2 T. minced scallions
1 t. fresh lemon juice
¼ t. freshly grated nutmeg
6-8 gratings from Melissa’s Lemon Pepper Grinder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients into a medium mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Place in an airtight container (I like these.) and refrigerate overnight to meld flavors.

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Another versatile cream cheese spread that is good either hot or cold is Olive Cheese Spread.

This post is linked to:

Cooking & Crafting with J&J

Amaze Me Monday

Busy Mondays

Over the Moon

Celebrate Your Story

Inspire Me Tuesday

Reader Tip Tuesday

Tuesdays with a Twist

The Scoop

Dream, Create, Inspire

Wonderful Wednesday

Whimsical Wednesdays

O My Heartsie Girls Wonderful Wednesday
 Wine’d Down Wednesday

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Spicy Mustard Ham Salad

Today I am going to share a delicious recipe for ham salad. I know what you’re thinking, enough with the ham already! We get it! You bought too much ham. To which I would respond, well at least you’re not living it. My life has become a porcine nightmare. Seriously, I am beginning to oink. But, you can relax now; this is the last ham-related recipe that I’m going to share for a long, long time. You can trust me on that.

This is a wonderful recipe because it has so many uses. You can put it in a dish and serve it with crackers as a snack or pre-meal appetizer, you can enjoy it on a sandwich as I did here, you can make a lettuce wrap out of it (that is really delicious by the way), or use it as a dip with tortilla chips (or even Fritos, and I cannot tell you how yummy that is). At any rate, this is a good recipe to keep on hand, because there always seems to be a bit of ham left over no matter your good intentions, and this is a great way to make use of it. 

Spicy Mustard Ham Salad

10 ounces ham
3 kosher dill pickle spears (I used Clausen)
1 tablespoon brown sugar, loosely packed
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
1 tablespoon instant minced onion
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed

Toss all ingredients into the food processor and pulse until it reaches desired consistency. If you want to thin it a bit, add a bit of pickle juice and pulse again.

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 If you like your ham spread with a bit more kick, you might try Ham Spread Diablo. Zesty!

This post is linked to:

Full Plate Thursday

Thursday Favorite Things
Feathered Nest Friday
Funtastic Friday
 Snickerdoodle Create Bake & Create

Grace at Home

Create, Bake, Grow and Gather

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Deviled Ham Spread

If you're not familiar with the Tiny Book series, stop what you're doing, and head to your local bookstore or library immediately. This is a series of, so far, four books that are just too good to pass up. The series that includes Tiny Book of Teatime Treats, Tiny Book of Christmas Joy, Tiny Book of Pies, and the one I'm going to talk to you about today, Tiny Book of Mason Jar Recipes, is produced by the same wonderful people who bring you the Cottage Journal, Teatime, and Celebrate magazines. These books are absolutely not to be missed. 

The series is new to me, and I stumbled upon these books quite by accident. Every time I go to the library, you just know that I have to look at the latest cookbooks. This one jumped out at me not only because of its cute small size, but also because it deals with food in mason jars, and I love food in mason jars, and think I must have every book published on this darling way of presenting food. 

This book differs from a lot of them, however, in that it doesn't deal with just one subject, but with the general premise, and I like that. This book has beverages in mason jars, dips and sauces, salad and entrées, desserts, preserves, and gifts to make and give to people for the holidays. What a great idea that is. Not only does your recipient get a wonderful mason jar, but also the yummy contents within. As an added gift, including a copy of this book would certainly make the recipient over-the-moon happy.

I found a lot of recipes in this book that I want to try, but the first one that I did was one for deviled ham. As a little girl my mother used to give me deviled ham on crackers. Those of you who go back as far as I do (Horrors!) will probably remember deviled ham in those little packages with the little devil on them. Remember those? So trying the recipe for deviled ham spread was a no-brainer. This delicious spread did not last long. I'm just going to reproduce the page from the book here so that you can see the recipe and leave it at that. I cannot recommend this recipe or the book enough.

I served it on wheat rounds with some pickled cherries. Super yum!

This post is linked to: Wow Us Wednesday, Work It Wednesday, Wine’d Down Wednesday, Wake up Wednesday, Full Plate Thursday,  Thursday Favorite Things, Share Your Style, Coffee and Conversation, and Foodie Friday & Everything Else