Cheese Sticks Two Ways

I had been seeing people making cheese sticks by wrapping string cheese in wonton wrappers for quite awhile. It took some time, but I finally got around to trying it. I'm so glad I did!!

I've seen them both ways, fried and baked. So I tried both!



Cheese Sticks
String Cheese
Wonton Wrappers
oil for frying (if you're frying!)
Dipping Sauces

Cut each string cheese into thirds.
Roll into wonton wrappers.

Now either fry in oil heated to 350F until golden.

Or...

Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, spritz with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until golden.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First you need these...


Cut the string cheese sticks into thirds


Place a wonton wrapper on plate or cutting board in front of you as shown below.

Moisten the tip of your finger with water and trace around the edge of the wonton wrapper.

Place a piece of cheese near the bottom of the wonton wrapper.


Fold up the bottom of the wrapper over the cheese.


Fold in the sides.


Roll it up tight.


Repeat until you run out of cheese or wrappers or until you have as many as you'd like.



Now for baking, lay them out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Spray them with oil olive. Then sprinkle with kosher salt. Or whatever salt you like!


Into the oven, preheated to 400F for 15 minutes. Turn them half way through.

But pay attention to them, they might leak a little.


Enjoy with your favorite dipping sauces!


Now if you're frying... heat your oil to 350F and fry a few at a time.

Be sure to not overcrowd the pan.


Drain on a paper towel



And serve with your favorite dipping sauces!


At first I was thinking that the baked ones would be really lame.

But both were really good!!

Fried of course is amazing, because everything is really good fried. They're crispy and melty and gooey. Totally delicious!

But the baked one were also wicked good. They're chewy and salty and creamy. So good!

The kids swarmed on these and devoured both kinds in a matter of minutes.

Try them both ways and see which way your family prefers!

Super Bowl Food!

Super Bowl Sunday is fast approaching! Have you put together your menu yet?

I haven't! I'm such a procrastinator!

I do know there will be wings on the menu... but other than that, I guess I should start thinking about it!

Here's a sampling of some of our favorite football foods.

Number One favorite has to be wings.

Chicken Wings & Wing Sauces
Three really hot sauces, wings & a blue cheese dip.

(Wow! That's an old pic!! I'll have to take a newer one to update that post.)

Roasted Asian Chicken Wings
Sticky & delicious!


Honey Curry Wings
Not spicy... also sticky & delicious!


Sausage Balls
These savory little bites disappear quickly!


Buffalo Chicken Dip
Creamy & tangy... good hot or cold.


Empanadas
Spicy little meat pockets.


Baked Rachel Dip
Creamy cheesy flavorful dip on little rye toasts.


Baked Jalapeno Poppers
Cheesy, spicy, delicious and not fried!


I'm sure a couple of those will be gracing our table as well!

So what are your favorite football foods?

Go Steelers!!!

Knorr Spinach Dip

This is another one of my very favorite dips!! I remember first making Knorr Spinach Dip more than 10 years ago. I was staying with my friend Debbie and I think we made it for a party. We liked it so much, we made some more and just kept it in the fridge to snack on at will! Which really isn't such a great idea, because it's completely irresistible! It's really easy to eat an entire bowl!

Whenever I make this dip I think of Debbie.



Knorr Spinach Dip
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 container (16 oz) sour cream
1 C mayonnaise
1 pkg Knorr® Vegetable recipe mix
1 can (8 oz.) water chestnuts, drained and chopped
3 green onions, chopped

Combine all ingredients and chill for at least 2 hours. I usually serve this in a hollowed out loaf of round bread, with slices of baguette.

This is what you need.


Stir the mayo and sour cream together.


Add the Knorr Vegetable Soup mix, spinach, water chestnuts and green onions.


Stir that all together & chill at least two hours.


Serve in a hollowed out bread bowl.


I couldn't find a round one, so I used a football shaped Olive Oil Bread.

I like to serve this with sliced baguettes, but you can serve it with crisp veggies or whatever you like!


This is definitely a favorite in my house. Ok... I KNOW Tawny & I love it. I'm not entirely sure about everyone else. But I haven't had any complaints. Honestly, I like to make little sandwiches out out it.

If you're having a tea party, you could totally use this to make little creamy tea sandwiches.

Or, it would be perfect for your Super Bowl Party!

Go Steelers!!!

Sausage Balls

Hey! Happy New Year!!!

I hope your holidays were merry!

At my Gingerbread House Decorating Party, the activity itself took up an overwhelming majority of horizontal surface in my small house.

You might have noticed that I LOVE to feed people. There's no way I would invite people over without serving food & beverages; but this time, there would definitely not be any place for anyone to actually sit to eat. So I decided to serve only appetizers that could be eaten from a napkin or a toothpick.

Jeannie's Little Quiches would be perfect... hmmm... but little time for making all the little ones, since I procrastinated the menu until the very last minute. So I made her quiche in a 13x9 pan and cut it into little squares. Totally do-able on a napkin. Plus some dips... some olives/cornichons/onions/marinated mushrooms... what else?

Ah!! Sausage Balls!!

Growing up, every Christmas Eve was open house at our house. Our family and friends would come and go all evening. I can remember Auntie Louie and Uncle Bert (titles earned by being close friends to my parents) teasing my sister and I that we should get to bed so Santa would come...

Oh wait... sorry for the detour...

Sausage Balls... my mom made Sausage Balls for our Christmas Eve open house. I don't know if she made them every year or only once or twice. But they stand out in my mind. When something from my youth stands out so prominently like that, I get a little afraid that the recreation of it can never live up to my memory; but the Sausage Balls did not disappoint!

It's a 3 ingredient recipe, courtesy of Bisquick!



Sausage Balls
2 C Bisquick
10 oz Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 lb Sausage

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix all ingredients until very well combined. Form into 1.5 inch balls.
Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned.
Enjoy!

This is all you need.


You can use whatever sausage you like. I went with Sweet Italian.

Mix all ingredients until very well combined.

The best tool for this is your hands.



Roll them into balls.


Bake on trays for 20 minutes at 350F.


That's it!


Why did I wait so long to make these?? They were so easy and so delicious!!

They totally lived up to my memory!

Ugh... I'm sitting at my desk, typing this, I had a Lean Cuisine for lunch, I'm looking at an apple... and all I want is some Sausage Balls!!

These were definitely a hit!! Bobby LOVED them. They disappeared quickly! I'll definitely be making them again soon. Super Bowl's coming up, they'd be PERFECT for that!!

If you loved these from your past or are just learning about them today, I highly suggest you give them a try!

Baked Jalapeno Poppers

So last Friday I opened my email and the Daily Dish email from allrecipes.com was Jalapeno Poppers. Nice! I'll check it out. I only actually open a handful of those Daily Dish emails. If the dish doesn't seem appealing, I delete it, unopened. Maybe I lose out on some winners that way. But I get a lot of daily recipes, so I pretty much only open the ones that instantly seem interesting. (I do have a TON of appealing Martha Stewart Cookie of the Day emails saved!)

So last Friday was Jalapeno Poppers I!

That got an instant open. 4.5 Stars & 238 Reviews! Ohhhh and they're baked!! This is looking good! After reading all of the reviews, with everyone's changes & comments, I decided I would definitely be making these for the Steelers game!

This reflects my version of Jalapeno Poppers I



Baked Jalapeno Poppers
2/3 of 8 oz package cream cheese,softened
1/3 C sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
3/4 C pepper-jack cheese, shredded
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 TBLS Chipotle Tabasco
12 fresh jalapeno peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded
1 egg, beaten
splash of water
1 1/2 cups finely crushed corn flake cereal
1 - 2 tsp Penzey's Arizona Dreaming Seasoning
Olive Oil mist

Cut & seed Jalapenos; place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake 15 minutes at 325F. This is just to take the crunch off them. Allow to cool to room temperature.
While they're cooling, combine cheeses, mayo & Chipotle Tabasco.
Crush cornflakes. I did this in my KitchenAid food processor until I had fine crumbs. Mix Arizona Dreaming Seasoning with cornflakes.
Fill cooled jalapenos with cheese mixture. Whisk egg w/water and brush the tops off the filled peppers. Sprinkle seasoned cornflake crumbs over each pepper. Lightly spray peppers with olive oil.
Bake at 325F for about 30 minutes. Serve plain or with dipping sauces of your choice!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Slice jalapenos lengthwise & seed.


Be sure to wear gloves for this part. You'd be surprised at how hot jalapenos can be, especially if you touch your eyes or some more delicate areas!


Lots of the reviews said that the peppers were a little too crunchy when prepared according to the original recipe and some people blanched them to get around that. For whatever reason, that just felt weird to me, so gave them a little pre-bake.


Mix up the cheeses with mayo & Chipotle Tabasco.




Pipe the cheese mixture into the cooled jalapenos.


Honestly, this was a little thick to come through a baggie. I would have been better off with an actual piping bag. But going slowly, the baggie worked out ok.


Whisk up the egg with a little water.


And brush it onto the filled jalapenos. I did about 5 or 6 at a time. You want the egg wash to be nice and wet to hold the crumbs.


Season the crushed cornflakes with Arizona Dreaming.


Sprinkle your seasoned cornflake crumbs on top of the egg-brushed poppers. Again working in batches of 5 or 6 peppers at a time.


At this point, I put my tray of poppers into the fridge. Because I had an hour or so before the game. You could even put them in the freezer if you were working ahead for a future party.

Time to bake them. Preheat the oven to 325F. Lightly spray each pepper with olive oil.


I have both of these oil misters. I got them at Sur La Table

I LOVE them!!
The white one on the left has a little filter on the tube, so you can put herbs or spices in your oil and they don't clog up the sprayer. The one on the left comes in 4 fun colors and is a little cheaper. Both work great and I use them ALL the time!
Ok... end review of oil misters! Back to the poppers!

After you mist the poppers with oil (for fun you could use garlic oil or bacon oil or chile oil or cilantro oil... you get the idea!) pop them into the pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes.


The topping is nice & crunchy!


These really came out awesome and will be definitely show up on the Football Menu at my house often!


The cheese didn't leak out. They were wicked easy to make. They can be made ahead of time. The topping is crunchy, the filling is creamy and a little spicy. I served them with ranch dip. But a berry dip might be nice too!

Definitely a winner!

What's on your football menu this week?