jessteronimo

Fruit Dip Recipe

I'm a fan of fruit and fruit dips. My sister-in-law introduced me to a great fruit dip recipe, which I often take to parties and other gatherings. I get requests for this recipe all the time, so I thought I'd share it with you:

• 1 8-oz. package of cream cheese
• 1 7-oz. jar of marshmallow creme
• 1 single-size container of yogurt, whatever flavor you wish (I like the blackberry and strawberry)

(I like to heat the cream cheese a little to make it easier to work with.) Whip all the ingredients together and chill. I've also made it with 2 containers of marshmallow creme, but it tends to get too sweet--even for me.

Tonight my daughters helped me make some, and my oldest stuck her whole hand in the marshmallow creme jar after I'd scooped the contents out and began licking the sticky stuff off her fist. So, there could be some cleanup involved. ;)

Comfort Food?

I'm quite possibly could be either having a crazy mid-life crisis or regressing to my childhood. This thought hit me today as I sat in my big office chair happily enjoying a bowl of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli and a can of Sprite, followed by a sleeve of those little packaged powdered doughnuts for dessert. Or maybe I'm just in need of comfort food. Bring on the healing Ben & Jerry's!

Food Lab in My Kitchen: Little Bakers Are Born

When I arrived home from work today, there was a hand-written oatmeal cookie recipe on my desk. I recognized my daughter's handwriting, but I was distracted by some tasks I needed to complete and so didn't think much about the recipe. Later, my daughters presented me with a dessert choice from a couple of plates of cookies they'd baked, proudly presenting me with the hand-written recipes for each type of cookie. I tried one of each of the three different kinds of cookies. They were amazing! I gobbled them up and had to remove myself from the vicinity of the cookie plates in order to stop eating the delicious treats. I asked where they had gotten the recipes, thinking maybe they had downloaded them from the internet somewhere. Their answer stunned me: They made them up! What? I asked for clarification. Ben confirmed that they had indeed invented the recipes. He described how they and a friend had worked together chattering away in the kitchen for several hours, like little scientists in a laboratory, adding a little of this and a little of that and carefully recording the amounts of each ingredient for each batch they tried until they had made the perfect cookie. Then they converted the measurements into larger quantities, copied the successful recipe down, and made a bigger batch for us all to enjoy. And they did this process three separate times. Wow! Their experiments were so successful that they didn't even waste very many ingredients, so says Ben. Tonight, I am the proudest mother on the planet!

Heaven on Earth

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Deck the halls, indeed!