Eating The Alphabet: Mango Barbecue Sauce

Today is reveal day for the Eating The Alphabet Challenge.  This month we had to chose a fruit, vegetable, grain, bean, or legume that began with the letters M, N, or O.  Three options!  Lots of choices there.

I immediately knew that I wanted to do something with mango.  My husband pointed out that mango was an excellent option because it contained all of the letter choices: M, N, and O, in order!  Always thinking, that guy!  I like mango-flavored things, but had never cooked with fresh mango before.  Time to change that!  I remembered that I had pinned something with mango earlier this summer and quickly found it on my Pinterest board.  It is a barbecue sauce made with mango from What’s Cooking, Love?.  I thought it sounded amazing and couldn’t wait to try it.  We had several rainy days where grilling wasn’t possible, but finally the clouds left us and we were able to get out there and smother this wonderful sauce all over some chicken.  Here’s the recipe.

Mango Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:
1 large mango, chopped
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
¼ cup ketchup
¼ tsp salt

Directions:
Combine the chopped mango, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, ketchup, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth.

Set some sauce aside (to be used for dipping later), then brush the remaining sauce all over whatever raw meat you want to grill.  Grill the meat as you normally would, then use the remaining sauce to dip at the table.

Makes enough for 4-6 servings.

This sauce is so good!  The onion powder and salt were my additions.  You may choose to add other things, or subtract some depending on the size and flavor of your mango.  My mango was super duper sweet, so that’s why I added the salt.  This sauce is definitely sweet, but it has a wonderful zesty tang to it as well.

I wrote the recipe as just the sauce, because it would be good on any kind of barbecued meat.  I didn’t want to limit it just to chicken.  It was awesome on the chicken, but it would also be great on grilled pork chops and even salmon.  Can’t wait to try that!

If you have never cut up a fresh mango, I suggest you google “how to cut up a mango” and watch a quick video.  I totally mangled mine cutting it up.  Mangos have an odd-shaped pit, so it’s best to cut it a certain way to get the majority of the meat off of it.  After watching a video, I was able to cut up the rest of them with no problem.

Be sure to check out all the other great recipes below, and come back tomorrow for another great homemade condiment recipe.

Chili Cheese Dip

It’s Day Three of the Fourth of July Blog Hop Series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.  Today we are sharing appetizer recipes with you.

When I was growing up, we had a really nice pool.  Once every summer my sister and I would have all of our friends over for a big pool party.  It was so much fun.  My mom would set out a bunch of snacks on our deck, and we would stand there and eat, dripping all over the place, whenever we got hungry from all the swimming.  This dip is one of the things she always made for those parties.  It’s the easiest thing in the world: only three ingredients and takes about 22 minutes start to finish.  Even less if you pop it in the microwave instead of the oven.

Chili Cheese Dip


Ingredients:
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
2 (15 oz.) cans chili without beans
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Tortilla chips or Fritos


Directions:
Preheat oven to 300°


Spread cream cheese evenly in the bottom of a 9×13” casserole dish.  Spread chili over cream cheese.  Top with cheddar cheese.


Warm in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until warmed through and cheese is melted.  Serve warm with tortilla chips or Fritos.


Note: This dip can also be made in the microwave or slow cooker.

This dip is so good!  The combination of flavors is just perfect.  So addicting; it’s hard to walk away from!  This will be a hit at any party you take it to.  

Check out all of the other great appetizer recipes below, and come back here on Sunday for a stunning no-bake summertime dessert.

document.write(”);

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Not a great picture, but it was the best I could do before the party crowd completely devoured it!  This is a dip I made for my daughter’s birthday party in February.  You can find a million gazillion recipes for buffalo chicken dip online, but this is how I made mine.

Buffalo Chicken Dip


Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup low fat sour cream
1½ cups chicken, cooked and shredded
¼ cup crumbled bleu cheese
¼ cup Frank’s wing sauce


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.


In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese and sour cream.  Add in the chicken, bleu cheese, and hot sauce. Stir well to combine.  


Pour into a small oven-safe dish.  Bake in oven for about 20 minutes, or until warmed through.  You can also put the dip into a small slow cooker set to warm.


Serve warm with celery stalks, carrot sticks, and/or crackers.


Makes 2½ cups.

It was a huge hit at the party.  It’s great because it’s a little bit spicy, but the creaminess and the blue cheese really balance it out well.  And I love the beautiful orange color; so festive!

I served it with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and crackers.  I think the crackers were most popular, though.  I kept it warm by putting it in a server with a tealight underneath.  I didn’t have the right size slow cooker for this situation.  I think it would be good cold too, though.

Eating The Alphabet: Herbed Goat Cheese Edamame Dip

I have joined a new monthly blog challenge.  Yes, another one!  This brings me to four.  They are just so much fun.  I hated  homework in school, but when it comes to food blogging, having “assignments” really makes things interesting.  This new (to me) challenge is a lot fun and I think you will really enjoy it.

It’s called “Eating the Alphabet” and it’s hosted by Brenda at Meal Planning Magic.  Each month the participants are assigned two letters of the alphabet and are challenged to make and post a new recipe using a fruit, vegetable, grain, bean, or legume that starts with one of the assigned letters.  The whole point is to encourage the eating of healthy foods.  Considering how many recipes I have on my blog, not very many of them are vegetable recipes, so I thought this would be a good way to branch out and increase my vegetable repertoire.

I missed the first two months, so this month the assigned letters are E or F.  What a month to begin!  There aren’t too many options with those letters.  Brenda really encourages choosing foods that are in season, and trying food that are out of your comfort zone.  I found out that fava beans are in season in the spring, and since I had never cooked with them before, I thought they would be the perfect choice.  I called around to a few area grocery stores and none of them had fava beans in stock, but one, Meijer, offered to order them for me.  Great!  Meijer really does have a superb produce section with great variety.  When I went to pick them up, I was informed that they tried to order them, but they weren’t available.  😦  Bummer!  Then I got to thinking that edamame is similar to fava beans and those are available year-round in the freezer section.  I have cooked with edamame before, but it’s been a while.  So I switched gears a little bit and got into an edamame state of mind.

I found a recipe for an edamame dip with goat cheese.  I had tried an edamame dip a few years ago and failed, so I was kind of eager to try it again.  And I had never cooked with goat cheese before, so that was interesting to me.  This dip recipe originally comes from Food and Wine magazine.  I changed it a bit; here’s my version.

Herbed Goat Cheese Edamame Dip


Ingredients:
1½ lbs. shelled edamame, thawed if frozen
4-5 oz. herbed goat cheese, crumbled
½ cup sour cream
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 small clove garlic, grated
¾ tsp salt
1 tbsp dill, chopped
Pita chips


Directions:
In a large pot of boiling salted water, boil the edamame until very tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well and transfer to a food processor. Add the goat cheese, sour cream, lemon juice, garlic, and salt and puree until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Stir in the dill and transfer the dip to a serving bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.


Serve the dip chilled or at room temperature with the pita chips.


Makes 4-5 cups.

It turned out really well.  The original recipe said to boil the edamame for 8 minutes, but the problem I had the last time I tried an edamame dip was that it didn’t get soft enough and instead of forming a puree, it just got chopped up into little pieces.  So this time I really boiled the heck out of it!  I put 15 minutes in the recipe, but I probably did mine longer than that; I forgot to time it.  I boiled it until it mashed well with a fork.  The original recipe also called for chipotles in adobo, but that didn’t sound like it went well with the other ingredients, and I didn’t really want a spicy dip, so I left that out.  I also decreased the sour cream and cut back on the lemon just a tad.  Oh, and the recipe called for 2 tsp of salt.  That’s a lot!  I started with just one, and it was a teeny bit on the salty side, so next time I will only do ¾ tsp.  The recipe also called for spiced pepitas to go on top, but I couldn’t find pepitas so I just left them off.

I don’t have a full-sized food processor, just a little 3 cup one, so my method was a little bit different.  I pureed the edamame by itself in batches, then combined it with all of the other ingredients in a bowl.  I had trouble pureeing the edamame by itself; it’s a little dry for that, so I added a little bit of water to each batch.  That probably made the finished dip a little looser than it was meant to be, but that’s why I cut back on the sour cream.  So in the end it probably evened out.

I really like this dip.  The herbed goat cheese flavor is really good combined with the vegetal flavor of the edamame.  And it’s really quite filling!  I had some with my lunch and ended up really not having any desire to eat when dinnertime came around.  I had it at room temperature and then later tried it cold and I liked it both ways.  I ate it with pita chips, but it would be good on crackers, or even with veggie sticks as a crudité.

This recipe makes a lot, I totally should have halved it.  Anybody want to come help me eat it?

Spicy Black Bean Dip

This is a yummy black bean dip that I made to go with my Creamy Chicken Baked Flautas.  But it would be great with a variety of Mexican dishes or just as a dip for tortilla chips.

Spicy Black Bean Dip

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

¼ large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, grated

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 chipotle in adobo, seeded and finely minced, plus 2 tbsp adobo sauce

½-1 cup vegetable broth

Salt to taste

Directions:

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and sauté until onion begins to get soft.  Add black beans, minced chipotle, adobo sauce, and ½ cup vegetable broth.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

Puree bean mixture using a stick blender, regular blender, or food processor.  Add more broth if necessary to achieve desired consistency.  Add salt to taste.

Makes 4 servings.

I love chipotle and it pairs really well with black beans.  If you don’t have the canned chipotles in adobo on hand, you can use chipotle powder.  It really packs a punch, so use sparingly!

I know that 2 tbsp of oil seems like an awful lot for sauteing onions, but it gives the finished dip a nice shiny sheen.  Otherwise it dries out too quickly.

Spicy Black Bean Dip with Creamy Chicken Baked Flautas

Pin It

Homemade Guacamole

Guacamole is so easy to make, I don’t know why anyone would buy it in the store.  Sometimes I have a difficult time making it because I can’t find ripe avocados.  Sometimes all I can find are rock hard avocados and those don’t work well in guacamole.  But the avocado I used last night to make this was perfect.  I’ve made guacamole before, but this was the first time I actually took the time to measure out the ingredients and write them down.  I’m glad I did, because it turned out perfectly and now I can make sure it’s perfect every time!

Homemade Guacamole

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 tsp fresh lime juice
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp grated onion
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro


Directions:
Mix all ingredients together.  Serve immediately.

Makes 6-8 servings.

I like to grate the onion so that there is a little bit of onion flavor, but no crunchy chunks.  I use my Microplane and it works perfectly.

Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip

This is a dish I made for a Thanksgiving appetizer and for our St. Nicholas Day Open House this year. It’s from The All-New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook.

Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip

Ingredients:

8 bacon slices

2 cloves garlic, minced or grated

2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened

¼ cup milk

4 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

¼ cup fresh chives, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cook bacon until crisp. Drain, reserving 1 tbsp drippings in skillet. Chop bacon and set aside. Add garlic to skillet and saute for about a minute.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add milk, garlic, bleu cheese, chives, and bacon. Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 1 quart dish.

Bake for 15 minutes or until bubbly. Serve with crackers.

Makes 4 cups.

If you like blue cheese and bacon, you can’t go wrong with this dish. Everybody seemed to like it. The picture above is a double recipe; that’s a 2 quart dish. (I forgot to take the picture before everybody dug into it. Whoops!)

The original recipe called for walnuts, but I don’t really like them so I left them out. It also called for putting only half of the bacon in the dip and topping it with the rest. But it seemed easier to just put all of it in.

On Thanksgiving I served it with Toasteds crackers and at our open house I served it with Club crackers. I just use whatever is on sale that week!

I think it’s quite festive looking with the red bacon and green chives!

Fall Spice Apple Dip

This is a yummy apple dip that I came up with recently. Super easy.

Fall Spice Apple Dip

Ingredients:

½ cup sour cream

3 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

2 medium apples

Directions:

Combine sour cream, brown sugar, and pie spice. Stir well to combine. Core apples and cut into wedges. Arrange apple wedges on a plate around the dip.

Makes 4 servings.

Doesn’t get much easier than that. I’m not a big apple lover, so I usually like to have some kind of a dip with my apples. I like that caramel dip from the store, but if you don’t have any of that, this is easy to put together in just a few minutes.

I’m not happy that summer has left us, but I do enjoy making fall recipes. More to come!

Spinach Artichoke Dip

A part of our Girls’ Night In dinner.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Ingredients:
1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts
9 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and drained
4 oz. (1 cup) shredded mozzarella
½ cup grated parmesan
½ cup mayonnaise (light is fine)
¾ – 1 cup fat-free sour cream
1 garlic clove

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°.

Combine all ingredients and put in a 1 quart casserole dish. Bake 20-25 minutes or until bubbly and brown.

Serve with toasted pita or tortilla chips.

Makes 4 servings.

The original recipe didn’t call for the sour cream. But after mixing everything else up, it seemed kind of dry and clumpy. It turned out great, so we are glad we added the sour cream. The only thing I might change next time is to break up the artichoke hearts a little bit. The chunks were really big and sometimes it was hard to dip. But it tasted great. We had it with toasted whole wheat pita chips.

Hilary’s Heavenly Hummus

Hi everyone! Sorry I’ve been MIA for a few months. The first trimester was really rough on me and cooking was the last thing on my mind. It took me a while to get back in the swing of things, but I am much better now and am actually in the mood to cook again! Yay!

While I was sick, my sister, Hilary, came up with an awesome recipe for hummus for a summer family gathering. I thought since I didn’t have anything to contribute, I would post her recipe.

Hilary’s Heavenly Hummus

1 16 oz can of garbanzo beans, drained
1 clove of garlic
5 grape tomatoes
1 small tuft of fresh parsley
1 tbsp olive oil

I put the garlic and beans in the chopper and it was too thick so I added the olive oil. If you want it to be fat-free, just keep some of the liquid from the beans. Once it was pasty, I added the grape tomatoes and parsley and just chopped a little longer. Since I added these late, the final product had neat red and green flecks.

I bought whole wheat fat-free pita bread, cut it into triangles and toasted them under the broiler. I really like it, but I have to stop eating it or I’ll have to make another batch in the morning. If I were making it just for me, I would have added another clove of garlic.

Thanks so much, Hil, for sharing!

I will probably be more active in the coming months. I hope you all didn’t give up on me completely!