Artichoke Dip

I made this artichoke dip from allrecipes.com for my friend Jill's shower about a month ago. It got really good reviews. I'm not usually a huge fan of artichoke dip, but I really liked this one. I took this picture only a few minutes after we started eating and a few minutes after this picture it was gone. A few people said the just ate it plain without crackers, they liked it that much.

Hot Artichoke Dip
Submitted by: Pamela Cresswell
Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 25 Minutes Ready In: 35 Minutes
Yields: 32 servings

INGREDIENTS:
2/3 cup Parmesan cheese
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 (14 ounce) can artichoke

hearts, drained and chopped
2 tablespoons thinly sliced
green onion
1 tablespoon chopped pimento
peppers (I left this out)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium baking dish.
2. Blend together the cheese, mayonnaise and whipping cream. Stir in the artichokes, green onions and pimentos. Mix well, and transfer to the prepared baking dish.
3. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly browned.

Fruit Pizza

My friend Heather asked me to make this for a bridal shower she threw a few weeks ago. It's a recipe my mom has been making for a long time. It's a little bit of work, but it's so so good.

Fruit Pizza
Crust: Homemade sugar cookie dough, or store bought
Press into a greased round pizza pan, and bake as directed (I used a large rectangle pan). Cool completely.

Cream Cheese Filling: (Make glaze below before the filling)
8 oz cream cheese
2 t vanilla
1/2 c powdered sugar
Mix together and spread onto cooled cookie dough

Fresh sliced fruit layer: use fruit in season, bananas, apples, peaches, kiwi, mango, grapes, strawberries, cherries, etc. Decorate however you want with the fruit. This time I diced all the fruit and put it in rows so it would be easy to cut.

Glaze: (Make before the cream cheese so it has time to cool)
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c water
1 c orange juice - not concentrate
2 T cornstarch

Mix all together in a saucepan, bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute. Cool before lightly spreading on fruit. This glaze will keep the fruit from getting brown.

Chill and serve with cool whip.

Gingersnaps with white chocolate

I made a few different kinds of cookies and put them in the freezer for when Matt's family came to visit. I got the idea for these cookies when I went to my old wards Super Saturday activity and Jean Boothe made these. It's a gingersnap recipe from allrecipes.com that I just added white chocolate chips to. Yum!

Grandma's Gingersnaps
Submitted by: RAMB

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup margarine
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar for
decoration
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup white sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and molasses until well blended. Combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda and salt; stir into the molasses mixture to form a dough. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and roll the balls in the remaining sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Tracy's pasta salad

My friend Tracy invited me over for lunch a few weeks ago. She's a great cook & she made an unbelievable pasta salad. I tried to recreate it that night, but mine was not as good. Here's what she did:

Boil a bag of rotini pasta (spirals)

Roast vegetables (425 degrees) and a couple chicken breasts with a little olive oil, salt and Mrs. Dash herb seasoning. She roasted carrots, summer squash, green beans and bell peppers. She cut the veggies on a diagonal. She said the key is to have a single layer of vegetables, don't let them overlap.

Then she mixed the pasta, roasted vegetables, herb feta cheese and a dressing of the packets of Italian dressing you can buy and make mixed with a little Dijon mustard. It was seriously the best pasta salad I've ever had.

Oops!

Our friend Nic's birthday was a little while ago (I'm way behind on my posting!). They invited us for dinner & I offered to bring Poni Po Po rolls (recipe already on blog). Well that Sunday morning I went to get the Rhodes out of the freezer & this was what I found. A week earlier I went out to the garage freezer and the door was open & some things thawed a little bit. I didn't notice that the Rhodes rolls not only thawed completely, but they rose to fill the bag! It was a hilarious sight, but I was freaking out that I only had 6 other good Rhodes rolls in another bag and that was not enough. Matt came over & said what's the big deal, use them anyway. I chuckled to myself that he had no idea what he was talking about. Boy was I wrong! He cut them into chunks and put them in the pan. Then he said when these are the best ever I better get the credit. While we were at church they rose to fill the pan and they turned out great. Matt saved the day!