Garlic Cheese Grits

As I write this, I'm staring at Baby Bear on the monitor.  I realize that this defeats the purpose of me having a video monitor, as I should be productive while he sleeps.  Instead, I sit here and watch him sleep.  And I think to myself that, someday, he'll be a man.  Weird.  In a good way.

Merry Christmas.  Again.

So anyway, this recipe has nothing to do with my baby boy or a video monitor.  Or the fact that someday my children will actually grow up and become adults.  Or the fact that I used to roll my eyes at mothers that were sentimental about their children growing up...and now I'm one of those mothers.  I'm okay with this, as I've grown quite adept at eating my own words.

Whisk the grits into the boiling water and stock...and keep on whisking.

But this recipe does have everything to do with the fact that Kraft used to make this garlic cheese roll whose sole purpose in life was to make amazingly wonderful cheese grits.  Please tell me you know the rolls - processed cheese, garlic flavoring, wrapped up in a little round roll.  It was sort of gross if you thought too much about it, but it made the most perfect garlic cheese grits.

Whisk occasionally as they cook...they're starting to get creamy!

Since Kraft stopped making the roll, I have floundered in my attempts to reproduce the creamy, garlicky, perfect results.  Until now.

Add the butter...

These grits are amazingly delicious.  They are garlicky (this is very important), creamy (do I even need to mention the importance of creamy?), and they set up like a baked grits casserole should.  Although they do use actual, real cheese, they're creamy and oh so good.

And the milk...

I made these for one of our family Christmases, and it's now my go-to garlic cheese grits recipe.

And the cheese.

Oh, and at this point in the cooking process my camera broke.  So I don't have a picture of the actual casserole or the baked grits, but trust me they looked exactly like cheese grits should look and they tasted awesome.

Garlic Cheese Grits
3 cups water

3 cups chicken stock

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

2 cups grits (regular or quick cook but not instant)

1 lb extra-sharp cheddar cheese, cubed

1 cup whole milk (or half-and-half...or heavy cream)

4 eggs

1 stick butter

Bring the water and stock to a boil in a large pot.  Add the salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Whisk in the grits and reduce the heat to simmer.  Simmer, stirring frequently, for about 25-30 minutes until thick and creamy.  Even if you use quick cook grits, you want to cook them for this long so that they get really thick and creamy.  Turn off the heat and stir in the cheese, milk, and butter.  Switch to a whisk and beat the eggs in.  Continue to stir until the cheese is melted.

Pour the grits into a greased 9x13 casserole dish.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40-45 minutes until bubbly and set.  Let them cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

White Chocolate Snack Mix

I have a few things to tell you about this really delicious and insanely easy snack mix.

My sweet big girl made me a present in Sunday school.

It was this snack mix.  She made it with her class.

She was so proud.

I ate it for breakfast on Monday morning.

I didn't share it with my husband.

Don't judge.

My big girl loves giving me presents.

What kid doesn't?

After I ate the baggie of snack mix she brought me, I went out and bought Chex.

It was the only ingredient I didn't already have in my pantry.

In other news, did you know that almond bark contains no actual almonds?  Who else thinks this is dumb?

Because I'm compulsive, you see, I needed to make more of this snack mix.

My big girl helped.

She loves to help.

Love that girl.

Love this snack mix.

White Chocolate Snack Mix

3 cups pretzels
6 cups Cheerios (I used multi-grain but plain would be good too)
5 cups Chex (I used corn Chex, but any flavor/combo would be good)
12 oz. bag plain M&M's
16 oz. package almond bark

Melt the almond bark in 30-second increments in a large bowl in the microwave. Stir until smooth.  Add remaining ingredients.  Stir until coated.  Spread on wax paper to dry.  Store in a Ziploc baggie.

Swiss Cheese Dip

I made this dip for one of the many wonderful family Christmas gatherings we attended and it was gone in a flash.

Apparently people like Swiss cheese?

I don't have a picture of the baked dip because it was gone about three seconds after I took it out of the oven.

That, and my camera broke.  Oh, well.

Happy New Year, internet friends.

This recipe is linked on The Country Cook.

Swiss Cheese Dip

2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 bunch scallions, chopped
Ritz crackers, for serving

Mix all ingredients together and spread in a greased 8x8 baking dish.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until bubbly.  Serve with crackers.

Peanut Butter Balls

Christmas exploded at my house.

I have an explanation for this...we eat a lot of peanut butter?

That's what it looks like, anyway.

Or maybe I should say that Santa's workshop exploded at my house.

The irony is that we don't do Santa.

And I am thankful that my children did not spoil the truth about Santa for their friends and cousins that do do Santa.

This year, anyway.

I'm grateful for fun new things for myself and my children (I have discovered that new toys are as much a gift to the parents as they are the children-recipients).

But I'm simply not sure where to put everything.

So I'm in my basement, blogging, eating peanut butter balls, pretending that the disaster upstairs doesn't exist.

Hurricane Katrina's got nothin' on the Jones house.

PS.  If you've never had a peanut butter ball, do yourself a favor.  Make some.  They're better than Reese's cups.  Because there's more peanut butter in these, naturally.  And FYI, I buy peanut butter at Sam's.  Monthly.

Peanut Butter Balls
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
1 stick butter
1 lb powdered sugar (about 4 cups)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 bar paraffin wax

In the bowl of an electric mixer, blend together the peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla.  Don't whip it - you don't want to incorporate air and make it fluffy - just mix until combined.  Form into small balls (about 2 tsp each) and roll until smooth.  Lay the balls on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for about an hour.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips with the paraffin wax in a double boiler (a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water).  Use a toothpick to dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate, leaving a small round circle of peanut butter showing at the top (like a buckeye).  Return to the sheet tray and use the toothpick to smooth over the hole left by the toothpick.  Cool until the chocolate is set.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I love buffalo wings.  Who doesn't.

But they're messy.  And fried.

So here's the solution: mix together blue cheese dressing, hot wing sauce and chicken.  And bake it in the form of a dip.  And eat with crackers and celery.

This is crazy easy and so good.

And I ate it during Christmas, because it's on my "dips, cookies and candy" diet.  The diet that begins the weekend before Christmas and continues through New Year's.

Perfect.

Until I remember that I have a gym membership and have to start making actual meals again for my family.  Instead of dips, cookies and candy.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup Frank's hot sauce (I liked the original hot sauce better; my husband liked the buffalo sauce better)
3 cups finely chopped cooked chicken
1 cup shredded mozzarella or provolone cheese
1 cups blue cheese crumbles, divided
Pita chips, celery sticks, and Townhouse crackers, for dipping

Blend together the ingredients and top with 1/2 cup of the blue cheese crumbles.  Spread in an 8x8 baking dish and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes, until bubbly.  Serve with Townhouse crackers, pita chips and celery sticks.

Coconut Balls

Crafty people make me sick.

You know the people that I mean.  You may even be one of *those* people.  The people that carve out time to make adorable, perfect projects with their adorable, perfect children in their adorable, perfect (read: clean) houses.

My non-perfect coconut ball filling.

That just ain't my reality.  My 4-year-old is usually flying around the house, pretending to be Tinky-Belle (that's Tinkerbell for all you lay people out there).  My 2-year-old rarely has anything on except a diaper (on a good day.  Most days she's buck-necked).  The baby only poops once a week, which is normal but very messy.

And we're getting, like, fourteen deliveries per day, each one of which my 8-pound dachshund lunges, barking hysterically, at the door, threatening to tear the UPS and FedEx guys limb-from-limb.  You see, I like to order Christmas presents.  Rather than, like, go to an actual store.  Please see notes above for reasons that venturing out into public to shop is not such a good idea for me and my children at this point in our lives.

Maybe I'll return to being a normal human being who actually shops in stores where I have to present an actual credit card to pay rather than just typing in my number from memory.

But probably no time soon.

And you probably didn't come here to read about baby poop, breast milk, and online Christmas shopping, did you?

Oh.

So anyway, you should make these coconut balls.  They were really good.  I'm a texture freak, and today I didn't feel like putting anything crunchy (i.e., almonds) in my coconut balls, so I didn't.  But you totally could if you wanted.

They were little almond joy balls.  Yum!

And these were sweet (duh.  It's dessert containing chocolate, sugar, and sweetened condensed milk.  Of course it's sweet!  And that's why I loved them.).  And very delicious.  And I'm going to serve them at my party on Friday night.  And if there are any left, I'll freeze them.

So I can crack my teeth and ruin my braces on frozen coconut balls because I'm too impatient to let things actually thaw before devouring them.

My orthodontist loves me.

Coconut Balls

14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
14 oz. package sweetened shredded coconut
2 lbs. powdered sugar
1 tsp almond extract
1 stick butter, softened
2 cups (about 12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 bar paraffin wax (usually found on the baking or canning aisle)

Use an electric mixer to blend all the ingredients together.  Don't beat air into the mixture - just mix until combined.  Roll into small balls (about 2 tsp each).  Place on a parchment-paper-lined sheet tray and refrigerate for about an hour.

Melt the chocolate with the paraffin wax in a double boiler (a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water), stirring frequently.  Dip the cold coconut balls into the chocolate and place them back on the parchment paper.  Refrigerate until chocolate has hardened.  Store in the refrigerator.  These freeze well.

Makes 60-70 balls.

Baked Fontina

Merry Christmas, y'all.

'Tis the season...

of dips, candy, cookies...

and no main dishes.

I don't eat main dishes at Christmas.

I'm way too busy eating...

dips, candy and cookies!

Duh.

A perfect example: I had a party with my cousins, and my menu consisted of...appetizers and desserts.

Here's what I made:

this baked fontina cheese dip
Buffalo Chicken Dip
Marinated pork tenderloin on little soft rolls
Sugar & Spice Rosemary Cashews
Roasted Jalapeno Poppers
Fruit (we needed something remotely healthy)

AND...for dessert, I made:

Coconut Balls
Peanut Butter Balls
Chocolate-Dipped Peanut Butter Pretzels

See?  No main event.  Just the yummy starters and sides.  And dessert, naturally.

This baked Fontina is just too good.  And too easy.  And special.

Baked Fontina Dip
Barely adapted from Barefoot Contessa

1 1/2 pounds fontina cheese, cubed
3 T olive oil
6 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 T chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp pepper
1-2 loaves crusty bread, heated and sliced, for dipping

Spread the cheese cubes evenly in the bottom of a cast iron skillet.  Drizzle the olive oil evenly on top and then sprinkle the thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper on top.

Broil for 5-7 minutes, watching it carefully, until melted and bubbly and the top starts to brown.  Serve immediately with hot French bread for dipping.