Tag: appetizer

Creamy Coconut-Dill Dip

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Back in May, 2012 (over FIVE years ago!), Heather and I posted a recipe for a coconut-dill veggie dip. The dip was a huge hit with friends and family alike, and it was one of our first encounters where we didn’t carefully read the label and ended up with a brand of coconut cream that was also loaded with sugar. It was a good lesson learned, and we remade the recipe with better ingredients to make sure the recipe held up.

Since 2012, a lot has happened for us: we changed jobs, got married, bought a house, had our son, and we also improved our cooking and photography. With a dinner guest planning to come over Monday evening, it seemed an appropriate time to revisit this recipe and try to make it better. In this we’ve succeeded. This dip is creamy (and protein packed, thanks to Great Lakes Unflavored Gelatin) and runny straight out of the food processor and has the same texture as store-bought French Onion Dip when allowed to rest in the refrigerator. We devoured it with veggies and our favorite olive oil potato chips while our beef and eggplant curry simmered on the stove. Our guest particularly liked it with the chips.

Thanks for joining us over the past five years, and we hope you’ll continue to stick around. Let us know in the comments what has been your favorite recipe!

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Homemade Fig Jam

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There’s something magical about fruit trees. In our experience, which admittedly is very little, they don’t require much work and reap many benefits. Our fig tree produced a great harvest, more than either of us expected between early August and mid-October. In case you missed our other recipes, we had a lot of fun creating Chicken and Fig Tagine, Cider-Braised Boneless Short Ribs with Figs, Arugula and Fresh Fig Salad, and Fig Coconut Yogurt.

Today, even though we’re away on vacation, we bring you another fig recipe: homemade fig jam. It is great on rice crackers; you might also enjoy it with a soft cheese like brie (if you can tolerate high-quality dairy) or Kite Hill almond-based Cream Cheese Style Spread. Brent’s mom used it with almond butter on sprouted bread (a new twist on PB&J!) and plans to use it instead of store-bought fruit spread in her Linzer cookies for Christmas. Whether you have your own fig tree or find them at the store, we hope you’ll enjoy making and eating this fig jam or any of our other fig recipes. Let us know what you decide to do—we would love to hear from you!

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Spicy Baba Ghanouj (Spicy Eggplant Dip)

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As you may have noticed from our posts on social media, we bought a house in December and that house came with wonderful things growing in gardens all around the yard. In addition, quite a few of our neighbors have plots at a local community garden. A couple of weeks ago, our neighbors harvested more tomatoes, jalapeños, eggplants, and other vegetables from their plot and they kindly shared their bounty with us. I cannot explain to you how delicious the tomatoes were! That said, this recipe is all about the eggplant and jalapeño.

As soon as we saw the eggplant, we knew we wanted to make something special with it. Brent loves the heat that jalapeños add to any dish, so of course we had to incorporate them. We hope you enjoy this twist on the traditional eggplant dip, Baba Ghanouj, as much as we did!

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Caramelized Onion Dip

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There’s something about football season that brings people together in our circles; and when we gather, we eat. Dip is an easy way to serve up a lot of vegetables for a crowd, but unfortunately supermarket platters are expensive and normally packed with junk. We’ve made dip before, and it was a hit; but I wanted to try something new.

Growing up, and even to today, my dad was known to snack on potato chips with sour cream dip. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine, too, which inspired me to concoct this caramelized onion dip. It’s a great version of the classic dip with shallots, onions, and coconut cream instead of sour cream, yogurt, or a combination thereof.

Our caramelized onion dip is best made the day before, and it’s great for game-day snacks or dinner party appetizers. With both savory and sweet flavors, it’s a crowd pleaser. We hope you’ll give it a try with your favorite vegetables, or some well-sourced potato, taro, or other tuber chips.

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Sweet and Sour Meatballs

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This week I’m excited to share with you a recipe perfect for game-day, potluck, or holiday. Meatballs are a fun and delicious way to start off a meal or serve along other small foods during a gathering (we’re no stranger to meatballs). This time of year, between Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and football parties, we end up being a lot more social and therefore need to cook food that is easily shareable.

Our sweet and sour meatballs are great in the small 1-inch variety, but would also be good in a larger size for a more traditional entreé serving at home. They could also be cooked and kept warm in a slow cooker, rather than a skillet, if you’re planning ahead and hosting a get-together with multiple items on the menu. Whether you use buffalo and ground beef or a combination of different meats (be cautious with very lean meats so that they don’t dry out), we think you’re going to love these tangy meatballs.

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