Seven Layer Mexican Dip

Rosalie called me this morning to find out how to make Seven Layer Dip. It is pretty easy to make and it is always a winner. Wherever I go, if this is served, it is one of the first things gone.

Seven Layer Mexican Dip

Layer the following items in a 9x13 pan or serving tray:

2 cans refried beans (or bean dip)
3 mashed avocados mixed with 1 t. lemon juice
8 oz. sour cream mixed with 1 pkg. or less of Taco seasoning.
grated cheese
1 can chopped olives
1 bunch chopped green onions
chopped tomatoes.


Serve with lots of tortilla chips

Lasagna

Like I said in my last post, I'm a very lazy Lasagna maker. I never bother to layer the sauce and the cheeses. I just mix them all together and layer them with the cooked noodles. I can't tell the difference and I think it saves time.

Lasagna

Spaghetti sauce
1 16 oz container cottage cheese
1 lb. medium cheddar cheese (grated)
8 oz. mozzarella cheese (grated)
cooked lasagna noodles

Spray a large casserole dish with PAM. Make spaghetti sauce (recipe in previous post). Spread a small amount of sauce in casserole dish. cover with first layer of noodles. Mix cheeses with remaining sauce. Continue layering sauce alternating with noodles until the pan is full, ending with sauce. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Spaghetti Sauce

Saturday, I picked a lot of tomatoes from our garden. I decided to make spaghetti using fresh tomatoes and fresh herbs. I've never done that before. Sunday was the Oquirrh Temple dedication, so we were done with church by 10:30. Therefore, I was able to spend the day cooking down my fresh tomatoes. Charis & Craig and their kids and Naaman & Becky and C.J. came for dinner Sunday afternoon. So, after working all day making the spaghetti sauce from scratch, the general consensus was that everybody likes the kind I normally make better. It is much easier and a lot less work. It is also much less creative. But, I'm willing to sacrifice labor and creativity for flavor. So much for "mama mia, that's Italian". I'm sticking with the Shillings mix.
I use my spaghetti sauce for lasagna, too. I'm a very lazy lasagna maker. I mix all the spaghetti sauce, meat and cheese together and then layer it with the cooked lasagna noodles. It works great.

Spaghetti Sauce

2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 can slice mushrooms
1 package Shillings Spaghetti sauce mix
1 lb. ground beef

Brown ground beef. Drain and rinse off excess grease. Add tomatoes. Drain mushrooms and add them to beef and tomatoes. Stir in Spaghetti sauce mix. Cook until thickened. Serve over cooked spaghetti.

Cheese Cake

I think this is the best recipe for plain cheese cake that I have found. It is from Martha Stewart. It is really good with the blueberry topping I posted earlier. Our peaches are just about ready to pick. I may try to figure out some sort of peach topping for this.

Cheese Cake

PAM
6 T. butter, melted
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 T. sugar
1/4 t. cinnamon

16 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
16 oz. sour cream
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 12 t. finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Boiling water for roasting pan

Make crust. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cover bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan with parchment paper. Spray sides with PAM. Wrap exterior of pan (including Base with a sheet of aluminum foil. (make sure there are no holes).
Stir together butter, graham cracker crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Press mixture firmly into the bottom and 3 inches up sides of pan. Refrigerate 15 minutes While you make the filling.
Beat cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy. add sour cream, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla. Beat until well combined (do nor over mix). Pour into chilled crust.
Set spring form pan in a large, shallow roasting pan. Place in oven. Carefully ladle enough boiling water into roasting panto come halfway up sides of spring form pan. Bake until cheesecake is set but still slightly wobbly in center, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Transfer roasting pan to a wire rack. Let cake cool in roasting pan 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake form roasting pan and refrigerator, uncovered, at least 8 hours or over night.
Run a knife around edge of cake, and unmold. Spoon desired topping over cake.

Easy Cheese Ball

This is the recipe for Bouncing Baby Cheese balls. I just made them about 1 inch in diameter and piled them up.

Easy Cheese Balls

2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
1 bunch green onions, Chopped
l-2 Cloves garlic (minced)
sliced almonds

Mix Cream cheese, onions and garlic. Form into ball. Roll ball in sliced almonds. Refrigerate, till ready to serve. Serve with Crackers.

You can add some chopped pimento or chopped red pepper to make it look more festive (for Christmas)

Mini Cheesecake

This is the recipe for the cheese cakes that we served at the baby shower. I used mini muffin tinns. You may need to trim the vanilla wafers to fit the muffin tins. I put 1 cherry on each. If you use regular muffin tins, you need more cherries.

Mini Cheese Cake

2 8 oz. packages cream cheese
¾ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 T. lemon juice
vanilla wafers
Let cheese rest at room temperature. Beat until smooth. Beat eggs. Add sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix thoroughly into cream cheese. Spoon into paper lined muffin tins with vanilla wafer in the bottom. Bake at 375º for 15 minutes. Top with fruit pie filling.

Orange Rolls

I got this recipe from Margaret. These rolls are delicious. You have to plan ahead if you want to make them, because you have to refrigerate the dough before you roll it out (otherwise it will be to sticky to work with). And it takes several hours for it to rise. Don't add extra flour! The dough is supposed to be very soft and sticky. 

Orange Rolls 

 Grease Muffin Tins.......Don’t add flour to recipe. This is a very gooey dough. 

 In a pan heat and melt one cube of margarine, 1 cup water, ½ cup sugar and 2 tsp. salt. Cool ... And add 3 beaten eggs. 

In a large bowl put ¼ cup warm water. Sprinkle with 2 pkg (2 Tbsp) yeast. And 2 tsp. sugar. Combine yeast mixture and margarine mixture.Add 4½ cups flour. 

Let rise 1 hour. Punch down. Cover and chill overnight. 

3-3½ hours before baking divide into 3 parts. Roll each part into a rectangle (about 12”x9”. Pour orange mix over. Roll like jelly roll. Cut into 12. Place cut side up on muffin tin. Let rise 3 hours. Bake at 400º for 8-10 minutes. 

Orange mix 1 stick margarine, ½ cup sugar and zest from 3-4 oranges. 

Glaze: juice of 1 orange and 1 16 oz box powdered sugar