Funfetti Dip

Out of all the dip recipes I've tried (it sounds like I'm talking about tobacco here, but don't worry, never tried that), this one was probably the biggest hit, and it was really simple too!

I've had a similar recipe pinned for awhile, and I made this one because someone in our community group was having a birthday. I was going to make a cake, but I didn't have all the ingredients and the snow was really piled up and the car was sort of stuck in the driveway so I had Carson run to the store when he got off work and made this instead. I'm glad, because this was a huge hit. I made the pea "guac" the same night so we had a contrast of really healthy... and this. But this was amazing.

You'll Need:
1/2 C melted and cooled butter (that's one stick. told you it wasn't healthy. You could probably get away with less)
8oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 C powdered sugar
1 C Funfetti cake mix
1 tsp vanilla (I always add more than recipes say)
1 T sprinkles

Melt butter and set aside to cool. Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, funfetti with electric mixer (I used my hand mixer). Add vanilla and butter slowly. Beat for two more minutes. Stir in sprinkles. Put in fridge.
Top with sprinkles before serving. Enjoy with Nilla Wafer Cookies!
(this was such a hit that all the cookies were gone by the end, but there were 21 people at our house, so it serves quite a few people)

Pea "Guacamole"

Pea... Guac? 

I know it sounds strange, but this dip is actually quite good. I served it to our community group and had them guess what was inside - most people guessed avocados, no one guessed peas! 

Like you, I had second thoughts about mixing peas into a dip, but they were cheap (83 cents for a bag) and there are LOTS of recipes using them in this way so I went for it. 

You'll Need:
10-12 oz frozen peas, defrosted (I just ran under warm water for a few seconds)
garlic
cilantro
lime juice
pinch of cayenne
olive oil
salt and pepper
(red onion would be good too, and I thought about adding a little pesto instead of cilantro but someone in our group has a peanut allergy and I didn't know if the pine nuts in pesto acted the same way as peanuts!)

Mix up in a food processor, put in the fridge until ready to serve. Everything I put in was to taste, and I added the cayenne at the end for a slight kick. Since the flavor of peas is surprisingly strong, taste as you go. I served with tortilla chips.

The nice thing about this, other than how cheap it is, is that unlike guac, it doesn't brown. It is VERY green which can be a little alarming, but it's good!

Broiled Steak and Roasted Parmesan Green Beans

"Let's make dinner for date night!" we said. 

"I can make chicken in the crockpot!" said she.

"That sounds great" said he. 

"Oops, I forgot" said she. 

"We're already out so let's go to the store", said we.

"Hm, red meat sounds good. We have green beans at home... let's figure out how to make a steak without using the grill"

And so they did, and it was the most wonderful dinner ever. The end. 

We've never made steak at home before. Both of us like red meat, but we don't make it often because of price. We do however have a weekly date night budget, so we spent money from that budget for our steak (we had no idea what we were doing in the meat section so we hoped for the best).

We set the table (sparkling grape juice leftover from NYE - we're fancy)

Played the Louis Armstrong Pandora channel.

For our steak: Carson coated it in garlic, rosemary, steak sauce, pepper and Worcestershire sauce and threw it in a bag to marinate for a couple minute. Then we put it in the broiler on a roasting pan for 3.5 minutes on either side. We like our steak pink in the middle, and this was perfect. Carson claims he's never had a better steak and I'm going to agree with him - it was good! I've heard good things about putting butter on top with some garlic so that might be our next recipe.

And for the green beans. We chopped off the ends, chopped up some mushrooms to go with, threw some Parmesan on there, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper and threw them in the oven at 375 for ten minutes. I left them in there a bit longer so they would be slightly overdone. We've discovered that we LOVE our veggies roasted. Better flavor... I hate boiled vegetables.

End result. YUM. This could be a meal all it's own.

Date night success. A great meal for probably 1/4 of the price of a restaurant.

Roasted Asparagus

Simplest recipe ever for such a tasty outcome. 

Start with a pre-heated oven (425) and a bunch of asparagus. Both are essential to a good outcome.

Take a bunch of asparagus (I always confuse the names of artichokes and asparagus when I'm writing them. Anyone else?), cut off the bottoms.

Recipe: Pad Thai