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Queso Cheese Dip (with a secret ingredient)
I love queso, but I am not a big fan of the “processed cheese product” that is typically used to give this dip its creamy consistency. Besides being high in sodium, many processed cheeses are made with hormone-laden dairy and lots of preservatives. I avoid these pitfalls in my recipe by creating a creamy organic cheese blend from scratch, using locally-grown organic peppers, spices and cheeses, sans the chemicals.
Like the velveeta version, this queso recipe will stand up to hours of heat in the crock pot without separating, and it’s a snap to put together. I kept this recipe of queso covered on warm in the slow cooker for four hours yesterday before serving, and it held steady the whole time!
The secret ingredient that makes it so creamy and low maintenance is butternut squash puree. The squash adds a lovely golden color to the cheese and enhances the texture, keeping it from getting stringy as it melts. A basic roux in the early part of the recipe also helps to stabilize the cheese.
As you can see, I added venison taco meat, guacamole made with local avocados, and sour cream to my queso just before serving yesterday. The resulting appetizer was similar to the Bob Armstrong dip served at Matt’s El Rancho in Austin and Dallas.
I probably would have ended up with Kerbey Queso (cheese dip topped with guac and pico de gallo) if tomatoes had been in season at the market this weekend. Since butternut squash is so easy to find here in Austin, I suspect I’ll get a chance to make this fabulous queso again for some Texas Longhorn tailgates, when fresh tomatoes are a plenty.
Butternut Squash Queso Cheese Dip (serves 6)
1/2 large onion, minced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butternut squash puree
2 ounces cream cheese
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
4 oz. roasted peppers (I used organic canned, chopped hatch green chiles; fresh roasted would probably taste better, but they’re not in season right now)
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, saute minced onions in butter over medium heat until onions begin to soften. Add flour to the pan and stir constantly for about 5 minutes, until flour is golden brown. Add milk 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly. Cook until milk is warmed through and turns light brown. Next, add the squash puree, stirring until combined, followed by the cheeses, peppers, and spices. Continue stirring for about 5 minutes until all the cheeses are completely melted and the mixture is creamy. Remove queso from the stove and serve immediately or transfer to a slow cooker, covered and set to “warm” until ready to serve.
Local Box Super Bowl Menu
I saved a bunch of great produce from my Local Box Delivery to make a feast for the big game tomorrow. I don’t particularly care who wins the football game, but I do feel very strongly about watching all the commercials. I’ll probably knock out most of the cooking for this early tomorrow afternoon so that I’ll have plenty of time to catch the commercials in all their glory starting during the pre-game show. Here’s what’s on the menu:
I’m using the avocados and cilantro to make my own version of Bob Armstrong Dip: a bowl of queso topped with a scoop of venison taco meat, guacamole, and sour cream. We’re eating this with El Milagro tortilla chips, some of my favorites made right here in Austin.
I’m using the sweet potatoes and the rest of the cilantro to make Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Creamy Cilantro Dip. The gorgeous tuscan (dinosaur) kale will bake up nicely into Kale Chips with sea salt and cumin. I’ve been wanting to try to make “hippy chips,” as those are called, since I saw Addie Broyles write about them in the Statesman last week.
I’ll use the beets from Naeglin farm to make Beet hummus with pita chips. My husband and I had some beet hummus at the San Diego farmer’s market when we were in California over the Christmas break; I’ve been wanting to make it myself for quite a while now, and I’m excited to finally get a crack at it.
I’m saving all our gorgeous oranges, tangerines an grapefruits from G&S Groves to make cocktails. These recipes for salty chihuahuas, shandies, and ruby champagne cocktails are all in contention; however my brother in-law has official bartender duty, so it will be up to him to dole out the drinks. Happy cooking tomorrow, and cheers to great commercial breaks!
This post is sponsored by Greenling Organic Delivery and also appears on their blog, “Eating out of the Local Box.”
Spicy Arugula Spread
This is a recipe that almost wasn’t. It came about last Sunday night while I was preparing beer bread and chai truffles for a food swap the next day. I was really nervous about going to the swap, in part because I wasn’t sure whether my dishes would be fancy enough for all the foodies in attendance. This is a common fear for me. I call it Potluck Anxiety, and it tends to sneak up any time I take a large batch of treats to a social gathering. Potluck Anxiety is usually really annoying but in this instance I’m glad I had it, because otherwise I might have never made this spicy arugula spread.
Thanks to Potluck Anxiety, I was doubtful that my beer bread would be okay as a standalone dish at the swap. I thought, why not make an herb butter to gussy it up? I wasn’t working from a recipe, just from the vague idea that pesto and butter together would make a good herb butter. So off I went. For the pesto, I improvised using whatever I could find in the fridge: some arugula, green onions, pecans, garlic, salt, and olive oil.
When I tasted the pesto I enjoyed it so much that I almost kept the whole batch for myself. Luckily, Potluck Anxiety told me that bread alone wouldn’t cut it, and I pushed forward in the quest for herb butter. To my cup of arugula pesto, I added 4 tablespoons of salted butter.
No bueno. The butter did nothing but turn the pesto into an oily mess! I could have resolved this by adding more butter, but I had used the last of it for the beer bread. What to do?
As a measure of desperation, I threw some cream cheese into the processor with the buttered pesto. The flavor of the spread was definitely improved by the cream cheese, but I thought it was still too strong to pair with my mellow beer bread. Not wanting to be wasteful, I put the finished cream cheese-butter-pesto mixture into a crock in the fridge and forgot about it.
The night of the swap, I was a mess. I had loaded my car and pulled out of the driveway by the time I remembered the arugula spread in the fridge. In the throes of Potluck Anxiety, I turned around to get it mostly because the little orange crock was so cute. Boy, am I glad that I did! While the spread was sitting in the fridge overnight it mellowed into a lovely, spreadable, spicy dip. Perfect for pairing with crackers or whole wheat beer bread. By experimenting with the leftovers, my husband Rami discovered that this spread makes a great pasta sauce if you warm it up in the microwave.
This story has two happy endings. First, I ended up with a new potluck recipe that is easy to put together and a real crowd pleaser. Second, I met a wonderful group of friends at the food swap. There were all sorts of cooks at the party: some were fancy, some were not so fancy, and of them all were kind and accepting. I suspect I will probably have another case of Potluck Anxiety before the next time I see them; my fingers are crossed that I’ll get another winning recipe out of the deal!
Spicy Arugula Spread (makes about 1.5 cups)
4 cups arugula
4 peeled garlic cloves
1 bunch green onions, root tips and limp green tips removed
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons salted butter
4 ounces cream cheese
1 teaspoon salt
Place arugula, garlic and green onions in a food processor fitted with the chopping blade. Pulse until veggies have broken down into very small pieces. Add remaining ingredients and pulse until completely combined. Mixture will be very soft from the heat of the food processor; store in an airtight container overnight to firm up the spread and allow the flavors to mellow. Enjoy in place of butter on breads, as a dip for crackers, or warm with pasta.
Whole Wheat Beer Bread Mix
This whole wheat beer bread is one of the best recipes I’ve discovered in a long time. I happened across it when I was brainstorming ideas for a food swap on Monday. I needed something shelf-stable and inexpensive to take to the swap, and this simple, savory quick bread fit the bill. I stayed true to BLChrisman’s simple, original recipe and packed the dry ingredients into white paper bags for the swap. The resulting beer bread “mix” made for a popular, easy swap item. I think it was popular because the recipe will be easy for the foodies in attendance to adapt according to their tastes. It’s also vegetarian and vegan friendly. Here’s the basic mix recipe:
Whole Wheat Beer Bread Mix
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour (I used Richardson Farms‘)
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
4.5 teaspoons baking powder
Preparation instructions: Combine dry ingredients with a 12 oz. bottle or can of beer. Put dough into a buttered loaf pan and pour 4 tablespoons of melted butter or vegan margarine over the dough and bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes.
Somehow I managed to attend the food swap, take my camera and forget to take pictures of my beer bread mix. So you’ll have to use your imagination here, and trust me that the finished products looked really cute. I found white paper bags similar to the one pictured below at All In One Bake Shop here in Austin for $.35 each.
I put one recipe of the basic mix into each white gusseted bag and labeled it with this sticker:
For an extra cute touch, I used a green patterned scrapbook paper as the background stroke on the packages. For ease of production, I printed the label stickers on Avery name tags using my home inkjet printer. Easy peasy!
In the past week I’ve experimented a lot with this recipe and two variations I have made really stand out above the rest: a broccoli cheddar loaf and a vegan rosemary garlic bread. For the broccoli cheddar version, I added one cup of minced broccoli, a clove of minced garlic, and 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese to the basic recipe, then I topped it with salted butter and 1 tablespoon of cheddar cheese. The texture of the bread was richer than the original recipe, and the flavor of the broccoli came through without being overpowering.
The vegan garlic rosemary beer bread came about after the food swap. I got a bunch of rosemary and other herbs from Sarah of texpatsabroad, and on a whim I added a tablespoon of her minced rosemary and 2 cloves of minced garlic to the bread dough. I used Earth Balance instead of butter to top the dough and baked for 45 minutes. It was fantastic and crusty! I’m planning to make that again for Super Bowl Sunday.
Fellow food swappers, I hope you enjoy making your own versions of this beer bread! Please let me know what beers you cook with and whether you come up with any variations of your own.
Headed to your own food swap, or just looking to package up some hostess gifts? Here is the Microsoft Word document for the labels I designed for the beer bread packages, Avery name tag template 5395.
Photo credit: Liz Love
