My mom is like my own personal Martha Stewart.  She can set a table that is worthy of being the head table at a fancy wedding.  She can whip up appetizers for a party or make an incredibly flavorful and beautiful dinner at the drop of a hat.  We always had company when I was growing up and my mom was always great at throwing something together even if the guests were unexpected.  One of her go-to snacks that she makes is Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus.

It doesn’t get much easier than this recipe, but the results are so vibrant in color and flavor.  This hummus is great with chips or veggies, or even smeared on a tortilla and topped with cheese and veggies as a healthy wrap for lunch.  I made my sick husband some chicken noodle soup last weekend and I stirred a spoonful of this hummus into my bowl to liven up the flavor of the soup.  You could even serve this in place of or in addition to guacamole with a Mexican spread.

combine all ingredients except olive oil in food processor and process

stream in olive oil and process until smooth

serve

You may also like:

Emily and I have been the best of friends since we started college 11 years ago and were luckily assigned randomly as roommates our freshman year.

You get to know someone very well living in a teeny, tiny dorm room.  And I am so happy to say that Emily was the greatest from day one.  I love that we have stayed so close over the last decade (how old are we??!!)  and have been by each other’s sides for some of the most important events in our lives.

Emily is also the reason that I started out on this little blogging adventure.  I have always admired Emily’s dedication to healthy food and an active lifestyle and her blog, A Nutritionist Eats was  my primary inspiration for starting my blog.  Honestly, without her, I wouldn’t know a plugin from a theme and would never have been able to publish my first post 1 year ago!  How fitting that she would be providing this amazing guest post for me this week!

Mercedes and I go wayyyyy back. Like, freshman-year dorms and then friends forever back. We lived together for a total of 5 years and to say that I miss her dearly since moving to California would be an understatement. If only we had started blogging back when we were roomates! That would have been SO much fun.

 Satisfy my Sweet Tooth is my go-to site when it comes to dessert and baking, because, well, I’m not much of a baker and Mercedes is amazing. I miss testing out her recipes on a regular basis!  It only makes sense for me to share something somewhat healthy today because, well that is what my blog (fresh recipes, nutrition tips and simple ways to live a healthy life) is all about!

Once I try a salad that I like, I continue to make it on a regular basis and then eat it until I’m sick of it. My current favorite is this salad that I’ve been eating ever since my cousin made it for Easter Sunday. The ingredients are simple, the flavors delicious. I like to call it the California Salad for no particular reason other than avocados are abundent here.

       Print This!    

California Salad

by Emily Dingmann

Keywords: raw appetizer entree salad vegetables

6025966

 

Ingredients (2-4 servings)

• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 1- 5oz bag of herb baby greens
• 1 small avocado, cubed
• 1 cup halved grape tomatoes
• 2 oz goat or parmesan cheese

Instructions

Whisk together mustard, vinegar, olive oil and salt & pepper. (I like to use the bowl I’m going to serve the salad in or toss the greens in to save some dishes.)

Toss dressing and greens together and top with remaining ingredients.

Serve immediately.

Powered by Recipage

Thank you Emily!  You are the best!

You may also like:

Who doesn’t love pizza in any form?  Around Super Bowl time, I was seeing all kinds of pizza dips popping up as suggestions for game day fare.  Football is not a huge deal at our house and so I had to wait for another occasion to make a version of pizza dip.  Hosting book club last week happened to be the perfect reason to give it a try.

Many of the recipes that I have seen for pizza dips involve cream cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream as a base layer.  One of my favorite swaps for mayo and sour cream that makes dishes healthier is nonfat plain Greek yogurt.  It is tangy, thick and creamy without being heavily laden with calories and fat.  I also cut down on a few calories and grams of fat by using reduced-fat (part skim) mozzarella cheese.

This dip is plenty flavorful even with these healthier modifications.  Top the dip with a variety of vegetables and you’ll really have a popular dip that you can feel great about serving.

       Print This!    

Lightened up Pizza Dip

by Mercedes Porter

Keywords: bake appetizer cream cheese vegetables

6025001

 

Ingredients (1 8-inch serving dish)

• 1 8oz. package low-fat cream cheese
• 1 6oz. container of 0% (nonfat) plain greek yogurt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 cup prepared pizza sauce
• 1 cup reduced-fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup chopped vegetables and/or cooked meats
• Sliced bread, pita chips or tortilla chips for serving

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, yogurt, garlic powder and Italian seasoning using an electric mixer.

Spread mixture into bottom of 8-inch glass pie plate or square glass baking dish.

Top the cream cheese mixture with pizza sauce and spread evenly to cover.

Sprinkle vegetables and/or meats over the shredded cheese.

Bake 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Serve with bread or chips.

Dip can be made one day ahead and stored (before baking) wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator.

Powered by Recipage

combine cream cheese, yogurt, garlic powder and Italian seasoning

spread cream cheese mixture into pan

top with pizza sauce

sprinkle cheese over the sauce

top with chopped veggies (and meat, if using)

bake until cheese is melted and serve

You may also like:

When Satisfy My Sweet Tooth came into existence this past summer, I had no idea where this adventure would take me.  What I started as something to share recipes with friends and family and hone my photography skills has slowly developed into a full-time obsession that I just can’t get enough of!  Experimenting, writing, taking photos and sharing all of it with you has been such a pleasure and I thank you sincerely for following along with my on my culinary adventures!

I thought I would sum up my first 6 months of blogging with some highlight of my favorite recipes and yours.

1.  Possibly my most popular recipe are these Coffee-Spiked Chocolate Caramel Bars.  Rich and buttery graham cracker crust topped with homemade caramel, chocolate ganache and sea salt.  Need I say more?

On another note, did you know that “espresso” is one of the most commonly mispronounced words?  I read a list of words in the newspaper this week.  People usually stick a “c” in there to make it “ek-spress-oh”.  Just thought you would want to know.

2.  I was surprised how gaga you all went for these sweet and salty beauties.  I mean don’t get me wrong, I drool over these Peanut Butter, Pretzel and Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I am so happy at how many of you lovelies have let me know that you have made and enjoyed these as well.

3.  Next are these Coconut, M&M Cookie Bars.  These bars combine two of my favorite ingredients:  chocolate and coconut.  The flavor of these cookies is almost like the Samoas Girl Scout cookies and they are just so chewy and addicting.

4.  One of my favorite savory recipes that I have shared with you is this pasta with Red and Green Pesto.  I can’t believe I have only made it once and I also just realized that this would be a very festive Christmas recipe!  I really should start making a list for next year’s holiday season already…..

5.  And of course, my all-time favorite pasta, Grandma Suzy’s Fettucini Freddi.  This sauce is so clean and simple, yet every time I eat it, I cannot stop oohing and aahing over it.  And especially now that I received the pasta maker attachment for my mixer, I cannot wait to make homemade noodles with this silky, delectable sauce!

6.  I was so thrilled when I stumbled upon this Crock Pot Apple Butter this fall!  Talk about an easy food gift to share with others.  This will be a staple that I make every fall when friends and family give me apples from their fall harvests.

7.  Nothing really satisfied my craving for crunch like these Heath and Macadamia Nut Blondies.  Chocolate, toffee and nuts are such a rich combination and all of the textures together makes these bars particularly drool-worthy.

8.  I took my first cooking class in 2011 with Emily.  The recipe that I have made the most often from that evening of learning is these Fresh Spring Rolls.  I love how diverse they are because of all of the possible fillings and the sauce is so perfect that I do not even want to order them out at restaurants anymore!  And they are a perfect healthy recipe to start off 2012 right.

9.  I never realized how starting my own blog would lead to an obsession with other blogs!  There is just so much inspiration to be found by browsing through other people’s creative ideas.  No ingredient was more prominent in the blog world during the fall than pumpkin.  I have a few pumpkin classics that I make each year and possibly my favorite is this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake.  It is so moist and incredible.

10.  Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars.  These bars are a perfect example of how i see a recipe and then brainstorm about how I can change it to fit my preferences.  These are chewy, nutty, filling and healthy.  A breakfast treat or snack that you can really feel good about.

11.  And finally, one of my favorite combinations, chocolate and peanut butter combined in these soft and chewy Chocolate Cookies with Peanut Butter Cups and Sea Salt.  Cookies are my absolute favorite dessert!  I’ll take a perfect cookie over a rich chocolate tart or cake any day.  They are also very dangerous though because I can never eat just one!  This is a cookie that you could easily put your own spin on with several different ingredients.  Let your creativity shine!

I am not big on resolutions, but a new year does make me think about what improvements I would like to make in my life.  As always, I know that I want and need to exercise more.  I actually feel excited about it after lounging non-stop and eating way too many holiday delights.

I have an email folder, Pinterest board and cookbooks full of recipes that I cannot wait to try this year.  I hope that you will continue to join me on my adventures in the kitchen.  I do so appreciate your readership and support.  I always love hearing from you and please let me know if there is anything special you would like me to share with you in 2012.  Happy New Year sweet teeth!

You may also like:

Now that it’s December, each day I can just hardly contain my enthusiasm for all of the things I want to bake and do before Christmas arrives!  So many treats to bake, presents to buy, decorating to do and GIVEAWAYS to host!!!

I have told you before that I am an absolute cookbook and cooking magazine junkie.  I subscribe to an embarrassing number of magazines and there are things I like and dislike about each of them.  One magazine in which I cannot find anything to dislike however is Fine Cooking.  Each issue is filled with fabulous photos, inspiring recipes and there are no ads!  So cover to cover, each page is filled with mouthwatering recipe ideas, new kitchen products and extremely helpful tips.

I flipped open the Holiday Baking book and was immediately impressed with explanations about which ingredients and methods serve which purpose in baking.  For example:

• Did you know that the reason we cut butter into more delicate pastries is to coat the flour with fat so that less gluten is formed and thus the dough is not tough?
• Or did you know that the reason we butter and flour pans when baking to prevent sticking is so that the proteins in the batter will not touch the side of the pan and therefore we will not end up with muffins half stuck to our pans?
• Or did you know the ideal temperature for creaming butter is 68°?

I know, how have we lived our whole baking lives without fully understanding these concepts?!  These tidbits of useful information are, as I mentioned, one of the may reasons that I love Fine Cooking products.

I browsed through the Cookies book which is filled with Fine Cooking’s 200 favorite recipes and these little beauties are just one of the many temptations I encountered.

recipe to come….

So sweet teeth, in the spirit of Christmas, I am pleased to offer one lucky reader copies of all three books!  You not only get the Cookie book and the Holiday Baking Book, you also get the Appetizer book!  Will that make your holidays a little more merry and bright?  I hope so!

You may also like: