7 Layer Taco Dip – Cooking with Trey Vol. 1

001

This kid in desperate need of a haircut is the baby of my family (He’ll be 18 in March). His name is Trey and he’s agreed to be a part of Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza. If by agreed you mean that he went along with this crazy shit because I am his mother and can make his life a living hell. I did not want him to wear that tack-ass camouflage Dollar Store sweatshirt for the pictures, but he insisted on wearing it because his Grandmother got it for him. That pretty much tells you what kind of a kid he is. He’s also the one bitching about needing a haircut (he’s obviously not a natural blonde, it’s a phase he’s going through and I’m all about waving your freak flag when you’re young and it doesn’t matter). Homeboy does not like his hair getting in his eyes. I find it funny because a lot of kids let their hair grow just to piss off their parents. Mine are ass backwards. Always. Sigh.

I’ve seen recipes all over the place for this taco dip and always wanted to try making it. Now when I say that I have seen recipes that means that I have seen it on sites like allrecipes.com, blogs, food gawker.com, etc. I’m not like that nutcase Robyn. I don’t print out recipes that I might try sometime in the next half dozen years. When I went Internet searching for the recipe I did my standard move – Go to Google, type in what you want to search for and then hit IMAGES. A shit-ton of beautiful pictures of what I want to make comes up and then I spend a good hour clicking on all of them and reading up on how the different sites made it. Then I either print out a recipe if I find one I like or I jot down the ingredients that I know I have and WING IT, always hoping for the best. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. This time it worked.

020

One can of refried beans.  I freaking love refried beans and went through a phase where it was the only food I would eat for a good month about 10 years ago.  And then I couldn’t eat them for a long, long time.  We’re talking about 8 years.  Everything in moderation, people. I had to learn my lesson the hard way.

021

I didn’t have a clear glass dish to make it all pretty so I just settled for this Fiestaware platter.  It’s just as well.  My OCD would have went into crisis mode trying to make the layers all even and shit if I would have been using something that you could see through.

023

Layer of one cup of cheddar cheese.  I will not tell you how much of this cheese I ate while making this.  And OMG, be thankful I just erased what I had typed here because y’all would have known way too much about me and constipation.  Ha!  Gotcha!

My apologies.  I’ve obviously been hanging out with Trey too much.

024

So the next layer is Guacamole.  If this was a real food blog, we would have been all up in here mashing avocados and shit.  Yeah, right.  Maybe you can get Robyn to do it, but I can’t be arsed.

026

Gross, huh?

030

Smear it around.  This is when I lost interest in it looking pretty.  Seriously.  I just gave up because there was no way this was going to look good.

031

Take sour cream and add 1/2 envelope of taco seasoning.

033

This is what cooking with Trey is like.  I’m pretty sure I was breaking out in hives right about now.  Sloppy cooking.  Do you see the pieces of cheese laying around amongst all the other clutter?  My last nerve.

015

Added because this shit is funny.  Homeboy was seriously going to hold that huge block of cheese to grate it.  This is where we learned about cutting a piece off and then grating it.

038

The next layer is the salsa (ignore that pouch of guacamole laying there, it was an extra one that hadn’t been put away yet)

056

Lettuce.  I love me some shredded lettuce.  And obviously I love cheese!

058

This was Shirley’s pathetic attempt at helping out with the finished product.  NOTE:  this is where you could/would add black olives, chopped green onions and peppers to make it pretty.  I personally think that olives are Satan’s kidney stones so I won’t go near them.  My mother likes green olives so we have them here.  She threw those on top to try to make it look nicer and as you can see, it didn’t help much.  Heh.

061

Trey really liked it.  In fact everyone in the house liked it except for Shirley.  Homegirl hates refried beans (weirdo).

The only real bitch I have with this is the fact that it makes so much.  You can’t really tell in that picture, but the platter is big (and reasonably deep).  It would most definitely be a fantastic idea for a party and I think a lot of people make it for football games, tailgating, etc.

7 Layer Taco Dip - Cooking with Trey Vol. 1
 
This recipe can easily be adapted from the ingredients, the amounts you use, and the way you layer it. No matter how you switch it up, it's going to be good!
Original Source/Author:
: Appetizer
Ingredients
  • 1 can re-fried beans
  • 1-1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
  • 1 7 oz. pouch of guacamole
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 envelope Taco Mix (or 2 tablespoons)
  • 1 cup salsa
  • 1 cup shredded lettuce
  • Black olives, chopped onions, tomatoes or peppers (optional)
Instructions
  1. Start with re-fried beans and spread them in a bowl of your choice (glass is better).
  2. Lay 1 cup of cheese over the beans.
  3. Spread guacamole over the cheese layer.
  4. Mix sour cream and taco mix in a bowl.
  5. Spread sour cream mixture over the guacamole layer.
  6. Spread salsa over the sour cream layer.
  7. Add lettuce.
  8. Sprinkle the remaining half cup of cheese over lettuce.
  9. Garnish with optional black olives, chopped onions, tomatoes or peppers.
  10. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with Tortilla chips.

 

Monkey Bread

A reader asked me about this recipe (Hi, Susan!) so I figured I would throw it up here today since it is so easy to make.

122507 - Monkey bread.

We call these Monkey Balls.  I personally think this was the original name – it’s what everyone that I knew called it, but apparently someone thought that was inappropriate.  Which it kinda is, but I think it’s funny (I also like fart jokes).  We only have it once a year because that was my husband’s childhood tradition (my chubetto family ate them whenever we felt like it).  I pre-make the balls and throw them in a bundt pan on Christmas Eve so that they’re ready to be baked on Christmas morning.  This is what we eat to tide us over until lunchtime (we have our big Christmas meal around 1:00) and it is FABULOUS!

Monkey Bread
 
If pre-making these just do the first step. Cover and refrigerate. Do the second step when you're ready to bake and serve.
Original Source/Author:
: Bakery Type Treat?
Ingredients
  • 4 (8-ounce) tubes refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (the cheaper the better)
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 2 cups sugar, divided
  • 1 cup butter or margarine
  • 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
Instructions
  1. Cut each biscuit into quarters. Combine 1 cup of the sugar with the cinnamon in a large plastic bag. Drop biscuit quarters into bag and shake to thoroughly coat. Place biscuit quarters into a greased bundt pan.
  2. Combine butter/margarine with remaining 1 cup sugar, brown sugar and water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Pour over biscuits in bundt pan. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Carefully invert bundt pan onto platter.

 

Mochies (Chocolate Coffee Cookies)

A long time ago, before Al Gore invented the Internet, I had a recipe for fancypants chocolate cookies that I ripped from a magazine.  I can’t remember the name of the recipe.  I can’t remember the name of the magazine.  And I sure as hell can’t remember the name of the person that created it.  The only thing I do remember is that it was a pain in the ass to make because one of the ingrediences (™ Teresa Giudice) is unsweetened baking chocolate.  Who the fuck keeps that crap in their house?  Not me, man (it’s not like I can eat it during a Hershey shortage – yeah, I’ve tried and yuck).  I only buy it for this dumb cookie.  I’m not too worried about giving proper credit to the originator of this recipe because I’ve changed it so much over the years that I can confidently claim this bad boy as my own. The only thing I never changed was the damn unsweetened baking chocolate because I was skeered.  I figured if someone is willing to include that pain-in-the-ass baking chocolate it’s only because it’s supposed to be there.  Timid baker, thy name is Nance.

I’ve been a cranky bitch for the last few days and I figure it’s because of the whore-moans.  I always try to cure the whore-moans with chocolate.  It never works, but I can’t stop trying because chocolate is the shits, yo! Since I needed a recipe for DCEP I figured I would break out the one with the most chocolate.

I know Robyn lines up all her ingredients like a goody-two-shoes, but puhleese. That would involve me being prepared and everybody needs to get real here. Robyn=goody-two-shoes. Nance=bad ass.

009

Of course I didn’t have that stupid unsweetened baking chocolate and no, I was not going to the store to get it. But I did find out something thanks to Chef Google. 3 tablespoons of Hershey’s cocoa combined with 1 tablespoon butter equals 1 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate. W0oT!

012

After you mix everything up, it will look like this. It’s supposed to be goopy. Trust me.

015

Make sure you use one of those silicon baking sheets or aluminum foil to put on your cookie sheet for baking. Learn from my mistakes.

029

Mochies (Chocolate Coffee Cookies)
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Original Source/Author:
: Cookie
Ingredients
  • 12 oz. Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
  • 4 oz. Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
  • ¾ cup butter
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1-1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 tsp. instant espresso powder (can substitute instant coffee powder)
  • 4 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • ½ tsp. baking powder
  • ½ cup flour
  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Line cookie sheet with silicon pad or aluminum foil
  2. Microwave 12 oz. chocolate chips, baking chocolate and butter on high 1 minute. Stir. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir and repeat until mixture is melted and smooth.
  3. In another bowl beat eggs, sugar, espresso (or coffee) powder, vanilla, salt and baking powder on high for 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add chocolate mixture. Add flour and mix until blended. Add remaining ingredients.
  4. Drop by tablespoon unto cookie sheet. Dough will be gooey. Don't panic.
  5. Bake 12 to 14 minutes. Surface will be dry, shiny and cracked looking. Inside will be soft.
  6. Slide silicon sheet or foil off of cookie sheet and allow to cool before removing.