Taco Chip Dip

“Every life has dark tracts and long stretches of somber tint, and no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light, and flings no shadows on the canvas.”

     -Alexander MacLaren

 

“Dip your tongue in wisdom, then give counsel”

     -A Bulgarian Proverb

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”

     - Henry Ward Beecher

“A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon."

     -Nathaniel Hawthorn

"Dip you chip in this wonderful dip and it will make you smile"

     -Me (Jamie)

Okay, so I might not be able to come up with the most brilliant quote, but I can make this wonderful dip. And you know what? You can too! It's easy, it's delicious, it's addicting, and trust me, it will make you smile!

Taco Chip Dip

Layer One- 

1 Can of Re-Fried Beans (I used canned beans and just mush them up)

Layer Two-

1/4 Cup Mayonnaise

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

1 Pkg Taco Seasoning (I just add to taste)

Layer Three-

2 Small Avocados (Or 1 Large) Crushed

2 Tbsp Sour Cream

1 Tsp Lemon Juice

1/2 Tsp Tabasco Sauce (I don't put this in)

 

Layer Four-

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Layer Five-

Chopped Tomatoes

Layer Six-

Chopped Green Onions

If you haven't figured it out already, all you do is make each layer, and carefully spread it over the layer before it. With layer one being on the bottom. This recipe is not very picky at all, in fact most of the time I don't even use measuring spoons/cups. If you want to add something you can, or if you don't like something leave it out. Once when I made the bean dip my mom came up to me after we had eaten it and asked if I had found any "more" sour cream. I was a little confused. When she explained that we didn't have any sour cream, I realized I had made the bean dip without any, and nobody (including me...oops) even noticed!

Clean Eating Cheesecake

Happy Easter everybody! I hope you all had a fantastic day!

For supper this evening we ended with this super delicious clean eating cheesecake. It was so good, that I thought I'd share it with you :)

Clean Eating Cheesecake

Crust

1 1/4 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs

 2-3 tsp 100% Apple Juice (I just added the juice until the crumbs stuck together enough for my liking. Also I used a 100% Mixed Fruit Juice, and it worked fine, you can't taste it anyways.)

Filling

1 lb Cream Cheese (400g)

1/2 Cup Plain Yogurt (I used Vanilla that's all we had)

1/2 Cup Sucanat (I used 1/4 Cup because of the yogurt)

2 Large Egg Whites

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/8 Tsp Sea Salt

Directions

1)Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch pie pan or spring form pan with olive oil. In a small bowl mix the graham cracker crumbs with juice until crumbly. Place mixture in prepared pan, gently pressing onto the bottom and partly up the sides of the pan.

2)Filling: Place all filling ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Gently pour filling into the crumb lined pan. Spread evenly.

3)Bake for 20 minutes or until center sets. It's ready when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Chill several hours or overnight.

4)Garnish. This is the fun part. Basically whatever you put on it decides the flavor. The one I made is chocolate, peanut butter, and banana. The original recipe, which you can find here, uses strawberries.

The cheese cake is not very tall, in fact it is rather short, so don't be alarmed. As I just stated in step #4 my cheesecake was chocolate, peanut butter, and banana. I sliced bananas over top right before serving, and drizzled melted chocolate and peanut butter sauce over top. Here is the recipe I used for the peanut butter sauce if you are interested.

Peanut Butter Sauce Royal

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1/3 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Liquid Honey

1 Tbsp. Butter

1/3 Cup Smooth or Crunchy Peanut Butter

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, milk, honey and butter. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat: add peanut butter and beat with beater until smooth. Cool before serving. Yields  one cup of sauce. Great for topping ice-cream.

Jewelery Board

Good evening everyone! I have been working on decorating my room lately, and this is a kind of cool way to store your jewelery, while being unique, and pleasing to the eye. My mom is actually the one that came up with the idea, although I put it together.

All it is an old tack board/picture frame. I painted it white, sanded it down, covered the back with fabric, stuck tacks in it, and hung my jewelery.

This side is for my necklaces. The fabric I used came from an old shirt, so here I used it vertically...

And this side for my bracelets, anklets, and earrings, I used the fabric horizontally. Don't tell anyone that I only did it that way because I was running out of fabric, that will be our little secret. ;) I don't know if you can tell, but the tacks all have little half pearls on them. I bought them at the dollar store in the scrapbooking section. Note: Your jewelry might not all fit on one frame. My mom is planning on having three frames for all hers, and I have the rest of mine in a small jewelery box. I hope you make one of these fun little jewelery boards, they are loads of fun to make, and when you need to grab a necklace quick, they are right there! Have a great night!