I have used Velveeta for what feels like forever in many diverse recipes like Shrimp Stroganoff Casserole but I think many folks associate Velveeta with dip. The two go hand in hand after all and you can’t have a football party without it!

As one of the 2010 Velveeta Kitchenistas, I’ll be bringing you vlogs all year, this being the first one.  I do a few personal vlogs that are me rambling but doing a recipe was a challenge and while my video isn’t’ the best, I have confidence that my future ones will be awesome!

Please keep in mind when watching the video that I’m new at cooking in front of the video. Also keep in mind that my teens were cracking me up over and over again so I ended being a little more serious in the final cut that I intended. My next ones will get better, promise!

This Velveeta dip consists of only 3 ingredients, with on optional ingredient, making it very affordable to feed a crowd.  It also literally takes less than 10 minutes to make.  It’s so easy and so good!

VELVEETA Chorizo & Beer Dip

Ingredients

• 16oz of VELVEETA Cheese
• 1/4lb of Beef Chorizo
• 1/2 cup of Beer
• Green onions for garnish (optional)

Directions

Cook chorizo in medium skillet on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until done, stirring occasionally; drain.  Microwave VELVEETA and beer in large microwaveable bowl on high for about 5 minutes or until VELVEETA is completely melted, stirring after 3 min. Stir in chorizo.

Extra: Garnish with green onion slices before serving.

Don’t forget that Velveeta is on Facebook too and are always sharing great recipe ideas along with Velveeta fans sharing their own!

Disclosure: Please know that all opinions are my own and that I only work with companies that I love, use everyday. and truly believe in. If you have any questions about my ethics, read my full disclosure and/or email me. Just like before, I have partnered with VELVEETA as one of theVELVEETA it! Kitchenistas. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes vlogging about my cooking experiences with VELVEETA and developing one original VELVEETA-based recipe. I have also been compensated for the food purchased for my VELVEETA vlogs.

Here are your 5 finalists into the Food Challenge, in no particular order.  After checking each entry out, looking at creativity, usage of ingredients and all, please vote for your favorite.  POLL IS AT BOTTOM. (to see all the entries, check out my previous post. They all did so well and deserve an applause)

#1 Fire & Ice (Cream) recipe

#2  Onion, Bacon, Pear Galette with Marmalade Mascarpone Cheese recipe

#3 Cornflake Coconut Shrimp with Sweet and Spicy Mango Dipping recipe

#4 Pig Fingers recipe

#5 Spicy Chicken with Honey Mustard Sauce recipe

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE!
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Below are the 17 entries.  8 of them are nonbloggers so I posted their recipe and photo here on my blog.  The 9 blogger’s recipes can be seen by clicking on over to them.  Please take the time to visit each one and comment on their outstanding recipes!

ALSO, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IN THE COMMENTS BELOW WHICH ONES ARE YOUR FAVORITE! And stay tuned for the announcement of the final 3 so that you can vote for the grand prize winner who will win a $50 Gift Card to Cooking.com!

Bloggers

1.-Hot Honey Chicken

2.-Spicy Chicken with Honey Mustard Sauce

3.-Pig Fingers

4.-No Name Chocolate Dessert

5.-Cornflake Coconut Shrimp

6.-Sweet and Spicy Chicken Strips

7.-Fire & Ice (Cream)

8.-Island Fish

Nonbloggers

9. By Emily – Spicy Meatballs With A Touch Of Sweetness Over Pasta

10. By Zachary – Honey Mustard Glazed Pork Chops

11. By Mary – Fiery Chocolate Pie

12. By Joy – Sweet Flake Potato Pancakes

13. By Lisa – Crab Cakes with Hot Honey Mustard Sauce

14. By Merry – It’s a Honey: Onion, Bacon, Pear Galette with Marmalade Mascarpone Cheese who also shared her flickr photos of the recipe!

15. By Katherine – Cornflake Coconut Shrimp with Sweet and Spicy Mango Dipping Sauce Who, after I did all this, I realized mentioned in the comments, started her own blog!! Go show her some comment love would ya!

16. By Sue – Tangy Oven Fried Chicken Tenders with Hot Honey Drizzle

17. By Amy – Sweet and Spicy Crispy Shrimp

If you would like to sponsor a prize for upcoming Food Challenges, please feel free to reach out to me!

The last thing my father-in-law came over to cook was King Ranch Camp Bread.  I think I could get used to this you know.  I keep wondering what he’ll bring to cook in the coming weeks!

INGREDIENTS

• 6 or 7 lamb ribs
• 1 white onion
• 1 1/2 green bell pepper
• 3 med tomatoes
• 1 small head of garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• water

DIRECTIONS

Cut  lamb ris into chunks and cook in pan for about 30 minutes or so.  While those are cooking, chop up the onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, and garlic.  Now drain ALL the fat from the cooked lamb ribs. There will be quite a bit so make sure to drain them well.  Pour in the onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic and cover with water.   Cook with lid on until almost all the water is gone, about 2hrs.  Remove lid for the last 20minutes of cooking.   Enjoy!

Oh! And if you’re really wanting the best apple butter, you should make it homemade too.  No pictures to show it off but darn tasty.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 ½ tsp. Cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
• ¾ cup apple butter
• 2 Tbsp. Milk
• Optional: ½ cup chopped pecans and ½ cup pecans

DIRECTIONS

Combine flour, sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Combine eggs, butter, apple butter and milk; beat well. Stir in pecans and raisins. Add flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Spoon batter into a greased and floured 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes; remove to wire rack and cool completely.  Makes one loaf

Ingredients you’ll need

The batter in a nice Wilton pan.  We all love Wilton.

Apple Butter Bread

There are tons of waffle recipes out there, mostly the same type of recipe, but what makes this one a tad different is the separating and beating of egg whites.  This, in my opinion, is what makes them ever so fluffy.  I also would prefer a bit more sugar and perhaps a few blueberries in my own waffles but I wanted to give you the basics to work with so that you can make your own to taste by simply adding fruit, a wee bit more sugar, or even a touch of honey.

And because I have two teens that eat a lot, I invested in this handy Waring Pro double waffler maker that I absolutely love!!  It makes two a time and not just small waffles, but big round waffles that can be cooked to your desired crispness. (I have red but it comes in other choices too.)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 c milk
• 2 T sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 c flour, sifted*
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 4 T melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. In a large bowl, beat sugar, salt and milk until smooth. Add yolks to the milk and beat until creamy. Mix in flour and baking powder (batter will be lumpy…be careful not to over mix or the waffles will end up tough). Fold in the egg whites. Add the melted butter and vanilla, fold until combined.

Preheat the waffle maker. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom, bake until brown or the waffle stops steaming.  Or in my case, until my beeper goes off!

The smell of this Pozole Soup is amazing and will have your neighbors knockin’ at your door asking for a taste!  5 star rating from everyone! Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 3 lbs of pork shoulder or meat for carnitas (carnitas means small meat)
• 1 whole head of garlic (cut the tip off the point end of garlic)
• 1 large or 2 medium onions
• 1 approx 108 oz can of hominy ( rinsed very well)
• 4 dried chili cascabel (guajillo) peppers (deseed) (approx ¾ oz)
• ½ tsp. Cumin
• 1 small bay leaf
• Salt and Pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Put the chili peppers in a saucepan with water and gently boil until soft. Put the meat, garlic and onion in a LARGE stockpot and fill about 2/3 full with water. Boil 1 to 2 hours…or until the meat is very tender. Remove the meat and let cool a little so you can pick through for fat and remove anything unwanted. (I’m very picky) Discard the bay leaf. Scoop out the onion and garlic and place in a blender. Drain the peppers and add them to the onion and garlic. Be sure to squeeze the garlic out of its’ skin. Add about 1 cup of stock and blend very well. (Add more if necessary because you might need to strain it if the blender doesn’t chop up the skin of the pepper finely enough) You don’t have to but I strained my stock. Add the cumin along with the pepper onion mixture, the rinsed hominy and the meat back in. Let it simmer for ½ hour to 1 hour. The longer the better.

Note: I would probably use leaner meat next time.  Fat adds flavor but I would still prefer less of it.

UPDATED: this food challenge is over. Thanks so much to those who participated!
I’ve been wanting to host a food challenge for such a long time now and thought 2010 would be the perfect time to start it! This is a monthly challenge with a grand prize winner.  You DO NOT have to be a blogger to enter. There will be a form that non-bloggers can fill out to enter their recipe so everyone is welcomed to join in!

ABOUT THE FOOD CHALLENGE

Participants will be asked to create an original recipe using the required ingredients in the current month’s challenge.  Each challenge will have two guest judges that, with their combined scores, will determine the winner of the Food Challenge.

THE RULES & JUDGING/VOTING

**You must use ALL 3 of the ingredients given in the challenge with any other ingredients you want.

**A photo is required of the final dish.

**The recipe needs to be original, not copied.

**Bloggers  need to provide a link back to the homepage or to the Food Challenge post.  Grab code is available for you to use.  All bloggers will need to leave their entry link in the linky below. .

The entries will be narrowed down to the Top 3 by judges. Judging criteria consists of creativity, presentation, and virtual taste buds.  If it’s something that we see and start to drool over, you get higher points but if it’s something that makes our eyebrow raise on one side, then you likely will see a lower score. Once the entries have been narrowed down, a poll will be put in place for voting. The winner will be determined by the most votes.

JANUARY’S FOOD CHALLENGE

Mandatory ingredients for January’s food challenge are:

• Corn Flakes
• Hot Sauce
• Honey

DEADLINE

Recipe submission deadline is January 20th, 2010 at 2pm CST.

THE PRIZE

The winner of the Food Challenge for January will receive a $50 Gift Card to Cooking.com!

***************************************************

–NONBLOGGERS-If you do not have a blog but want to participate, you may submit your recipe here.

–BLOGGERS LINK DIRECTLY TO YOUR ENTRY HERE

Good luck to all who enter! Can’t wait to see your recipe creations!

Anyways, not only do they sell some sorta pricey, beautiful products, they also have some very tasty recipes.  One that has made its’ way to our home is this Camp Bread cooked in a 12″ dutch oven.  It was served in the cookhouse back in the day when my father-in-law worked there and not just as bread but as bread stuffed with sausage and eggs, beans, or whatever they had on hand.  It was common to have a piece of this King Ranch Camp Bread with a cup of coffee in the early mornings, before heading out to tackle the day.

The bread is good and this recipe makes a lot.  I haven’t taken the time to convert it into smaller portions so we make all of it and freeze it once it’s all cooked.   If you convert it, let me know and I’ll post it here for others!

My husband started the recipe and right at the mixing stage, turned it over to me.  I then turned it back over to him to cook outside in the dutch oven.

INGREDIENTS

• 5 oz Evaporated Milk
• 4 lb bag of flour ( I recommend King Aurthur)
• 4 cups buttermilk biscuit mix
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup lard or 1 large stick butter flavored Crisco

DIRECTIONS

Mix all ingredients in a BIG bowl and let rest for about 20 minutes.  Pinch off enough to roll out a 12″ circle about 1/4″ thick.  Grease your dutch oven and place one dough circle inside dutch oven.  Cook 15 minutes with coals on both top and bottom, then remove from bottom coals and cook another 5 minutes with coals on top to brown the camp bread.

This recipe makes at least 8 12″ pans worth.

Thanks so much to my husband’s cousin Marty down in Kingsville for the recipe and for my father-in-law sharing it and his stories with us.    Get the King Ranch Cookbook for more historic recipes.

Because there are SOOOOO many photos, 19 in fact, I made a whrrl slideshow so the loading time is easier.  Enjoy!