Bonus day: Dinner, Dips, and a Gourmet Dessert
Happy Halloween! I usually don’t post on Sunday, but today is a special bonus day with dinner, dips, and dessert. I don’t have just one recipe for you, I have 4. These 4 recipes were part of a family get together that Unilever helped me do. For more details and to enter the giveaway they have provided, hop on over to my giveaway page. Three of the recipes are from the cookbook Unilever provided me.
First, we have Mini English Muffin Pizzas for ya. This is something I enjoyed growing up. My mom would frequently make these mini English muffin pizzas for a quick dinner. We had a great assortment of topping and everyone was able to customize their pizza and get involved in making dinner.
I had a bunch of toppings. Also, I found some cute mini pepperoni at my local store that were perfect for these mini pizza. I purchased some diced ham in the refrigerated section at the store too. Then I also included salami cut in to strips, olive slices, mushrooms, pineapple tidbits, green pepper, and onion.
We had peanut butter dip and onion dip from the cookbook.Â
Both only needed 2 ingredients to make. The peanut butter dip was delicious with banana, strawberries, and apples. I used the honeycrisp apples. If you haven’t tried one, get one the next time you go to the store. Delicious! I think the dip would also work very well to use as layers in a parfait too. The onion dip is another recipe I grew up with. My mom always made chip dip for us made with dry Lipton onion soup and sour cream. This is a staple recipe for me.
Then to finish of our dinner I created a recipe using a recipe from the cookbook as a base. They had a recipe for cupcakes that used mayonnaise in the cake. I used the cake portion of the recipe and created Gourmet Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes. Each cake has a mini Reese’s surprise inside.
Each cupcake gets a very generous topping of peanut butter frosting. You could easily get by with using 1/2 to 3/4 of the frosting recipe, but I was going for gourmet here. They needed a nice piping of frosting. I used my french tip from my Bake it Pretty cupcake icing kit. I thought it made the frosting look like the rippled edges of the peanut butter cup. Then it’s finished it all off with half of a mini Reese’s on top of each cupcake.
You can do the basic idea of this cupcake can be with any kind of candy they you may have leftover from Halloween too. If you don’t have mini bite sized candy just cut the candy down into small bite sized pieces.
Mini English Muffin Pizzas
Real Mom Kitchen
Ingredients
- 6 English muffins halved and toasted
- 1 jar 14 oz. Ragu® Pizza Quick Sauce or 1 1/2 cups Ragu pasta sauce (I used pasta sauce)
- 1 ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese about 6 oz.
- pizza toppings I used peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, pineapple, ham, pepperoni, and salami
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- On baking sheet, arrange English muffin halves. Evenly spread sauce on each half, then evenly top with cheese and desired pizza toppings. Bake 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Ben's Best Peanut Butter 'n Yogurt Dip
Real Mom Kitchen
Ingredients
- ½ cup Skippy® Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread
- 1 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
- 2 cups assorted fruit I used bananas, strawberries and apples
Instructions
- Combine Skippy® Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread with yogurt in medium bowl. Use as a dip for fruit...or try topping with granola.
The Famous Lipton California Dip
Real Mom Kitchen
Ingredients
- 1 envelope Lipton® Recipe Secrets® Onion Soup Mix
- 1 container 16 oz. regular or light sour cream
Instructions
- 1. In medium bowl, blend all ingredients; chill at least 2 hours. Serve with your favorite dippers. ( I love to serve it with potato chips)
Gourmet Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes
Real Mom Kitchen
Ingredients
- 1 box 18 oz. chocolate cake mix
- 1 cup Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
- 1 cup water
- 3 eggs
- 1 12 oz bag Reese's miniature peanut butter cups, unwrapped
- 1 cup butter softened
- 2 cups Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 6 Tablespoons milk or more if needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Line two 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake liners; set aside.
- Beat cake mix, Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise, water and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed, scraping sides occasionally, 2 minutes.Scoop or spoon into prepared muffin cups.
- Place one Reese's peanut butter cup into the center of each cupcake. Press the peanut butter cup into the batter so 2/3 of the peanut butter cup is covered with batter. The peanut butter cup will sink further in the cupcakes as it cooks.
- Bake 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes on wire racks; remove from pans and cool completely.
- Place the peanut butter and butter into a large bowl. Beat with a mixer until well blended
- Add half the sugar and half the milk to the butter mixture. Mix until blended.
- Add the remaining sugar and milk. Mix until blended and the beat with mixer for 3 minutes until nice and fluffy. Add more milk if needed to received desired consistency.
- Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. Cut remaining peanut butter cups in half. Place 1 half on top of each cupcakes.
