Spicy Tuna Pinwheels

A spicy combination of tuna and Sriracha sauce.  An easy, filling snack/meal that gives you a zing and fills you up!  You can make a batch of these for yourself, or serve them to guests.  They even make a great addition to a potluck!

These are really awesome and really easy to make!  You need to be able to open a can of tuna, chop a few veggies, and use the oven.

Here’s what you need to make Spicy Tuna Pinwheels:

• 1 can of tuna
• A bottle of Sriracha sauce (you’ll need enough for about 12 pretty good squirts)
• 2 good spoonfuls of mayonnaise
• A small spoonful of crushed red chili pepper flakes
• 1/4 of a green pepper
• 1/8 of a red onion
• 1/2 a fresh jalapeno (include the seeds if you like it really spicy!)
• 1 10″ tortilla wrap
• A good chunk of cheddar cheese

Here’s how to make them:

1.  Open the can of tuna and drain out the juicy stuff.  Put the tuna in a bowl.

Tuna in a bowl

2.  Put a few good squirts of Sriracha sauce n with the tuna.

Yum!

3.  Spoon in a couple of spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

Mayo

4.  Stir it up.  For extra heat, add a small spoonful of crushed red chili pepper flakes.

Taking it to the next level\

5,  Dice the green pepper into small dices and add it to the mixture.

Small-diced green pepper added

6.  Dice some red onion into small dices and add it in.

Adding red onion

7.  Dice up the jalapeno into small pieces and add it into the mixture.

Hot!

8.  Stir it all up until it looks fabulous.

It looks fabulous

9.  Take the tortilla wrap and put it on a plate.  Then heat it in the microwave for ten seconds.  Then put it down on the counter top or a cutting board.

Warmed-up tortilla

10.  Spoon the tuna mixture onto the wrap and then flatten it down with a fork.  Make sure it’s spread around evenly.  Leave about one inch bare on one side of the tortilla.

Spread out and flattened, leaving one inch bare

11. Starting from the edge opposite of the bare part, start rolling the tortilla up, end to end, so it meets up with the bare part.

Rolling up from opposite the bare edge so that it’s rolling to meet up with the bare edge

12.  Roll it all the way and then give it a little squeeze to help it stay together a bit.

All rolled up

13.  Use a knife to cut the roll into slices.  It’s best to cut on a diagonal.

Cutting the roll into slices on an angle

Cutting the roll into slices on an angle

A sliced-up bit

A bunch of sliced-up bits

14.  Turn on the oven to 375 degrees.

15.  Lay all of the tuna bits on a cookie sheet that you’ve already sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

All layed out on a cookie sheet

16.  Cover each bit with a zigzag squirt of Sriracha sauce.

Zigzagged with Sriracha Sauce

Whoa baby!

17.  Top each piece with a nice slice of cheddar cheese.

Topped witch cheese

It’s like a little piece of perfection

18.  Cook them until the cheese is deliciously melted.  It’s usually from ten to fifteen minutes.

A tray full of awesomeness

A Spicy Tuna Pinwheel ready to eat!

19.  Let them sit for about four minutes on the baking sheet and then use a spatula to transfer them to a plate.  You should let them rest for another few minutes before you devour them – they will be hot and gooey!

Cheesy. Melty. Gooey.

Here’s what it costs to make Spicy Tunarachas (about twelve amazing pieces):

• Can of tuna:  $1.00
• Sriracha sauce:  $0.20
• Mayonnaise: $0.20
• Crushed red chili pepper flakes:  $0.03
• Green pepper:  $0.25
• Red onion:  $0.10
• Jalapeno:  $0.06
• Tortilla wrap:  $0.45
• Cheddar cheese:  $0.85

Total cost to make:  $3.14

Enjoy.  These are fabulous, easy, and healthy!

Need some other awesome finger food ideas?  Try one of these:

• Things on Sticks
• Devilled Eggs

Devilled Eggs

These are a party classic for a good reason!

Make these little guys the next time you have company over, or for your next family get-together.

They’re vegetarian and gluten-free!

They’re awesome!!

These little guys involving taking the yolks out of eggs, jazzing the yolks up, and then returning them to the eggs.  It requires patience and some dexterity.

  Here’s what you need to make them (makes 20-24 Devilled Eggs):

• 12 eggs
• 2 or 3 big globs of mayonnaise
• 1 bunch of green onions
• 1/4 of a white or red onion
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• A bit of shredded lettuce for garnish

Here’s how to make Devilled Eggs:

1.  Hard-boil your eggs and make sure to cool them down right away.   While they’re cooling down, you can get started on Step #2.

Hard-boiling the eggs

2.  Chop up the green onions and put them aside on a plate.

Chopping green onions

3.  Dice up the white or red onion and add it to the plate with the green onions.

White and green onions

4.  Now you want to peel your hard-boiled eggs.

Peeling hard-boiled eggs

5.  Once all of your eggs are peeled and you’re sure there’s no eggshell left on any of them, cut them in half lengthwise.   NOTE:  The yolky stuff will stick to your knife a bit, so I always wipe my knife off with a paper towel before cutting the next egg.  If you don’t wipe the knife off, the yolky stuff from the first egg will smear along the second egg as you cut it, which makes your eggs look messy.

Cut each egg in half length-wise

Two halves

6.  Carefully pop the yolks out of each egg and put the yolks in a bowl or a reusable container.  Put the de-yolked egg halves on a plate.

A bowlful of yolks (plus a few white parts that were ripped somewhere in the process)

A plateful of de-yolked egg halves

7.  Add the green and white onions in with the yolks, then spoon 2 or 3 globs of mayonnaise on top.

Globs of mayo topping veggies and egg yolks

8.  Add some delicious pepper for seasoning!

Pepper!

9.  Use a fork to stir the mixture, smashing the egg yolks between the fork prongs to break them up.

Breaking up the yolks and stirring it all up

10.  Keep stirring until it’s all nice and mixed.

Nice and mixed!

11.  Using a small spoon, carefully spoon some of the delicious yolk mixture into each egg half, in the hole where the yolk used to be.  Be careful not to rip the egg while you’re doing it.  Be sure to fill the whole hole, otherwise the egg doesn’t look good!

Not fully filled

Filled all the way and lookin’ good!

12.  Put your finished eggs on a plate that’s lined with shredded lettuce.  The lettuce helps keeps the eggs from sliding along on the plate.

A plate lined with shredded lettuce

Start in the middle, put the eggs on top of the lettuce

A nice plateful of Devilled Delights!

What a great treat for company or a family get-together!

  Here’s what they cost to make (about 20-24 Devilled Delights): 

• Eggs:  $3.00
• Mayonnaise:   $0.50
• Green onions:  $0.50
• White/red onion:  $0.45
• Pepper:  $0.03
• Lettuce:  $0.30

    Total cost to make:   $4.78

    Total cost per single Devilled Egg:  approximately $0.24

This is a very cheap, filling, delicious, and relatively healthy potluck item!  This will happily serve a potluck of 4 to 10 people.

Enjoy!

Need another appetizer idea for a potluck?  Check out these recipes: 

• Slammin’ Clams
• Poppin’ Party Quesadillas

Slammin’ Clams

These are a potluck sensation!   They are easy to make but they are time-consuming.  If you want to impress people at a potluck and you have some time on your hands to carry this out, do it.  I split the work up between two nights so it’s not as bad.  Slammin’ Clams will be the shining star of your potluck!  And there’s a bonus for you at the end!!

Basically Slammin’ Clams are giant clamshell pasta pieces stuffed with delicious macaroni salad.  Why, you ask?  So that we can turn macaroni salad into an easy-to-eat finger food!

These fun little finger-foods are vegetarian and can be gluten-free if you can find gluten-free macaroni and giant shell pasta.

For this recipe, you need to cook 2 different types of pasta, cut some veggies, stir things up, and be patient enough to stuff one kind of pasta with another kind.  It’s not so hard as it is time-consuming.  But it’s cheap!

Here’s what you need to make your Slammin’ Clams:

• 1 package of giant shell pasta
• 1 package of elbow macaroni
• about half a jar of mayonnaise (2 cups or so)
• a bundle of fresh basil
• fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 3 roma tomatoes
• 1 package of grape tomatoes

  Here’s how to make them: 

I break this recipe down into two nights’ worth of prep.  Trust me, it’s better that way.  So put on the music, or throw on a good tv show, and get ready to spend some time in the kitchen.

  Night #1:

1.  Put two big pots of water on the stove to cook.  If you don’t have two big pots, you’ll need to cook your pasta one at a time.  Be sure to stir them frequently so the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot, and so the pasta doesn’t stick to itself either.   Once they’re done, drain them all and set them aside.  Continue with the other steps of this recipe while the pasta is cooking.

NOTE:  Treat the giant clam pasta shells very delicately.  Be really careful when stirring them, but make sure to stir them frequently.  You don’t want them to rip, break, or tear.  You need as many of them to stay in prime shell condition so you can stuff them on Night #2.  When you drain them, be really careful then too.

Stirring the macaroni

Stirring the clams

2.  Put a few good globs of mayonnaise in a container that has a lid.  Then add half of your freshly-chopped basil and some pepper. Stir it around until it’s well-mixed.   Once it’s all well-mixed, put the lid on the container and put it in the fridge.  By letting this stay in the fridge overnight, you’re given the basil time to unleash it’s amazing flavors into the mayonnaise.  I don’t even like basil but I love this mixture after it’s been in the fridge overnight!!

Pre-mixed delicious mayonnaise mixture

Mixed delicious mayonnaise mixture

3.  Finely dice up your red and green peppers.  Once they’re all finely chopped, put them in a bowl or reusable container with a lid, and put them in the fridge overnight.

Red peppers, with green peppers underneath, all ready to be mixed into the macaroni salad on Night #2.

4.  Finely dice up your tomatoes.   Once you’ve diced all 3 roma tomatoes, put them in a container and into the fridge overnight.

Nicely diced-up tomatoes

5.  Take the drained macaroni and rinse it with cold water.  Use your fingers to comb through the pasta to make sure it’s not clumping together.  You can’t make good macaroni salad with clumpy macaroni!

6.  Once the macaroni is all cooled down and not clumping together, cover the whole pot with a damp cloth and put it in the fridge overnight.  (transfer to a smaller container or whatever you need to do so it fits in the fridge).  By covering it with a damp cloth, you’re keeping the pasta from drying out.

Pot of macaroni covered with a damp cloth, ready to go in the fridge until Night #2

7.  Now it’s time to deal with the giant clams.   Once they’re drained and cooled, you need to get rid of any shell that won’t be stuff-able.  Any shell that is ripped or torn or broken won’t look very good at your potluck, so take them out.  Carefully put all of your good shells on one plate, and throw all the bad ones in the garbage.   Once you’re done separating your clams, cover the plate of good clams with a damp cloth and put them in the fridge for Night #2.

Good clams – not broken, ripped, or torn

Ripped, torn, or otherwise crappy shells that won’t be good to stuff on Night #2

Good clams covered with a damp cloth, ready for Night #2

Night #2

1.  Take everything that you put in the fridge on Night #1 out of the fridge.

2.  Spoon the delicious mayonnaise mixture on top of the macaroni.

Delicious mayonnaise mixture on the macaroni

3.  Add the peppers and tomatoes into the macaroni pot too.

Peppers and tomatoes too!

4.  Finely chop the rest of the basil and add it to the mixture.  Add more freshly cracked black pepper if you like (I like it, so I add a lot!)

Looking pretty good!

5.  Mix it all up until you have a gorgeous macaroni salad.  Since this macaroni salad is going into a dryer pasta shell, it’s a good idea to make sure there’s more mayonnaise than you would ordinarily put into macaroni salad – this will make sure that when someone eats a bit, the outer dry clamshell doesn’t stay too try – the moist macaroni salad will compensate!  So add more mayonnaise if you think you need to.

Yum!!

6.  Cut up the grape tomatoes into little round thin slices. You should be able to get 4 or 5 thin little round tomato slices from each grape tomato.

Grape tomato slices

7.  Now it’s time to set up your Slammin’ Clams assembly line.  Put your plate of empty clam shells down, then beside them put the big bowl of macaroni salad, then put your bowl of grape tomato slices, then put the serving plate that you’ll be putting your finished Slammin’ Clams on.

8.  Get a spoon.

9.  Now you want to fill the clamshells with the macaroni salad.  Be careful here, you don’t want to rip the shells.  Gently open up a clamshell with your fingers.  Grab a scoop of macaroni salad with your spoon and carefully spoon it into the shell.  You might need to add a little more than one spoonful of macaroni salad, just be careful.

Open the shell up

Carefully spoon the delicious macaroni salad inside

A happily filled clam

10.  Add a couple of grape tomato slices on top of the macaroni as a garnish.

Garnished with tomato slices

11.  Arrange your clams on the serving plate however you like.

A pretty plate of Slammin’ Clams!

You’re done!

…. but wait, there’s more!

If you cooked the whole package of macaroni, and you made a whole bunch of macaroni salad, you may just have a TON of macaroni salad leftover… AWESOME!!!   Add any un-used slices of grape tomato into the leftover macaroni salad, stir, and you’ve got yourself a few meals to keep at home!  How awesome is THAT!??!

Leftover macaroni salad for you

  Here’s what it costs to make it  (approx 30 Slammin’ Clams, plus about 4 serving-sizes of leftover macaroni salad for you!): 

• Giant shell pasta:  $2.50
• Elbow macaroni:  $1.50
• Mayonnaise:  $2.00
• Basil:  $1.50
• Black pepper:  $0.08
• Green pepper:  $0.60
• Red pepper:  $0.75
• Roma tomatoes:  $1.00
• Grape tomatoes:  $2.00

    Total cost to make:  $11.93

So pretty much, you get 4 servings of amazing macaroni salad that you can eat at home or take in your lunches for work for just $2.98 each – and your 30 amazing Slammin’ Clams are free!

This is a FANTASTIC price to make a crowd-pleasing potluck meal and to score a few meals of your own while you’re at it.

So if you’ve got the time, this is a great recipe to make!

Looking for other pretty potluck items?  Try one of these:

• Bacon Bites
• Things on Sticks

Party Quesadillas

These easy-to-make Party Quesadillas are tasty and will feed as many people as you need to.  Say goodbye to bringing a bag of chips to a potluck – bring these awesome little nibbles instead!

This batch makes 48 quesadilla pieces – enough for a party of 12 to 40.

 This are quick and easy! You need to be able to grate cheese, use an oven, and dice up some veggies.

  Here’s what you need to make Party Quesadillas:

• Two packages of tortilla wraps (for visual variety, use one package of white tortillas, one package of whole wheat tortillas)
• 1 green pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 a white onion
• 3 roma tomatoes
• About 2 cups of grated cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, or a mix of both)
• Another cup of finely grated cheddar or mozzarella cheese

   Here’s how to make them: 

1.  Finely dice the green pepper . The finer the dice, the better your quesadillas will turn out because they will be thinner and easier to cook, stack, and eat!  Put most of the diced green pepper into a bigger bowl, and put about 1/4 of the diced green pepper into a separate smaller bowl.

Bigger bowl of pepper dices on the left, smaller amount on the right.

2.  Repeat Step 1 with the yellow and red peppers.  Donate 3/4 of your diced peppers to the bigger bowl (mixing the green, yellow, and red dices together), and put 1/4 of your dices into separate smaller bowls, so you should have 1 big bowl of mixed peppers, and 3 smaller bowls – one with green pepper dices, one with red pepper dices, and one with yellow pepper dices.

On the left, diced yellow in with the green, and on the right is a separate bowl of just diced yellow

On the left, diced red added to the other colors, and on the right is diced red all on its own

3.  Finely dice up some onion and put it in a separate bowl from the peppers.

Finely diced white onion

4.  Cut up the tomatoes.  I actually left my tomatoes a little on the chunkier side (although still sliced thinly).  Since we don’t add salsa to the quesadillas, the tomatoes serve as a bit of a ‘juicy’ component, so I left the pieces a little bigger.

Tomato chunks

5.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

6.  Grate up your cheese.  You want to grate some of it to the ‘regular grated cheese’ size, and some of it to the ‘really fine’ grated cheese size.  You’ll need more of the regular size though.

Regular-sized grated cheese

7.  Mix up your bowlful of different-colored veggies so they’re all nice and mixed together.

All nice and mixed together

8.  Get a big baking sheet and lay four tortilla shells on it around the edges, like in the picture below:

Tortillas on a pan, folded up to see how they’ll fit

9.  Now unfold the tortillas so they’ll all the way open – they will be hanging over the edges of the pan like in the picture below:

Tortillas opened up so the ingredients can be put inside

10.  Sprinkle the bottom half of each wrap (the half that’s on the pan) with a bit of grated cheese.  You don’t need very much – anytime you order a quesadilla at a restaurant, you’ll notice they’re not filled very much but they’re still delicious!

Cheese sprinkled on the bottom halves

11.  Sprinkle some of the colored peppers (from the big mixed bowl) on top of the cheese.  Again, you don’t need to totally cover the tortillas.  Just a good sprinkling will do the trick.  Then sprinkle on the tomatoes and the onions.

Sprinkled with colored peppers, onions, and tomatoes. You can see that the tortillas are not filled very much with ingredients – this helps keep them flatter during cooking, and also helps keep them simple. Also, it helps you save money!

12.  Sprinkle another scattered layer of regular grated cheese on top.

Cheese on top

13.  Now fold the top folds back over to make them into quesadillas.  Give each top a little pat-down to flatten the quesadillas as much as possible.  Then cook them in the oven for 8 minutes.

Folded back over, going into the oven for 8 minutes

14.  After the 8 minutes, take the quesadillas out of the oven.  Very carefully use a spatula to flip each quesadilla over to the other side.

15.  Now you want to take the ‘finely grated’ cheese and sprinkle an arc of it on each tortilla, like in the picture below:

Small arc of finely grated cheddar cheese in a wide arc

16.  Use your bowls of separate-colored peppers to decorate the wraps.  Sprinkle the top of each wrap with a different color of finely diced peppers.   The grated cheese will serve as a glue to hold the peppers in place.

Different colored peppers over the grated cheese

17.  Put the quesadillas back in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes, until the cheese on the top is melted nicely.

18.  Once these 4 tortillas are out of the oven, use the spatula to transfer them to dinner plates to let them cool.  Repeat the process with another four tortillas.  Be sure to clean off the baking sheet before you put the next four tortillas on, though, so that there’s no cheese or peppers on the baking sheet that are going to burn during the second batch.

A quick wipe with a paper towel between batches

19.  Once all of the tortillas are cooked and cooled, it’s time to cut them.  Cut each quesadilla in half.  Then cut each half into three pieces.  You should get six pieces out of each bigger quesadilla.

Cut in half

Each half cut in thirds

20.  Arrange the quesadillas on your serving plate.  Since you’ve used different colored peppers on the top of them, you should have a bunch of quesadilla slices that look different – some are white, some are whole-wheat, some have green peppers on top, some have red peppers on top, and some have yellow peppers on top.  Arrange them on your serving plate so that the different colors are all spread out!

Party Quesadillas

People love variety.  People love looking at your plate of quesadillas and getting to choose between a white one or a whole-wheat one, one with green peppers on top or one with red peppers on top.  It adds a different level of excitement to your dish!

The recipe above uses 8 tortillas and makes 48 pieces.  That’s a serving big enough to take to any size of party!

What it costs to make them:

• Tortilla wraps:  $4.00
• 1 green pepper:  $0.60
• 1 yellow pepper $0.75
• 1 red pepper $0.60
• 1/2 a white onion $0.40
• 3 roma tomatoes $1.00
• Cheese:  $2.00

  Total cost to make:  $9.35

  Total cost per each little quesadilla:  $0.19

That’s a great price for a huge potluck meal!

  Here’s some benefits to making Party Quesadillas:

• They are cheap and they can feed a potluck of 50 people!
• They aren’t that common at potlucks, so you get points for orginality
• They’re easy to make
• They’re tasty!
• They’re vegetarian
• They’re colorful and look like a lot more effort than they actually were

  Here are some more potluck recipes to try out!

• Cheesy Bacon Mini-Balls
• Humpty Dumpty Nacho Dip

Pizza Pinwheels

With pizza being so popular, how come it’s not more popular at potlucks?

It’s your chance to be the Office Hero!  Bring these bad boys to your next potluck at work, or to your next family gathering, and listen to the music of compliments all day!

This recipe is vegetarian – you can add meaty stuff if you want, but Pizza Pillows taste amazing without any meat added.  If you can find gluten-free tortilla wraps somewhere, you can make these gluten-free too!

 These are surprisingly simple!  You need to be able to chop a few veggies, grate cheese, and roll up tortillas.  You’ll be the hero of the party!

Here’s what you need to make them:

• Tortilla wraps (1 10-inch wrap will get you 10 to 12 pieces)
• A jar of pizza sauce
• About a cup of grated cheese (I use a mix of cheddar and mozzarella)
• Your favorite pizza veggies (tomatoes, onions, green peppers, jalapenos, green olives, etc.)

Here’s how to make them:

1.  Cut up all of your favorite pizza veggies into small dices.  I like the combination of tomatoes, onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and green olives, but you can use whatever you like.  Add mushrooms if you want.  You could also add meat, like small-diced pepperoni or sausage or bacon.

A bowlful of finely-diced chopped pizza veggies

2.  Pour a little bit of pizza sauce in with the veggies and stir it up.  You want to add just enough sauce so that each piece of veggie is coated, plus a little bit extra.

Veggies coated with pizza sauce

3.  Take a tortilla wrap and spoon some of the saucy veggies on it.  You want to have enough saucy veggies on the tortilla to cover the entire tortilla but you don’t want the layer to be too thick or it won’t roll up very well.

A tortilla wrap covered with saucy veggies

4.  Sprinkle some cheese on top of the saucy veggies.  It doesn’t have to be a big layer of cheese, just a good sprinkling.

A good sprinkling of cheese on top of the saucy veggies

5.  Roll up the tortilla, starting from the bottom (closest to you) and going all the way up to the top so it’s completely rolled.  See the pictures below:

Start by turning up the edge closest to you

Continue to roll – don’t squeeze too hard but also don’t roll too loose, just try to roll as tight as you can without squishing the ingredients out

Your finished roll should look like this

6.  Cut the roll up into slices.  A 10-inch tortilla should get you 10 or 12 slices.  I cut these straight across.  Since the pizza sauce isn’t really sticky, the sliced roll-ups won’t stay together as well, so quickly transfer them from your cutting board to a baking sheet.  If they fall apart a bit, do your best to reconstruct them.

A baking sheet full of cut-up pre-baked Pizza Pillows

A close-up of a cut-up, pre-baked Pizza Pillow

7.  Put the Pizza Pillows in a 375 degree oven for 8 minutes.

8.  After 8 minutes, take them out.  Since they can fall apart easily, don’t flip them.

9.  Using a spoon, add a small glob of pizza sauce onto the top of each Pizza Pillow.  You don’t want to add too much or these will be messy to eat – you just want a nice little layer of saucy goodness.

Pizza Pillows with pizza sauce globs on top

10.  Sprinkle cheese on top.

Cheese sprinkled on top

A close-up of the cheese on top

11. Put them back in the oven for another 5 or 6 minutes, or until the cheese is melted the way you like it.

12.  Take them out of the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes.  They will not fall apart very much at all now that they’ve been topped with sauce and cheese, but letting them cool for a few minutes on the sheet will help them stay together even more.

13.  Once they’ve rested for a bit, they’re ready!  You can snack on them, or you can put them on a pretty plate and bring them to a potluck.

Pizza Pillows, lookin’ delicious!

Pizza Pillows are great warm or cold.  They are probably better warm, though, since they’re supposed to be little pizzas, so if you take them to a potluck see if there’s an oven you can heat them up in for a few minutes.  But it’s not the end of the world if you have to serve them cold – they still taste like pizza and they are still amazing!!

Here’s how much they cost to make (for 3 tortilla rolls’ worth):

• Tortilla wraps:  $1.00
• Pizza sauce:  $1.50
• Cheese:  $1.50
• Veggies:  $0.75

   Total cost to make:  $4.75

The above amount will make about 36 little appetizers.  Not bad for $4.75!  That’s just $0.13 each!

If you want to make Pizza Pillows for a snack, just keep these ingredients handy and make them anytime you want!  Making one tortilla roll of these (12 pieces) will only cost about $1.58 and it will be the best snack you have all week!!

Close-up of a Pizza Pillow…. yum!

  Looking for some other cool snack/appetizer recipes?  Check these out:

• Bacon Bites
• Cheesy Bacon Mini-Balls

Golden Dynamite Dip

Corn is the highlight of this meal – an unusual star of an appetizer!  That makes this meal a welcome and unique appetizer idea.  I love this dip as a potluck item – I’ll bring it to a work potluck or to a family gathering.  However, I’ve also made a batch of it to take in my lunches – after all, it’s filling, healthy, fun, and delicious!

Golden Dynamite Dip

For this recipe, you need to be able to cook chicken, grate cheese, open a can, and chop some veggies.

Here’s what you need to make Golden Dynamite Dip:

• 1 boneless chicken breast
• 2 tbsps of cooking oil
• One can of whole kernel corn (I use a big can – it’s cheap and it makes more dip!)
• 1 jar of salsa (I use medium salsa)
• A good chunk of cheddar cheese
• 1/4 of a red onion
• 2 Roma tomatoes
• 1/2 of a green pepper
• 1/4 of a red pepper
• A bag of tortilla chips

Here’s how to make it: 

1.  Put the cooking oil in  a pan on the stove.  Turn the heat on to medium.  Cut up your chicken breast into cubes and throw it into the pan to cook.  Stir it frequently and make sure to cook it until there are no pink parts left.

Slices of chicken being cooked in a pan

Chicken all cooked up

2.  Dice the onion into small dices and put the dices into a bowl.

Small dices of onion

3.  Dice up the peppers and add the dices to the bowl of onions.

Onions, jalapenos and green peppers all in a bowl

4.  Dice up the tomatoes into small dices and add them to the bowl with the other veggies.

Tomatoes too!

5.  Pour the bowl of veggies into the pan with the chicken.

Veggies in with the chicken

6.  Open the can of corn, drain the juicy stuff out, and then add the corn to the pan of veggies and chicken.  Then stir it all up.

Tasty canned corn!

Ohhh yeah!!

7.  Let the mixture heat up for a few minutes so everything gets all nice

8.  Add a few big globs of salsa, using a spoon, and then mix it all up with the veggies.

Some big globs of salsa

All stirred in – yum!

9.  Let the mixture heat up a bit so the flavors all blend together.

10.  Once it’s warm, pour it into the serving dish.

11.  If you’re eating the dip now, cover the top with grated cheese.  If you’re taking the dip to a potluck, grate the cheese and store it separately from the dip, then sprinkle the cheese on top of the dip just before you serve it.

12.  Serve tortilla chips alongside this dip and enjoy!  It’s terrific!

What a pretty and delicious potluck item!

What a great dinner!!!

Here’s what it costs to make: 

• Chicken:  $2.00
• Cooking oil:  $0.05
• Canned corn:  $1.30
• Salsa:  $2.50
• Cheese:  $1.50
• Veggies:  $1.20
• Tortilla chips:  $2.50

Total cost to make:  $11.05.   The recipe above made enough dip for me to eat for dinner tonight plus 4 lunches at work.  That’s five meals for just $11.05!!  That’s just $2.21 per serving!  And it’s incredibly delicious!!

$11.05 is a good price to pay for a delicious and super-healthy potluck item.  If you’re having company over, you won’t need to serve much more than this dip – it’s very filling!

It’s very similar to nacho dip but it features corn, however it’s loaded with other flavors.  It’s a nice change and the flavor really pops!

There’s lots of different appetizers on this site!  Check out some of these: 

• Things on Sticks
• Humpty Dumpty Nacho Dip

Cheesy Bacon Balls

Cheeseballs are great, aren’t they?   Well, what can be better than smaller, individual-sized cheeseballs that people can pick up and squish between their favorite chips or crackers?

Note that the first two steps of this recipe are the exact same as the first two steps for Bacon Bites.  If you want to bring two different things to a party, bring both!  They’ve got the same base ingredients but they look and taste different… and you save money by not having to buy a bigger range of ingredients!

These are really easy to make!  You stir stuff up and form it into balls.  That’s all it takes!

Here’s what you need to make them:

• 1 brick of cream cheese, softened (take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you want to use it)
• as much cooked bacon as you have available, chopped into pretty small pieces
• about 1/4 of an onion finely chopped (optional)
• a good handful of grated mozzarella cheese
• a handful of grated cheddar cheese
• toothpicks
• crackers/chips

Here’s how to make them:

1.   Take the cream cheese and either cut it into smaller pieces with a knife, or wash your hands super-good and then squish the brick of cream cheese with your hands.  Then put it in a mixing bowl.

Cream cheese, room temperature and squished for easier mixing

2.  Add the grated mozzarella cheese, the chopped bacon, and the onion.  Stir it up until it’s nicely mixed and smooth.

Delicious mixture!!!

More delicious mixture!

Delicious mixture all stirred up

3.  For the best flavor, put the cream cheese mixture in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.  Trust me, it works wonders for the flavor of the mixture.

4.  Once the flavors are all nice and blended, it’s time to make the balls!  Take a bit of mixture at a time and roll it into a ball, repeating until all the mixture is used.   Each ball should be about 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

5.  Take some more mozzarella cheese and the cheddar cheese and mix them together on a plate.  Then roll each little bacon cheeseball in the cheese so that there’s a bunch of cheese all over the outside of the cheeseball.

Mini Cheeseballs!

6.  Stab a toothpick into each cheeseball so people can pick them up easily.

Stabbed Mini Cheeseballs!

7.  Arrange the mini cheese-balls on a pretty plate, and surround them with the crackers.

Cheesy Bacon Balls

8.  Mini cheeseballs can be eaten on their own, but I like to take a mini cheeseball and smear it on a cracker, then put another cracker on top to make a cheeseball sandwich.

A cracker topped with a delicious Mini Cheeseball

A Mini Cheeseball squishy sandwich!

These little guys are both delicious and easy to eat.  They’re also a good little conversation piece!

Since cream cheese and bacon and stuff is expensive, I save these little guys for a smaller, more intimate party where I know everyone is bringing something to eat.  That way I don’t have to make so many because there will be lots of other food, but these mini Cheeseballs are still a great contribution to the party and everyone will love them!

Here’s what it cost to make them (cost below is for about 15 cheeseballs):

• Cream cheese:  $2.50
• Bacon:  $1.50
• Onion:  $0.25
• Mozzarella cheese:  $1.50
• Cheddar cheese:  $0.75
• Toothpicks:  $0.04
• Crackers/chips:  $2.50

   Total to make:  $9.04

They’re a little more expensive than some other appetizers, but they are really easy to make and they are also really popular at a party!  So if you usually bring cheaper stuff and you want to up your game every now and then, this is a good recipe to go with.  Delicious!

Not quite what you were looking for?  Check out these potluck ideas: 

• Golden Dynamite Dip
• Bring a Plate of Orange Slices

 

Bacon Bites

Small bites.  Powerful flavor.  Amazing satisfaction.

These tortilla roll-ups are awesome to eat on your own as a snack.  They’ve bacony and cheesy.  What could be better?

To feast on this recipe, you need to be able to cook bacon, roll tortillas, and bake things in the oven.  That’s it!

 Here’s what you need to make it (2-4 people’s worth):

• 1 brick of cream cheese, softened (take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you want to use it)
•  2 tortilla wraps
• 6 to 8 pieces of bacon (use pre-cooked bacon if you have it!)
• a good handful of grated mozzarella cheese
• a handful of grated cheddar cheese
• about 1/4 of an onion finely chopped

 Here’s what you need to do:

1.   Take the cream cheese and either cut it into smaller pieces with a knife, or wash your hands super-good and then squish the brick of cream cheese with your hands.  Then put it in a mixing bowl.

Cream cheese, room temperature and squished for easier mixing

2.  Add the grated mozzarella cheese, the chopped bacon, and the onion.  Stir it up until it’s nicely mixed and smooth.

Check out the tasty mixture!

3.  Now take about half of that delicious cream cheese mixture and dump it onto a tortilla wrap.

Fabulous bacon mixture on a wrap

4.  Now use a knife, spoon, or spatula to spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the tortilla.

Use a knife to give it a good spread

Spread until it’s even all over the wrap

5.  Now you want to roll up the tortilla.  Start at the bottom edge closest to you, roll as tight as possible.

Rollin’

6.  Your finished roll-up should look like this:

A good roll

3 good rolls

I like to put the rolls in the fridge for awhile to help the flavors all blend together.  You don’t have to if you don’t have time – you can cut & bake these right away, or you can even leave them in the fridge overnight and then make them the next day.

7.  Take a roll-up and cut it into slices like this:

Slice like this

8.  Arrange all of the cut-up pieces on a baking sheet.

All ready to be baked

9.  Let them bake for about five minutes at 400 degrees, then take them out of the oven and flip them all over.

Half-baked, melty and cheesy

10.  Cook them for another five minutes or so.  Then flip them again.  Now you want to sprinkle them all with the grated cheddar cheese.

Sprinkled with cheese

11.  Cook them for another 4 minutes or so, until the cheddar cheese is melted the way you like it.

Bacon Spiral Bites

Now they’re done!

Let them rest for about 5 minutes so the cheese firms up a bit.  Yes, gooey cheese is cool, but not when your appetizer becomes impossible to eat because it’s too gooey.

After about five minutes, take the Power Bites off the baking sheet and put them on a plate.  Serve them to your guests and they will love them!

You can also take these guys to parties.  You need to double or triple the recipe probably though.  Also, these are way better warm so make sure you ask your host if you can have some oven space for about 5 minutes to reheat them before you serve them at the party.

  Here’s what it costs to make (for the serving in the above recipe):

• 1 brick of cream cheese:  $2.50
• 2 tortilla wraps:  $1.20
• Bacon:  $2.00
• Mozzarella cheese:  $1.00
• Cheddar cheese:  $0.75
• Onion:  $0.10

Total Cost:  $7.55 – but remember, this feeds 4 people, maybe even a good appetizer for 5 or 6 people.  You can always double the recipe, or you can cut thinner slices to make more pieces.  If you cut thinner slices, don’t cook the roll-ups for so many minutes at a time or they will burn.

A plate full of Bacon Bites, ready for a party!

For more quick and easy potluck ideas, check out these recipes:

• Pizza Pillows
• Devilled Delights

Humpty Dumpty Nacho Dip

This Nacho Dip will be the hit of the party.  Trust me.  It’s got the classic Nacho Dip taste that everyone loves along with an added bite of taco tang!  Absolutely fantastic!

To whip up this recipe, you need to be able to cut up a lot of veggies and arrange them prettily in a serving dish.  You also need to be able to use a mixer or hand-mixer.  If you can do those simple things, you can pull off this amazing dip!

Here’s what you need to make it:

• half a brick of cream cheese (about 4oz)
• 2 cups of sour cream (one regular-sized container)
• 1 package of taco seasoning, or about 1 tbsp tex-mix seasoning
• About 1 1/2 cups of salsa
• A big chunk of cheddar cheese
• 1/4 of a red or white onion
• 1 green pepper
• 3 Roma tomatoes
• 1/2 an jalapeno, very finely diced
• 1/2 a head of iceberg lettuce
• A bag or two or tortilla chips

  Here’s how to make it:

1.  Cut up the cream cheese into rough cubes and throw it in a bowl with the sour cream and the tex-mex seasoning.  Use a hand-mixer or an electric beater to cream it all together until it’s nice and smooth.  You can do it by hand if you want, but it takes a lot of effort to thoroughly mix anything with cream cheese – using an electric blending device is way better.

Cream cheese mixture

2.  Pour the mixture into your serving dish.  I like to use a glass or clear serving dish so people can see the layers.  So a glass pie plate, or an 8×8 square glass pan, or anything like that is fine.  If you don’t have a glass dish, don’t worry about it.  You really can just use anything you want.  Spread the mixture evenly in the pan.

Cream cheese mixture spread in a pretty serving dish

3.  Now put globs of salsa on top, enough so that you can spread a nice layer of salsa over the whole cream cheese layer.  Once you’ve put the globs down, use a spoon or spatula to spread the salsa evenly over the cream cheese layer.

Globs of salsa on top

4.  Dice up the onion into small dices and sprinkle it over the salsa.

5.  Dice up the green pepper into small dices and sprinkle it over the onions.

6.  Dice up the jalapeno pepper and sprinkle it over everything else.

A nice layer of onions, green peppers, and jalapenos on top of the salsa

7.  Sprinkle the top with the grated cheese so it’s in a nice even layer.

A good cheesy layer!

8.  Shred half a head of iceberg lettuce and sprinkle a good layer of shredded lettuce on top of the cheese.

Lettuce layer

9.  Dice your tomatoes into small dices and sprinkle them on top of the lettuce.

Colorful tomatoes on top

Check it out from the side:

Side view…. WOW!

You’ll be the star of the show if you bring Humpty Dumpty Nacho Dip.  It looks great on its own – but if you bring a bowl of tortilla chips in a brightly colored bowl (you can buy a good one at the dollar store), you and your amazing dip will be raved about all night!!

Here’s what it cost to make: 

• Sour cream:  $2.00
• Cream cheese:  $1.75
• Cheddar cheese:  $3.00
• Salsa:  $2.00
• Tortilla chips:  $4.00
• Veggies:  $2.00
• Lettuce:  $.50
• Tex-mex seasoning:  $0.25

Total to make:  $15.50

This recipe can happily feed anywhere from 8-20 guests, so $15.50 is not bad.  Let’s say you go to a party of 10 people, you just gave them all a great appetizer for $1.55 each!  And it’s a great dish, it will be the most popular one there, and you’ll feel great about it!  Not a bad deal 🙂

   Is someone else bringing Nacho Dip to the party?  Bring one of these treats instead:

• Bacon Bites
• Bring a Plate of Orange Slices

Jalapeno Pinwheels

I make these bad boys anytime I realize that I have cream cheese and tortillas in the house at the same time.  I always have pickled jalapenos, so that’s never a problem!

These are easy to make and taste amazing.  If you need a gluten-free option, spread the cream cheese mixture on your favorite corn tortilla chips instead of wrapping them in a tortilla.  Absolutely equally awesome.

For this tasty recipe, you need to be able to stir really hard or use a hand mixer, and you need to be able to use your oven or toaster oven.  So it’s really easy – you can do it!

Here’s what you need to make Jalapeno Pinwheels:

• 1 brick of cream cheese
• A good handful of pickled jalapenos
• 2 or 3 8 or 10-inch tortillas

 Here’s how to make them:

1.  Put the cream cheese in a bowl.  To make stirring easier, cut the cream cheese into smaller pieces first.  Also to make stirring easier, have the cream cheese at room temperature.

2.  Put as much chopped jalapeno in there as you think you can handle.

3.  Stir it all around until it’s nothing but a crazy mash of deliciousness.

Crazy mash of deliciousness

4.  Put the crazy mash of deliciousness in the fridge overnight.  Trust me.  It makes the jalapeno get a million times more flavorful in that cream cheese.  It is worth the wait.

5.  The next day, take the cream cheese mixture out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for a bit so it’s good and spreadable.

6.  Take a tortilla and glob all the cream cheese mixture onto it.   You should also turn your oven on to something like 400 degrees (I use my toaster oven).

7.  Spread all the cream cheese out, all over the tortilla from edge to edge.  Try not to rip the tortilla.  The warmer your cream cheese stuff is, the easier it will spread.  You don’t have a chance spreading it if it’s cold.  You’ll just end up with a bunch of ripped-up tortillas.

Tortilla wrap all spread with the creamy goodness

8.  Now just start from the bottom of the tortilla and tightly roll it up.  Roll it as tight as you can.  It’s just better that way.

Rolling

All rolled up

9.  Take the rolled-up magic and cut it into slices.  The straighter across you cut, the smaller your pieces will be.  If you cut your pieces more diagonally, you’ll get pieces that are longer.

Cut through the roll

A nice row of tasty Twisters

10.  Spray your cooking sheet with some non-stick stuff and pack all those delicious slices on it.  Then cook them for about 5 minutes.  Then take them out, flip them all over, and cook them for another few minutes, until you can see that they’re starting to toast.

Getting toasty!

11.  Once they’re done to your liking, take them out of the oven, put them on a plate, and devour them.  Amazing snack!

Jalapeno Pinwheels

Yes, you should make these one night ahead, but you know what, it’s worth it!

You can also make a whole lot more of these, using a whole lot more cream cheese, and bring them to a party or serve them if you have people coming over.

If you want to make a less-hot version, use red pepper instead of jalapenos.  Cut really small pieces and mix them into the cream cheese.

  Here’s what it cost to make (for one roll for one person):

• Cream cheese:  $1.50
• Jalapenos:  $.50
• Tortilla:  $0.40

   Total:  $2.40 – not a bad price for a snack that will not only be filling, but tasty!  It leaves a really satisfying heat on your tongue!

   Still hungry for snack ideas?  Help yourself to one of these recipes: 

• Super Perogies
• Outta This World Nachos