The last time I was looking for something different that we hadn’t had in ages, I went searching for dirt recipes. I’m not going to repeat the recipe I used because it’s literally ALL OVER the Internet, but I found it on AllRecipes if you want to get yours there, too. However, I WILL say that I used the one that calls for less butter – not that I’m not totally gaga over butter, but when you’re throwing all of those fattening ingredients together, the way I see it, if you can save fat and calories without ruining the taste, then it’s a no-brainer. So, try to pick a recipe that calls for ¼ cup of butter instead of ½ cup. Also, I like to use the “extra creamy” Cool Whip since it has real cream in it.

I’m going to detour here a bit and have a little rant. I’ll be honest with you – I’m suspicious of Cool Whip; it gives me the willies and defies all logic. How can something that looks like whipped cream, and tastes, um…creamy…NOT be a dairy product? It’s like the blurb on the back of a powdered, non-dairy coffee creamer that exclaims, “IT WHIPS!” How can it whip when there’s no freakin’ cream in it? It’s unnatural! Cool Whip is basically HYDROGENATED oil (you know, the BAD oil) with a ton of emulsifiers holding it in a perpetual state of fluff to keep it from melting back into the oil that it is. If you put a bowl of real whipped cream on your counter and left it there, it would gradually “deflate” and melt back into a liquid. If you put a tub of Cool Whip on your counter and left it there, it would look unchanged – THAT’S not natural. Anyway, this is precisely the reason that I go for the “extra creamy” Cool Whip – it may not be all cream, but at least a little cream means less oil. If there were a way to substitute REAL whipped cream for Cool Whip in this recipe and every other recipe that calls for it, I’d be right there, but real cream (much as I love it) just won’t hold-up in recipes like Franken-cream will.

Another slight detour…. I saw a “Good Eats” episode about making your own mayonnaise. Alton Brown explained that the idea behind making mayonnaise is to create a stable EMULSION of oil, egg yolk and vinegar. There’s a science to it, but in lay terms, an emulsion is created when you mix two or more ingredients that wouldn’t ordinarily mix (like oil and a water-based liquid). He stressed in this episode that you can pick the type of oil that you’d like to use in your mayonnaise (like olive oil, which is a healthy oil). As I’m writing this, I’m wondering if you couldn’t do the same with extra-virgin coconut oil, pasteurized egg yolk and cream to make a healthier version of Cool Whip. Hm…something to experiment with when the kids are back in school, I think. Okay, I now continue my regularly scheduled blog post….

As I was shopping for the ingredients, it struck me how Nabisco’s really expanded the Oreo line of cookies. There are so many different varieties on that shelf. I mean, literally, there’s the regular kind that I grew up with. Then, there’s double-stuffed…and “fudgies”…and chocolate with mint filling, chocolate with peanut butter filling, golden with white filling, golden with chocolate filling and chocolate with chocolate filling. Same goes for pudding, although to a lesser extent; there’s vanilla, chocolate, banana cream and every now and again, I’ll see cheesecake flavored.

It got me thinking how you could make the dirt recipe in a number of varieties, switching different flavored cookies with different flavored pudding mixes. So, for the purposes of this post, I experimented. I decided to make an all-vanilla dirt (“sand,” I think they call it), an all-chocolate dirt, and a Nanna-Nutter dirt with banana cream pudding and Nutter Butter cookies.

They all tasted good. People who are partial to chocolate would like the all-chocolate, and the same goes for the all-vanilla; there was no real surprise in either regard. The BIG surprise, however, was the other kind I made. I’m not much of a peanut butter person (although I do get cravings every now and again), but the dirt recipe made with banana cream pudding and crushed Nutter Butter cookies was VERY tasty. So, if you’re looking for something different….

It’ll be a while before I make it again, ’cause we need time to get that Cool Whip out of our systems But when I do make it again, I’ll try Nilla Wafers with banana cream pudding. I’d like to be able to add real bananas to the creamy part of the recipe, but you know they’ll just turn brown (and I don’t want to soak them in anything acidic since it’s a recipe with dairy in it). Even if they don’t turn brown, bananas get kind of mealy and mushy after they’re sliced, which is VERY unappealing. Instead, I’ll plan on having fresh bananas handy so that I can put slivers on top of the dirt as it’s served. How’s THAT for creative? Now, if I could just think of some catchy names for these variations….

The only problem with making shrimp salad at home, though, is if you have a family, it’s kind of expensive. Even on sale, the 36-40 count raw (per pound) is usually around $7, and it shrinks when you cook it. But wait! There’s still a deliciously less-expensive way to enjoy shrimp salad, and that’s to make MACARONI and shrimp salad. Making it this way REALLY stretches the shrimp, enough that the whole family can enjoy it for days.

The recipe I’m about to give you is actually a conglomeration of two other recipes – my mother’s and my BFF’s. For example, my mother doesn’t put green pepper or egg in hers and my BFF doesn’t put sweet onion in hers. I combined the two with the ingredients that I and my family like the best and came up with a real crowd-pleaser!

The only ingredient that’s a fixed amount is the macaroni; the rest of the ingredients are to suit your own personal taste. The measures given below are the way we like it best:

Note: You’ll need a very large bowl for mixing and storage!

Ingredients:

16 oz. box of Barilla macaroni*
2 pounds of peeled shrimp that’s been boiled or steamed with Old Bay seasoning
½ medium, sweet onion minced**
½ green pepper, finely chopped
2-3 roma or plum tomatoes, cleaned of all seeds and chopped***
2-3 cups of Hellmann’s mayonnaise
1 teaspoon (or more or less, to taste) of Old Bay
6 hard-boiled egg whites

Instructions:

1.  Cook the macaroni. When done, strain the hot water and immediately place noodles in ice water to cool and arrest the cooking process. Strain and refrigerate in the strainer (to get even more liquid out).
2.  Mince the sweet onion and mix with the mayonnaise and Old Bay; cover and refrigerate.
3.  Chop the green pepper and tomatoes and refrigerate.
4.  When the macaroni has had a chance to strain for a good while, empty into a large bowl. Chop the egg whites and the shrimp into large pieces and mix both with the cold macaroni.
5.  Fold the chopped green pepper and tomato into the macaroni mixture.
6.  Add the mayonnaise mixture last and taste it. If it’s too dry, you can always add more mayo. If it’s too bland, add more Old Bay in small increments until it’s seasoned the way you like it. You can always have some Old Bay in a shaker handy for anyone who wants to add more to their own portion.
7.  Refrigerate and enjoy!

* Barilla noodles have ridges in them, so they grab and hold the other ingredients better than smooth noodles do.

** You can use regular onion, but make sure you add less or the flavor will take over the whole salad.

This recipe is so simple that you only need two ingredients: Chocolate and coconut oil. You can use pretty much any chocolate that you enjoy eating. For the purposes of this blog post, I used some leftover Hershey kisses that I had stored in the refrigerator. However, I have used chocolate chips and other types of wrapped chocolate in the past, and they all work equally as well. On to the coconut oil….

As you may or may not already know, coconut oil sort of “goes with the flow” when it comes to temperature. If it’s summertime, the coconut oil on your kitchen counter will probably be in liquid form; conversely, when it’s wintertime, that same container of coconut oil will be solid and resemble vegetable shortening (Crisco). But make no mistake — the appearance is where the similarity between coconut oil and Crisco begins and ends. There are so many health benefits to everything coconut (yes, including the oil, if it’s virgin and cold-pressed), that I can save it for an informational post in the future. But rest assured, you’re not going to clog your arteries with it. In fact, I remember reading the label of a store-bought bottle, and coconut oil is listed in the ingredients.

If you look at the picture above, you’ll see that I filled a microwave-safe glass measuring cup with about 1.5 cups of Hershey kisses. I’m not sure what the chocolate chip equivalent would be, but my best guess would be around one cup. Since my kisses came out of the fridge, and they were cold, I microwaved them for about 30 seconds before adding my three tablespoons of coconut oil. Then, I microwaved the chocolate and oil for 30 seconds and stirred. I still had little chunks of chocolate in my sauce, so I put it back in the microwave for another 20 seconds. When I had a nice, smooth sauce that wasn’t too warm, I knew it was ready.

If you like, you can buy a bottle with a small spout for drizzling, but actually getting the sauce in that bottle (not to mention the cleanup) might be more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t recommend refrigerating your sauce — simply cover the container it’s in. And if you find that it’s a little gooey or too hard the next time you want to use it, just microwave for a few seconds and it should return to that nice, glossy smooth texture.

So, drizzle that sauce over your favorite ice cream, wait about two or three minutes and enjoy! If you have kids, you get the added bonus of watching their happy faces dig into that special treat thinking how totally cool and awesome you are for making your own! Everything should be this easy