February 2017 – Lavender Box Bakery

It’s Pancake Day.

February 28, 2017Leave a comment

Almost everyone knows about the Mardi Gras celebrations that take place all over the world on Shrove Tuesday. But the real party on Shrove Tuesday doesn’t take place in New Orleans or Rio de Janeiro. No, as anyone from Southwest Kansas knows, the best celebration on the day before the start of Lent is International Pancake Day.

That’s right…Pancake Day. Complete with parade, talent show and, the highlight of the celebration, The International Pancake Race.

Yup, It’s a Thing.

Not only is it a thing, it truly is an International thing. Okay, I can tell you are skeptical, so here’s a little history lesson for those of you who are unlucky enough NOT to have lived the dream.

The story goes all the way back more than 500 years, 1445 to be exact. The story goes something like this…

A housewife in England was so engrossed in using all her cooking fats (which were forbidden during Lent) making pancakes, she lost all track of time and it wasn’t until she heard the church bells that she realized she was late for Shriving Service. Pausing only long enough to grab her headscarf, she races off to the church–still wearing her apron, with skillet, and pancake, in hand. In the years that followed, it became a competition for the women to see who could race to the church the fastest and get the “Kiss of Peace” from the church bell ringer.

Race ahead a few centuries (pun intended) to 1950 when a member of the Liberal Kansas Junior Chamber of Commerce (JayCees) saw some press clippings about the Olney England Pancake Race and challenged their women to race against the women of Liberal. The rest is history. My history at least.

Some of my best memories are of Pancake Day. When I was a kid in the 70’s, Pancake Day was not just a holiday in Liberal, but the entire area got into the fun. The Pancake Day Parade was wonderful. Bands and floats from towns in Oklahoma and Southwest Kansas were joined by the Shriners in their funny cars, weaving and dancing before my excited eyes.

As I grew and got old enough (5th grade) to be part of the school band, I got my first chance to be a part of Pancake Day as a participant. From marching in the grade school band, which was comprised of all band students from all 7 elementary school in town, through marching as a proud Warrior in the West Jr. High School Marching Band, and finally to the pinnacle as a member of “That” Liberal Band, The Pride of the Southwest.

As an adult, Pancake Day was just as special. Every year I would take the girls to the races and the parade. And Daughters #2 &#3 both raced in the toddler races.

I have been away from my hometown for 2 decades now, and haven’t seen a Pancake Day celebration in all those years,. But every Shrove Tuesday, I celebrate; wherever I am, I celebrate. I always wish people a “Happy Pancake Day” and then explain what I am talking about. I watch the national news for clips, and I swell with pride, because that is MY hometown; those are my memories.

So, wherever you are, Happy Pancake Day.

Wimpy Kids and Waves

February 27, 2017February 27, 20171 Comment

The process of closing Lavender Box, my brick and mortar bakery, and switching back to a cottage bakery has been, in all reality, very smooth; in the practical sense anyway. I am, however, discovering that my psyche is having a bit more trouble grasping the concept.

For one thing, I am not up at the ~~ass~~ butt crack of dawn everyday. Some days I actually get to sleep until 5am, woohoo.

The other major adjustment I am having to make is that I can take my time; I don’t have to have 4 different pastries, croissants, kouign amann and at least 2 cookie flavors baked and in the cases by 6:30am.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved it…Every minute of it. And the satisfaction I got from seeing a customer’s reaction to a flaky pastry made it all worth it.

But being at home now, without the hectic pace of running a made-from-scratch, every thing fresh, every day bakery with only myself and (the ever amazing) #1 daughter, I have come to realize the value of time. Time to dedicate to the tiniest of details, without worry that something, or someone, will walk through door and take away my focus. Time to set a work timeline and be able to adhere to it. Time to not have to rush to get the finishing touches on a cake. Time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I put every bit of myself into each and every thing I make; the simplest cookie or a 4 tier wedding cake with a ton of gum paste flowers, there is no difference in the dedication I put into each. But knowing that I have the time to dedicate to each task individually makes me a lot less crazy.

It is that time that made the 2 cakes I did this weekend seem almost easy. I was able to plan each step of each tier, and actually execute according to that plan. I even had each one ready to deliver with time to spare.

Cake #1 was for a “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”birthday party. There was some stress involved because I got the referral from another decorator who was unable to take the job. No pressure there right? Now I am somewhat familiar with the book series by Jeff Kinney, but let’s face it, my baby is 25 now, so I am a bit out of the loop. The only kids books I have in my house now are the vintage Dr. Seuss and Peanuts books that hold a place of honor in the book case. But with a lot of planning and preparation, I was able to get this beauty made, decorated and delivered for a very happy 7 year old.

And another angle, just because I can

Cake #2 was a customer from the bakery whose little one was turning 4 and LOOOVES Disney’s Moana. While #3 daughter has been dying to see Moana, we haven’t had the time, so I was flying blind here. Miss Lennie Lou (birthday girl) had the figurines (thank goodness, ’cause sculpting figurines is still a dicey proposition for me), so should be simple enough right? Oh, but no fondant for 4 year olds because they are picky about their cake.

Let me see now, have to put together a Hawaiian themed cake with waves and sand and flowers (oh my), and make it out of butter cream. Okay, confession time, the flowers and sea shells and turtles are fondant, but the waves are chocolate and buttercream. I was feeling so good about my timeline for this cake, I decided to make the little pig Pua from fondant, just because.

Well all in all, I think it turned out pretty good. I know, I know we have a pretty good lean here, but Lennie Lou’s Mom was very pleased.

There is always room for improvement, always something that could be better, and I don’t delude myself into thinking that I am any where near a cake artist. I am simply someone who loves to be in the kitchen. I love to bake and I love to see people smile when the idea for a cake becomes reality.

And for me, that is when time stands still.

Inkredible Recipe Page

February 22, 2017Leave a comment

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As anyone who reads this can probably tell, I am very new to the blogosphere. I really am just learning as I go.

The best thing to come of starting this blog is that I have rediscovered my love of words. Writing as always been a way for me to get out of my own head; to get out whatever is making me crazy. By putting it into words, I am able to, essentially, get over it.

I have never been one to journal on a regular basis, but I did discover years ago that if I put whatever is in my head on paper, I was able to move on a bit. It (whatever it may be) doesn’t go away, but I am better able to keep moving forward with my life.

Stay with me here, there is a point to my ramblings.

Through the journey of losing my bakery, living with the hubby’s Multiple Sclerosis and just generally trying to find my way in the past month or so, I am finding a lot of comfort in the words I put here.

Now to the point I began this post to make. I am in the process of getting recipes on “paper” for the “Recipe” page on this blog. As of tonight I have a total of 1!!! recipe on the page, but I will be adding more daily. https://lavenderboxbakery.wordpress.com/recipes/

Many of these will be recipes I used in the bakery, others are family meals, and some will be recipes I find and try out for myself. It is really rare to “create” a new recipe. There is very little new in the world of cooking and baking. But, I really enjoy playing with flavors and being creative when I am baking.

So, please feel free to comment and give me ideas of what you may want me to try. Or if you had the most amazing cake or cookie, let me know, I would love to see if I can figure it out.

Have a wonderful night and keep eating inkredibly.

Every Bite a Memory

February 21, 2017February 22, 2017Leave a comment

Northern Nevada is having a not-so-normal winter this year. One storm after another, some dumping more snow than I’ve seen since I moved from Colorado, some bringing flooding rains. Today’s storm is rain. It has been raining all day, and I don’t handle the gloom so well.

Dreary days tend to make me turn inward, become somewhat maudlin.

But, there is also an definite plus side to rainy days–humidity. And when you are a bread person (as in baking bread, not made of bread), humidity is wonderful. So this was the perfect day to make cinnamon rolls.

If there is one “test” for a good bakery, in my opinion, it is the cinnamon roll. It seems that everyone makes them, and generally it is a family recipe.

I can say, that the basis for my cinnamon rolls is rooted in family. My Grandma Frances made the absolute best cinnamon rolls. EVER!! And she did it with no apparent difficulty. She would get out her big silver spoon, scoop a bunch of things into the mixer bowl, and a few hours later–cinnamon rolls. Light and airy bread with just the perfect amount of cinnamon and sugar filling, generously covered with frosting. In the town I grew up in, Frances’ cinnamon rolls were legendary. And with good reason.

When I asked my girls what foods trigger strong memories for them, daughter #1 immediately said Great-Grandma Frances’ cinnamon rolls. The smell of the dough raising is a very nostalgic memory for her and many of the other kids in our family. And that strong scent memory links right back to Grandma’s little red car.

Yes you read that right, her car. You see, well into her 70’s, Sister Frances (as she was known by many) spent her Wednesday’s cooking for a local church’s weekly dinner. She would prep and cook, many times with no more help than one of her pre-teen granddaughters, serving family style meals such as fried chicken or pot roast with all the fixins, including dinner rolls and dessert, for as many as 50 people.

Grandma and Grandpa Simmons with my little sister

Grandma with my Dad and Uncle Larry

Now as anyone who make bread and rolls will know, it takes time. You can’t just mix all the ingredients together and pop it into the oven. There is the little matter of raising. Because bread making is a science, the little chemical reactions that are the magic of great bread take time. So early in the day, Grandma would get her dough mixed and thoroughly kneaded, put it into what was to my eyes, a giant stainless steel bowl and cover with Saran Wrap to get the first raise in. At this point it was the time for her to get any running around done, grab the last minute things needed to get the church dinner made. It was also when she would drive her little red car across town and pick up whichever of the granddaughters was going to help her that week. And of course, being an imminently practical woman, she took the roll dough with her, tucked the giant stainless steel bowl into the little hatch of her can and took off around town.

It was many, many years later that I realized the secret to her amazing rolls was the trip around town in the back of her car. If you, like me, are old enough to remember laying in the back window of a car during a long trip, you will remember the warmth of the sun coming in through the window. Even in winter, the little hatch got warm, so her dough would raise wonderfully. Sometimes too wonderfully, which generally happened about 3:30 when she would make her way to my house to pick up daughter #1.

By that time the dough had been in the warm hatch of Grandma’s car for upwards of 2 hours and had taken on a life of it’s own, resembling not so much bread dough as a pasty form of the 50’s sci-fi horror movie “The Blob”. Taking on an amorphous, pasty quality that had to be punched down into submission before carrying the whole thing into the church kitchen.

This entire process from the time the dough was placed in the car to arrival at the church is what is commonly known as the “first rise”.

It has long been my contention that this prolonged, and somewhat unorthodox, rise is what made Grandma’s rolls perfect.

We lost Grandma 6 years ago this June, and every batch of cinnamon rolls I make are, in many ways, my tribute to her. She lives on in each tender, sweet crumb. Every bite a sweet memory of her.

Cinnamon Rolls

Servings: 9-12
Difficulty: moderate
Print

Light and sweet, just like Grandma made

Ingredients

Dough

720 grams all purpose flour
240 ml warm water, 110 degrees
114 grams butter, room temperature
100 gr granulated sugar
15 gr. instant yeast
15 gr. Kosher salt
15 gr. dry milk powder
2 large eggs
5 ml vanilla

Filling

110 gr. granulated sugar
100 gr. brown sugar
10 gr. cinnamon

Icing:

240 gr. cream cheese, room temperature
114 gr . butter, room temperature
454 gr. confectioner’s sugar

Directions

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13 pan with nonstick cooking spray

In bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook, bloom yeast in warm (110 degrees) water.
Once yeast is bloomed, add sugar, milk powder, flour, eggs, salt and vanilla.
Mix on low speed (1-2 on Kitchen Aid mixer) until dough comes together to form ball and pulls away from sides of bowl.
Turn mixer up to 4 and knead about 3 minutes.
Add room temperature butter in 4 additions while mixer is running. The butter will take a while to incorporate and the dough will look strange. If needed stop mixer and scrape butter from sides of bowl and continue to knead. After about 3-4 minutes the dough should come together into a smooth ball.
Place in oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside in warm place to rise to double in size.
Punch down dough, recover with plastic wrap and let rise a second time to double the size.
On floured surface, roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
Spread softened butter all over rolled out dough.
Generously sprinkle cinnamon/sugars mixture over buttered area
Beginning in the middle of the edge nearest you, start rolling the dough into a log. Pull slightly to stretch the dough as you roll.
Cut into ¾ inch portions and place into prepared pan.
Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise until double.
Bake 15-20 minutes until tops are golden brown.
While the rolls are baking, prepare the Icing
Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth.
Add in confectioner’s sugar and vanilla until smooth.
When rolls are done, spread icing on while hot

Memories of Me

February 19, 2017February 22, 2017Leave a comment

When I decided to open my bakery, I was almost overwhelmed with all that goes into starting a business. It had been my main focus for about 5 years, so I had so much of it ready to go; business plan was written, dozens of recipes developed and tested, and a modest following of clients that would hopefully turn into faithful customers.

The one thing I didn’t have was a Mission Statement. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I had a mission; had been on this mission for a long while. But I discovered I needed a statement that would convey my mission to everyone else.

Luckily for me, daughter #2 was working for a company that really liked my goodies and had some very talented marketing people who were willing to help me put what I heard in my head down on paper. So Lavender Box Bakery opened with a Mission Statement:

To provide high quality, fresh products in a way that brings nostalgia. It is our philosophy that every bite should come with a memory. We want to help create those memories by supplying you with fresh-from-scratch products. No boxes, no mixes, no tubs.
Just Decadence in Small Bites.

Just 50 words. But those 50 words illustrate me; they are me. Food, in my opinion, is Life. Not just necessary to sustain life, but essential to my life.

Many of my earliest, and best, memories are of food.

The heavenly aroma of coffee and bacon (with a healthy dose of Pall Mall cigarette smoke) takes me back to waking up in my Grandma Frances’ house, hearing her and Grandpa Hardy getting ready for their day. And I can taste the bright burst of warm blackberries picked (without permission, of course) off Old Miss Boody’s bushes; an amazing summer afternoon snack washed down with a drink from the garden hose.

Coming from a family with strong roots in the Southern states, saying “The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home” is not cliche, it is simply fact. No matter whose house we are in, we gather in the kitchen. As a kid, I can remember coming in from running around like a banshee with my cousins and finding my mom, along with her mom, sisters and any other girl over the age of 14 or so, gathered in the kitchen. Even if there was not a meal to be made or cleaned up after, they were sitting on every available chair or the Costco step stool with the hideous cushion cover, leaning against the formica counter or taking turns wandering outside to make sure we weren’t terrorizing the neighborhood.

I guess my point is simply this…food is life.

I mother with food. I comfort with food. I give praise with food. I celebrate with food. I grieve with food. And I love with food.

As this crazy life of mine spins around and around, there are very few things that I know for certain, but one of those is that whatever happens, good or bad, there will be food.

This Week Ends on a Tired Note

February 19, 2017February 27, 2017Leave a comment

I scroll past the cute, tired puppy and kitten memes every day and, most of the time, just think “how cute”. This week however, these adorable, exhausted little faces really resonated. Everything’s been so hectic that I haven’t had time to even check in here.

Okay, that’s the last puppy or kitten meme for today.

Now on to business. The reason I am so “doggone” tired and “weak as a kitten” is I’ve just been busy. With Valentine’s Day, birthdays and weddings, the cookies, cupcakes and cakes are literally keeping me up at night.

But the end is in sight. Today I just have to fill, stack, crumb coat and decorate a 2 tier wedding cake and a 1/2 sheet groom’s cake. Piece of cake, right? Let’s hope so.

But I do want to share with you the coconut pastry cream filling I am using for the groom’s cake today.

I know some people think pastry creams are difficult and time consuming, but, in all honesty, this recipe is almost idiot proof (I say almost, because if you follow a few simple rules, well one rule actually, it is simple—-PAY ATTENTION–It’s that simple)

As with all of my other recipes, quality ingredients are the key. Pastry cream only has 6 simple ingredients that most of us have all the time anyway, so if you want to take your chocolate layer cake for dessert tonight to another level, fill the layers with this delicious pastry cream.

Just like making a pudding, pastry cream uses cornstarch and egg yolks to thicken; add in a little sugar, vanilla and butter, and in less than 30 minutes, you’ve turned whole milk into a silky, slightly sweet treat.

Your sugar is going to be divided between your milk mixture and you egg yolks. Unlike pudding recipes, you won’t cook you cornstarch with the milk.

Whisk you egg yolks and 105 grams sugar until creamy, then whisk in your cornstarch.

Whisked sugar and egg yolks

Whisked cornstarch with yolk/sugar

Cook milk and the other 120 grams of sugar on medium high heat until it boils.

Temper the yolk mixture with 1/2 of the boiling milk. This is very important–if you don’t do this step, you will have scrambled eggs.

From there you pour the tempered egg mixture back into the pan and cook until it thickens. Just remember to stir it constantly so you don’t have burnt pastry cream.

For this batch I add in 2 cups of flaked coconut and used it to fill a vanilla bean cake.

Like I said, super simple and I guarantee that you family will think you spent hours.

After 7 dozen Valentine’s Day sugar cookies, a birthday cake, a wedding cake and groom’s cake, I am definitely ready for some down time, but even ending the week on a tired note, I am excited for what the next one will bring.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

Printer friendly version here: Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

1000 ml whole milk

225 gr. sugar

75 gr. cornstarch

10 egg yolks

60 gr. butter

Seeds of 1 vanilla bean or 10 ml. vanilla extract

Procedure:

Whisk egg yolks and 105gr. sugar in bowl until pale. Whisk in cornstarch.

Bring milk and 120gr. sugar to a boil in heavy bottomed saucepan.

Temper your egg mixture by pouring 1/2 the boiling milk into eggs while whisking. Pour back into sauce pan and bring to boil, stirring constantly.

Pour into bowl, mix in butter and vanilla. Cover top of pastry cream with cling wrap, pressing it down onto the top to keep skin from forming.

Place bowl in ice bath the cool, then refrigerate until ready to use.

It’s a Seuss Kind of Day

February 9, 2017February 22, 2017Leave a comment

Oh the places I have been. For a girl born in the Oklahoma Panhandle and raised in Southwest Kansas, Reno Nevada is a whole different world; and the road I travelled to get here was (to quote The Beatles) long and winding.

The wonderful thing about the journey is that I have gotten to share every step of the way with my husband and girls. From Kansas, to Texas, to Colorado, to Arizona and finally to Nevada, each stop has helped me grow and learn.

Now on to the Dr. Seuss cookies. I’ve been making Dr. Seuss decorated sugar cookies for the last couple of years, usually for Dr. Seuss’ Birthday in March. And I will be making them this March again. But this week I got an order for Dr. Seuss cookies for a birthday.

Always up for some cookie decorating fun, I decided to throw the Dr. Seuss cookies in with all the Valentine’s Day hearts and flowers (that will be Tuesday’s post).

For these cookies, I used by basic sugar cookie recipe (recipe is below). I love this recipe because it is light and so easy to work with. No need to refrigerate before you roll it out and it is very easy to adapt flavors. Some of my favorite are lavender, chai (great with a cinnamon royal icing) and chocolate. These are good old vanilla bean with vanilla royal icing.

Once the cookies were baked and cooling, it was time to get the pictures together for decorating. I generally will use a picture for reference and free-hand it, but I do have Kopycake projector that I rarely use, and figured this would be a great time to practice with it. I chose 5 books to represent; The Cat in the Hat, Oh The Places You Will Go, Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax and Green Eggs and Ham.

Working with the Kopycake is still tricky for me, but the more I use it, the easier it becomes. I am sure that after a while, I will love it as much as many other decorators do.

The royal icing recipe I use is from Sweetopia.net. If you haven’t already fallen in love with Miss Marion’s amazing work, trust me, you will. This is the link to here royal icing recipe http://sweetopia.net/2012/01/royal-icing-recipe-free-illustrated-recipe/

Now I outline and flood my cookies with the same tip and consistency of icing. I follow the 10 second rule, also from Sweetopia.net found here http://sweetopia.net/2011/02/video-royal-icing-consistency-made-easy-the-10-second-rule/ along with a great video.

I’ve put a couple of pictures of outlining and then filling. Please excuse the run-over in the 3rd picture, I filled the first petal too full.

I started with the base coats on any cookie designs that have a solid background (Green Eggs and Ham cookies have a white base coat). These I let dry AT LEAST 4 hours if not overnight. These are shown with the image superimposed onto the base coated cookies.

I will generally take a full 2 days to decorate cookies. Much of this depends on the “layers” of detail, for example, the Cat in the Hat cookies can all be done at once, but the Lorax and Green Eggs and Ham had to dry between layers.

Thank you for letting me spend a little time with you.

Don’t cry because it’s over.

Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss

Basic Sugar Cookie Dough

Ingredients:

227 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
175 grams confectioners sugar
1 egg
425 grams all purpose flour
10 grams baking powder*
5 grams kosher salt
5 ml vanilla

Procedure:

In bowl, sift flour, salt and baking powder
In bowl of stand mixer, cream butter and sugar
Add in eggs mix to combine
Mix in dry ingredients and vanilla. Don’t over mix.
Roll to desired thickness, place on prepared sheet tray
Bake at 325 9-11 minutes, just until edges begin to brown.

*if you don’t want your cookies to spread or puff, leave out baking powder. Doing this will prevent the cookie from “morphing” shape while baking.

Rainy Tuesday Morning Musings

February 7, 2017February 22, 2017Leave a comment

Fun baking today, I get to start on a batch of decorated sugar cookies for a Dr. Seuss birthday party on Friday. I LOVE making decorated cookies. Watching them go from butter, eggs, sugar and flour to these beautiful finished cookies gives me a sense of accomplishment.

But as I am digging through the jumble of cookie cutters looking for the ones I need, I remembered a poem I saw on a Multiple Sclerosis site.

A little back-story here…My husband of (almost) 26 years, has Multiple Sclerosis. He was actually diagnosed 3 years ago, but when I think back, he had been showing symptoms for the last 10 years, I just didn’t connect the dots.

Our journey, and I include myself in this because this disease truly impacts the entire family, has been particularly rough. With Wade’s diagnosis, our life changed, subtly at first, but like shifting sands of a desert, the changes rolled in one after another; until the whole landscape of our lives has been forever altered.

This disease is insidious, it creeps into every corner and aspect of our lives. It affects our day to day, but it also makes our future very hard to plan.

Wade is diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS), which is, in a nutshell, the most severe form. He is the strongest person I know, and it is his strength to fight even when he is exhausted that makes me determined to do all that I can to get the word out so we can defeat this MonSter.

From the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website,

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS/Types-of-MS/Primary-progressive-MS

PPMS is characterized by worsening neurologic function (accumulation of disability) from the onset of symptoms, without early relapses or remissions. PPMS can be further characterized at different points in time as either active (with an occasional relapse and/or evidence of new MRI activity) or not active, as well as with progression (evidence of disease worsening on an objective measure of change over time, with or without relapse or new MRI activity) or without progression. Approximately 15 percent of people with MS are diagnosed with PPMS.

From the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website, http://www.nationalmssociety.org Approximately 85 percent of people with MS are initially diagnosed with Relapsing/Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS). RRMS – the most common disease course – is characterized by clearly defined attacks of new or increasing neurologic symptoms. These attacks – also called relapses or exacerbations – are followed by periods of partial or complete recovery (remissions). During remissions, all symptoms may disappear, or some symptoms may continue and become permanent. However, there is no apparent progression of the disease during the periods of remission.

So, on this rainy Tuesday morning, I will go back to creating Dr. Seuss cookies, but I hope maybe to raise a little awareness about MS.

Super Easy Dip for Super Bowl Parties

February 5, 2017February 22, 2017Leave a comment

Many, many moons ago, I lived in a tiny apartment with my 2 small girls, in a small Kansas town. As happens when you have kids, you get to be friends with the other moms because…well, let’s face it, misery loves company; and who better to commiserate with a mom of 2 small kids than others in the same situation. So, while listening for the tell tell sounds of mischief and refereeing squabbles between toddlers, us moms discussed every possible topic, more often than not it involved food.

One of these moms was Deb and she introduced me to “yuck” dip. Yep, that’s what it is called; and very appropriately named because it looks, well, yucky. But don’t let the name or appearance fool you, this dip is super yummy and almost too easy.

Now I don’t use many “pre-made” products when I bake. My tag line is actually “No Boxes, No Mixes, No Tubs”. But when something that is tasty and easy, I can get behind using jarred salsa.

That’s right, your eyes do not decide you. This amazingly tasty dip is only 5 ingredients (most of which individually I won’t eat).

You will need:

1 jar of chunky salsa (if you prefer to make salsa from scratch, that is wonderful and you are my hero)

1 small can of chopped ripe olives

Lime juice (fresh or bottled doesn’t matter)

Garlic powder (I actually had to buy some because it is not something I will use in any other recipe)

And 5-6 scallions, chopped up.

That’s it. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir. You can adjust the heat with a hot salsa or even put chopped jalapeño if you want, but I am a real wimp when it comes to spice, so mild for me.

A bag if restaurant style corn chips and you are ready for the game (Go Pats).