Is there a shortage of Velveeta Cheese? That famous Ro-tel Velveeta Dip you want to serve may be in trouble!

Apparently, in Brooklyn and Manhattan at least, there is a shortage on... Velveeta cheese product?  Sure enough.  I love reading the news and I had to do a second take when I saw this released by the AP.

Don't double dip: Velveeta warns of shortage

Kraft Foods is warning consumers about a Velveeta shortage that could temporarily leave shelves across America bare of their favorite cheese-like products.

"It is possible consumers in any part of the country may not be able to find some Velveeta products on store shelves over the next couple of weeks," Kraft spokeswoman Jody Moore told NBC News.

A popular base for dips, the Velveeta void strikes just as Super Bowl party preparations get under way.

"We just keep ordering it," said Thomas Murray, manager for dairy at a Key Food in Brooklyn. He said his store received its last case in December. "It's not coming in."

"Three weeks ago, same problem," said Sam Ahmed, manager of a Met Foods supermarket in Brooklyn.

But stores in Hillside, N.J., Dover, Del., Chicago, Ill., and elsewhere had the processed cheese product in stock.

If you're in one of the areas experiencing a Velveeta shortage, you'll just have to ration your usage for the next few weeks until supplies return to normal. Until then, double-dipping has graduated from frowned upon to full-on party foul.

"This is really a short-term issue that’s more noticeable right now given the increased seasonal demand," said Kraft's Moore, who said the company hasn't heard any complaints from consumers. "This is really something that would likely have gone unnoticed at any other time of year."

Apparently they haven't had Velveeta cheese delivered since the beginning of December.  Why is this so important right now?  I think I know.  It's football season and perhaps one of the most popular and most widely made dishes is that old standby everyone makes and everyone requests; Ro-tel Famous Queso Dip

• 1 can (10 oz each) Ro*Tel® Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, undrained
• 1 pkg (16 oz each) VELVEETA®, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Combine undrained tomatoes and Velveeta in medium saucepan.
Cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until Velveeta is melted completely and mixture is blended, stirring frequently.
Serve warm as a dip with tortilla chips, crackers or cut-up fresh vegetables.

To make in microwave, combine undrained tomatoes and Velveeta in 1-1/2-quart microwave-safe dish; cover. Microwave on HIGH 5 minutes or just until Velveeta melts, stirring after 3 minutes. Remove from microwave; stir until mixture is blended. CAUTION: Dish will be hot; use hot pads. For a double recipe, microwave on HIGH 8 minutes or until Velveeta melts, stirring after 5 minutes. Drain 1 can of tomatoes if a thicker dip is preferred.

Although I won't be making this dip any time soon, I do wish my fellow readers, football fans and party hosts good luck in tracking down Velveeta in time for their favorite dip!

I don't know how desperate you are to make this favorite dip, but I just checked Amazon and they seem to have it in stock as of this posting;



       

Mexican Rice with Black Beans and Corn

Image from Southern Living's version

I have over 250 recipes I have typed out in draft mode waiting for me to publish.  Most aren't published into my recipe files yet because I'm waiting to take pictures of the dish.  The problem?  As I've made no secret of in the past... I'm not a huge 'foodie' blogger with a kick-butt camera who spends hours on perfect photo shoots.

I'm an original 'old school' blogger who started blogging back in 1998 before it was even a word.  My site is primarily for me and my kids so while a picture is a great visual aid to the recipe, I'm not going to waste time trying to make it a food photography website!  If I snap pictures on my iphone while I'm making the dish, that's good enough for me!

So with that long explanation...  this recipe needs to see the light of day and I think my oldest daughter will like to make it since it's so easy, goes with so many dishes and is so good.  But the photo comes from Southern Living - even though the recipe is not.  Same ingredients for the most part and looks very similar.






Mexican Rice

4 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 1/2 c diced tomatoes (or one 12-15 oz. can)
1/4 c chopped green chilies
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 c cooked white or brown rice
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 c corn (frozen or canned)
1 T cumin
salt and pepper
1 T lemon juice
Cilantro - a handful.  Chop.

Saute' the onion and garlic in olive oil.  Add the tomatoes and green chilies.  Add the rice, black beans and seasonings.  Warm through. Serve with sour cream, diced green onions, salsa or guacamole.









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Chicken Pot Pie (And used the crock pot for part of it)

Yesterday I took a package of chicken thighs out of the freezer and was deciding what to do with them.  My husband isn't a fan of dark meat, but loves the grilled chicken I usually make with them.  Yesterday was an icy cold kind of day and standing outside grilling wasn't on my agenda.  Instead, I was craving Chicken and Biscuits.  The only problem is that I knew my stomach would not like the white, refined flour used to make the awesomeness that is a tender, mile high, flaky Southern biscuit.  (The flour readily available today is genetically modified and isn't the same wheat we were eating even 15 years ago... so a lot of people and animals are having digestive issues with grains and corn today that never had issues before).  My hope is to invest in a wheat grinder and purchase non-GMO wheat to grind for our daily use but it's just not in the budget right now.  Instead, I decided I would make 2 versions of biscuits; regular and a lower carb option with almond flour.

After cooking the chicken in the crockpot and deboning it, I realized I might as well use the hot crockpot and the juices from the chicken to cook the vegetables in as well.

This is where I started to deviate from my 'normal' way of cooking this dish... ended up with a completely different dish (a Chicken Pot Pie) and even though I made it a 'healthier' version than usual, my teenage daughter raved about it.  Twice.  And my husband?  Not only kept saying how different it tasted and how good it was, but claimed the remaining half of the pan to take to work the next day for lunch!  Wow.  Who knew making a 'healthier' version of my normal, typical pot pie would bring out so many commpliments?

Not I.  Which is why I wasn't really bothering to take pictures of it as I made it.   So you don't get a finished product photo of the exact dish made last night but honestly it looked really similar to the ones I've posted before...  here.

I ended up making Chicken Pot Pie but also made a low carb biscuit on the side - which I ate instead of the more traditional biscuit topping that my husband and daughter had.


Chicken Pot Pie

4-6 chicken thighs
1 t water or oil (I used safflower)
Seasoning for the chicken; I used Lawry's Rotisserie Chicken Seasoning but you can use salt and pepper
1 medium onion
1 c diced or chopped carrots
1/2 c diced celery and the celery tops too (lots of flavor there)
1/4 c coconut oil
5 T whole wheat flour
1/2 t xanthan gum (option)
1/2 t poultry seasoning
1/2 t salt
1/8 t fresh black pepper
2 c chicken broth (2 c water and 2 cubes or teaspoons chicken bouillon)
2/3 c heavy cream with 1/3 cup water (or use milk)
Biscuit topping*

Place a tiny bit of oil or water in the crockpot and lay the chicken in - season with your favorite seasoning or just use a little salt and pepper.  Cook on high 2-3 hours until tender.  Remove and de-bone, saving and shredding or dicing the cooked chicken.  Place the carrots, onion and celery into the juices that are in the crock pot from cooking the chicken.  Continue to cook them in the crock pot until just tender.  Add the chicken back in and keep warm.

Melt the 1/4 c coconut in saucepan. Blend in flour, sprinkle the xanthan gum if you are using, salt, poultry seasoning (or sage and a tiny bit of thyme if you don't have poultry seasoning), and pepper. Whisk smooth and cook over medium heat for a minute or two until blended and starting to thicken.  Gradually add stock and then cream mixture or milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and smooth. Add vegetables, and chicken. Pour into a greased shallow baking dish. Make a biscuit topping and top the vegetable mixture either with drop biscuits, cut squares or shape the dough into the shape of your dish and top it whole. Bake at 425 degree's for 25 minutes until the top is golden brown.

You can also use the chicken/vegetable/gravy mixture to pour over biscuits instead of making it into a pot pie!

Here are the Almond Flour Biscuits I made last night that I ate with it instead of the traditional biscuit topping (which I took off my helping).  They are a little dark because I used a darker almond flour with the brown almond skins left on so they look like they are whole wheat - and the oven rack was near the top of the oven and I was too lazy to move it down to the center or lower half of the oven before baking.  *grin* 


Almond Flour Biscuit

2 1/2 c almond flour
1/4 oat flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 c melted coconut oil (or use butter)
2 eggs*
1 T sugar free honey
3 T buttermilk*

*I used powdered eggs and powdered butter milk and added 1/4 cup cream and 1/4 c water to the mixture but I realize most people will just use eggs and buttermilk (or 3 T milk or cream with 1/2 t lemon juice or vinegar to sour it like buttermilk).  Mix the wet into the dry ingredients and either drop on parchment lined baking sheet or form into small balls and flatten slightly (like I did).  Bake at 425 for about 12-15 minutes until done.


This almond flour biscuit is a typical texture of most low carb biscuits - crumbly!  I'm going to be working on some low carb bread and roll recipes this week but this was just a quick one I threw together last night.  It looks like a bun, it's got the texture of a corn muffin but tasted like a yummy biscuit.  I laid mine on the plate, topped with the chicken gravy mixture and it was delicious! 

 My TWO different biscuits - ready to be mixed

One with regular flour (top) and one as an almond flour version.

Note I usually use blanched, white almond flour but this time used NOW brand, whole almond

flour, which has the bits of brown skin left during grinding so it's darker and looks like whole wheat.

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My regular, traditional biscuit recipe I've made almost exclusively since 1996 or so...  when not concerned with using white flour or the carb counts.



Southern Biscuits

2 c good quality white flour (you can substitute about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of the flour with whole wheat if you wish)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 T sugar
1/4 c butter, cold
3/4 c milk

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and stir or whisk together. Add the butter in pieces and 'cut in' or pinch with your fingers until crumbly. Stir in the sugar and add the milk all at once. Mix with a fork until it holds together. Remove the dough and pat into a 1 inch high rectangle or circle with your hands on a lightly floured surface. Using a biscuit cutter or a circle cookie cutter cut straight down, do not twist! You can use a knife and slice the dough into squares if you don't have a cutter. Place on an un-greased pan. Brush with melted butter if you prefer and bake 12-15 minutes at 450.

These biscuits are so tender they can wrapped and reheated the next day. 


You might be interested in a round biscuit cutter:



 

Homemade Pill Pockets for Dogs (a peanut butter version)

Pill pockets - homemade

We adopted two abandoned puppies only to find out a few months later both suffer from birth defects that affect both their knees and their hips.  The muscles in their legs are on the side of their leg instead of down the front where they are supposed to be.  From February through June 2013 we were in dog recovery mode for 5 surgeries between the two of them.  And that was just 1 leg each.  They both will need surgeries on the second legs in time but I'm getting off subject.  The topic today is about giving your pets pills and that is the background story as to how I became interested in ways to give our dogs pills.

During this time one of our dogs came to hate taking her pills.  I don't blame her!  They were taking up to 4-5 at a time, 3 times a day when they first got home from surgery.  We generally gave them their pills in a bite of "peanut butter sandwich" as we kept the end slices of whole wheat bread on the counter along with a jar of peanut butter and would rip a little piece off, hide the pills and give them their snack.  This worked great at first but soon one of the dogs started to figure it out and would eat the peanut butter and spit out the pill.  Our second dog gobbles food so fast she has no clue we hide pills in the bites and eats them without a care in the world.  The other dog though?  She's a smart one.  And headstrong and rebellious. 

Stores sell little "pill pockets" in various flavors from peanut butter to duck to chicken and more... but they are $10 for a bag of 30 and when you have dogs taking multiple pills or daily pills for long term illness or pain, that can add up.  Using a recipe for "edible play dough" you can form your own little pockets.  As a matter of fact, I did a quick 10 second search this morning for homemade recipes for pill pockets and saw that there are a LOT of them;  ranging from peanut butter to steak sauce, hickory flavor, chicken to cheese.  All are similar but different.  The general idea however, is to form a dough around the pill.


Make these for the size pills your dogs need.  We have some that are huge and some pills that are tiny.  You can simply keep the dough in a baggy in the refrigerator and wrap a bit of dough around the pill just before giving, or you can form them into little pockets like I did.  I let mine set on aluminum foil to dry for 24 hours and then put them into a baggy in the refrigerator to store.  Depending on the size of your dog and the pill this makes anywhere from 30-75.  I made 50 of them.


Homemade Peanut Butter Pill Pockets

1/2 c milk
1/2 c peanut butter
3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c all purpose flour

Mix in a bowl with a spoon until it forms a ball.  Then knead it with your hands to finish blending smooth.  Form into little balls or ovals the size you need for the pills your dog takes.  You can use the end of a wooden spoon to form the pocket.  You can also leave it in dough form and keep it sealed in a container or baggy in the refrigerator to grab a bit of dough and form around your pill.  Makes between 30-75 pockets depending on the size. 

When it comes together to form a ball you can remove it and knead it smooth in your hands - like Play Dough!

My dogs could smell it and BEGGED for a taste. They LOVED it. Good!  Now I know they'll eat them!

I formed little pockets with the end of a wooden spoon.  You can simply form the dough around the pill too.

Homemade Chewy Pretzels (with Lye water bath)

You can see the pretzel salt on the bottom pretzel.  The top pretzel is made with a light sprinkle of table salt.

I couldn't get homemade pretzels out of my head today so this afternoon I gave in and made them.  YUM!  A nice thin crisp outside but completely chewy and delicious on the inside.  Sometimes I make my pretzels with a baking soda water bath but since I started to make homemade soap last year I always have lye on hand.  I will tell you this;  a lye water bath dip is so much better than a baking soda water dip!  It gives it the perfect texture - just like I bought my pretzel at a restaurant or fast food establishment.  If you don't have lye you can order it or buy it at your local hardware store or grocery store.  If you prefer not to use it, then you would use about 5 cups water to 1/3 cup baking soda and bring to a boil on the stove.  Turn off.  Dip pretzels for 30 seconds before transferring to the baking sheet as directed below.


Homemade Pretzels

12 oz. warm water
1 T sugar

2 t salt
1 package active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups
1/2 stick butter, melted
Vegetable oil or butter

4 cups water

1 oz. food grade lye crystals

Pretzel salt or coarse Kosher salt

Combine the water, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Mix or blend briefly.  Let sit for 5 minutes or until bubbly and foamy.  Add the flour and melted butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined then on medium approximately 4 minutes until it forms a nice elastic ball.  Use butter or vegetable oil to cover the bowl and the dough and return the dough to the bowl, letting rise until dough has doubled in size.   Depending on how warm or cold your home is, you may need to cover with plastic wrap and wait up to 40-50 minutes or it could double within 15-20 minutes.  When doubled in size, punch down to release the air.

Turn the dough out onto parchment paper or a lightly oiled work surface.  Start dividing your dough into half, then each into half again and each of those into half until you have about 12-16 pieces of dough.  Roll out each piece of dough into a long, thin rope about 18-20 inches long.  Criss-cross the ends of the rope over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel.

Place the pans in the freezer for 10-30 minutes.  In the meantime, prepare your lye water bath and pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

In a ceramic, glass or non-reactive bowl, place 4 cups water.  Measure out 1 oz. lye and slowly and carefully add to the water.  Never add water to the lye as it gets too hot, too quickly.  If you are uncomfortable working with lye and think you might splatter or stir or dump too quickly, wear gloves and eye protectors. 

Carefully place the pretzels one at a time into the lye bath.  Do not put your fingers in the water and only use a slotted, non reactive spoon to remove.  Dip each pretzel for 30 seconds and place on parchment sheet covered baking sheets.  Sprinkle with pretzel salt (the large, kosher, coarse style) and bake approximately 15-22 minutes until golden brown and done.

Letting the dough raise

Any lye will do, but I use food grade lye in both my soap making and baking so I always have it on hand.

A simple water bath to dip the pretzels before baking

Starting to roll out the dough

Shape the dough, dip, sprinkle and bake

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Pretzel Salt, 1 lb. by Barry Farm
Food Grade Sodium Hydroxide Lye Micro Beads, 2 Lbs.
Hoosier Hill Farm Coarse Pretzel Salt, 2 lbs