July 8, 2011

Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude:
The Belle of Tinkering

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I do not necessarily want to be a food blogger, but I do LOVE to talk about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food. Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. This is not meant to be some homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.

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We were invited to a cookout last week - I attempted to make tandoori chicken which went dreadfully, awfully wrong.  For some reason, Manoj has a magic touch for making tandoori chicken - it is in his DNA, perhaps?  However, he had to work on Monday so it was up to me to prepare it.  And I failed.  Spectacularly.  Fortunately,  I had made a Creamy Mexicorn Dip so we were not arriving at our friend's house empty-handed.

My sister had passed along this Creamy Mexicorn Dip recipe to me and immediately, I began to think of ways to mess around with it.    I cannot resist adding something "of my own".  I have included the recipe that I ended up making - basically, I added the cumin and substituted 1.5 cups of Greek yogurt for original 8 oz of sour cream.  I also increased the "dash" of sugar to 1 teaspoon's worth (to account for the sourness of the Greek yogurt.)  Personally, I love Greek yogurt as a substitute for sour cream - I always have Greek yogurt on hand, which reduces running to the grocery store and I like how Greek yogurt has such a high protein content.

When my sister passed the recipe to me, she told me she uses Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise.  It must run in the family, this tinkering business.

Do you tinker with recipes?

Creamy Mexicorn Dip

2- 14.5 oz. cans Mexicorn (drained)
1 10oz can Rotel (drained)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 to 1 tsp of sugar
1.5 cups Greek yogurt
1 cup Mayonnaise
 
Mix together and serve with tortilla chips.  

Note: This recipes gets even better as it sits, thus making it a perfect dish to prepare early in the morning or the night before!

2 comments:

Bethany said...

I don't think I have made a recipe in the last ten years that I haven't tinkered with!

Amanda said...

Heck yeah, to tinkering! Usually, it is emergency substitutions because I'm out of something. The only exception to this is baking. The leavening has to equal out, and well, I'm not a chemist so I usually follow the recipe to the letter.