Cream Cheese Toffee Dip for Fruit (My Apple Dip)

A fruit dip made from cream cheese, yogurt, brown sugar and the crunch of milk chocolate toffee bits. This is great for parties or special afternoon snacks and appeals to all ages.

Apples have been appearing at my local farmer's market. I buy a handful, take them home, slice them up and we eat them. [The rest of the household would eat the core and everything, but someone around here needs to have standards.] Local apples** are bred for flavor, not ability to look pretty for 6 months, so it seems kinda silly to share a dip recipe to eat with such tasty apples as a Buckeye Gala. This is not gilding a lily, though--my Caramel Apple Toffee Parfait with Cream Cheese Ice Cream? Total lily-gilding, that one. This is just a simple dip to have on hand if you want to dress up a fruit snack or have something special to go alongside a healthy snack at an event.

You gotta have a couple of good dips in your repertoire. Dips that you can make practically with your eyes closed using common pantry and refrigerator staples. Dips that fit a variety of occasions and please folks of all ages.

This is one of those dips. [My Spiced Cottage Cheese Potato Chip Dip is another.] When I searched my sent emails folder to confirm the recipe I realized I've been emailing folks this recipe for more than 10 years. It evolved out of an amaretto fruit dip I'd had at the same church basement wedding reception where I learned the pineapple juice hack for keeping apples from turning brown. I don't usually have amaretto on hand, so when I tried a Cool Whip-based fruit dip using Heath bar bits I knew that would go great instead of amaretto.

Note: I don't usually recommend brands of food on this blog, I'm more into the local produce, but I do make exceptions. This dip tastes best with Heath bar bits, the milk chocolate-covered toffee bits. The bag has an orange banner--like this Amazon affiliate link shows [but don't buy it from Amazon--sheesh you can find it for ⅓ the price in a grocery store]. Each time I move, as I am settling into our new neighborhood, I check the chocolate chip aisle of the local grocery stores. Most will carry only the plain Bits o' Brickle variety with a blue banner as shown in this outrageously expensive Amazon affiliate link but keep looking until you source the milk chocolate variety then buy a couple of bags for the pantry stash. They are good in cookies, too, like my Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies.

For other recipes using apples, please see my Apple Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, and generous neighbors with apple trees. I've got more appetizers on my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks board on Pinterest, and more fruit from around the web on my Fruit board. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Apple, Gouda and Pecan Pizza

Chunks of apples, bits of pecans, and loads of melty Gouda cheese in this savory vegetarian pizza.

When you make pizzas nearly every weekend, and you like to keep things lively on the pizza stone [don't think too deeply on that one] inspiration comes at you from every direction. This pizza was inspired by a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich on this post. Apparently that's enough for me to go off in a pizza direction.

A vegetarian, savory, pizza with fruit direction.

When I shared my Fresh Pineapple and Shaved Ham with Mascarpone Pizza recently, a friend said her spouse didn't do fruit on pizza. What?  Fruit on pizza rocks!  I'm not talking sweet fruit dessert pizzas. In the multitude of pizzas in my Visual Pizza Recipe Index by Ingredient I do not have any dessert pizzas. I'll eat them, don't get me wrong, I just haven't made any. I'm just not that into it. In my world, fruit on a pizza is not a dessert thing. It's a Savory Pizzas with Fruit thing.

So I'm bringing you yet another savory pizza with fruit. Yet another pizza with apples on it, this one inspired by that grilled cheese sandwich photo and the fact that I had a Costco-sized hunk of gouda cheese in the fridge.

I get cheese obsessions, probably a good thing when I've got a Costco-sized hunk of whatever flavor obsession du jour fromage. Having an ample amount of cheese makes for interesting recipes. I've used gouda in Roasted Sweet Potato and Turkey Sausage Breakfast Casserole and Three Cheese Fast-baked Cauliflower so far. Stay tuned for more, like this vegetarian savory pizza which is lovely for Fall.

For more recipes using apples, please see my Apples & Apple Cider Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share or farmer's market. I've got an assortment of other pizza ideas on my Friday Night Pizza Night! Pinterest board and my Visual Pizza Recipe Index.

How to Make a Roasted Farm Share Dinner

This combination of roasted green beans, corn, tomatoes and bacon is an example of the perfection of September. The nights are cool enough that a hot plate of vegetables is a welcome sight and the produce is still in full swing.

I'm proud to say that I threw the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share on the grill this summer. I had successes (check out the grilling category I added to my drop down recipe index on the right side bar). I had failures [I've fed far too many 'too small' eggplant slices to the Grill Gods with flipping failures] and I somehow drained a brand new tank of propane [I blame the deployment gremlins on that one] but overall the grill became my 'go to' appliance when I thought about how to feed the family from the farm share.

When the weather starts to cool down a wee bit I'm not afraid to turn on my oven. Instead of grilling ALL THE THINGS I start roasting what is abundant in the farm share box and at the farmer's market. I want to keep things easy, though, and clean up is one of those things I like to simplify.

After reading Aimée's Spring breakfast recipe I started trying out a few combinations. It's almost too easy to throw a bunch of vegetables in a pan, add some meat for additional flavoring, and have dinner done.

For other recipes using green beans, please see my Green Bean Recipes Collection. For other recipes using corn, please see my Recipes Using Corn Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, and the garden bounty.