Man Dip vs Pizza Dip: Dueling Dip Thursday - 3-21-2013

Man Dip vs Pizza Dip

This week's Duel about Meat and Cream Cheese!  Clearly you can tell from the start that this week is a HUGE WIN for everyone!  Really.  Both dips are AMAZING

MAN DIP

Man Dip is a secret family recipe which I was able to pry from the fingers of my friend Kristin.  Her family has guarded the secret of this delectable goo for centuries.  Or at least decades.

It contains this tricky list of ingredients:

1 can of Rotel tomatoes
1 block of cream cheese
1 lb of Jimmy Dean sausage

You COULD use the reduced fat sausage, but my grocery store didn't have it.  You can also use reduced fat cream cheese, which I did do.

Again, we begin the dip a high percentage of ingredients that I won't eat in stand-alone situations.  Yet somehow the outcome is something INCREDIBLY delicious.

The process is simple. 

Brown the sausage. (Drain.) 

Do you see it here, the previously mentioned Meat Smusher?  Well it turns out it is called the "Mix 'N Chop" and it is from Pampered Chef.  It's amazing what you learn from reader comments.



Mix the ingredients. 

Cook.   This could be done in the oven.  Or in a crockpot.  However, once you've had the dip, you won't be able to wait the excruciating amount of time required to cook something in a crockpot.  You CAN cook it in the oven and then place it in the crock pot to keep it warm.  Of course, I don't genuinely believe it will be sitting so long that you even need to keep it warm, but if you're SUPER SLOW or have a lot of restraint, it might be needed.

By law, it MUST be served with Tostito's Scoops chips, so I include one in the picture. This dip scores in at a 5.5 cheese wedge out of 6.

PIZZA Dip

With a name like Pizza Dip, how could it possibly be bad?  It can't.  Unless you eat pizza with crazy toppings like broccoli and spinach with no cheese.  In which case....you are on the wrong blog....

The picture alone of this dip is what sucked me in.  It was pepperoni slices on bubbly cheese and it was neatly displayed next to crusty bread slices.  There was nothing I didn't like about it so I added it quickly to my to do list.  And then checked daily to make sure it was still there!  That isn't sad at all, that is smart.  Can you imagine if I went to make it and suddenly the recipe had disappeared?  Have you ever heard of a stage 5 meltdown? Picture the temper tantrum of a 2 year old, with the drama of an actor and the pain of someone on a fiet.  So you see how this was a necessary step...

Ingredients

4 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup of shredded mozzarella

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 cup of pizza sauce

2 ounces of sliced pepperoni

2 Tablespoons of chopped green pepper (optional)

2 Tablespoons of sliced black olives (optional)

First mix the cream cheese, sour cream, mayo, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella and 1/4 cup of the parmesan cheese together and spread on the bottom of a pie plate.

Pour the pizza sauce over the top of the mixture and spread evenly.

Top with the remaining 1/2 cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and top with the pepperoni, green pepper and olives (and any other pizza topping....except broccoli...again, WRONG BLOG)

Bake until the cheese is all melty, gooey looking and slightly golden brown.  I personally like my pizza cheese to be on the darker side so use your judgement.

I served this with Garlic Triscuits and sliced crusty french bread.  I am not exagerating when I say the pie plate was scraped clean.  All that was left was a little grease which is to be expected with any melty cheese dip.  I would be lying if I hadn't considered sopping even that up with the bread.....but the bread was gone....and people were watching.

I love this dip.  I did substitute with light sour cream, turkey pepperoni and 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese. And due to a very firm demand, the olives were omitted.  But don't think I didn't but up a fight for them. Calorie-wise, 1/8 of the pie plate is 190 calories. And that is without the dipping vehicle. So for that reason ONLY I have to give this a score of 5 out of 6 cheese wedges.  If calories were not being weighed in here, it would be a 6.


Winner of Dueling Dip Thursday: MAN DIP!!