Dueling Dips 4-4-13

HUMMUS

I'm a hummus addict.  I love hummus.  All of it.  The kinds in packages, the kind you make at home, and especially the kind they made in the cafeteria of my old office.  And, did you know, hummus is GREAT with Fritos? 

This particular hummus recipe is like the recipe in The Naked Chef cookbook.  Except we changed the ingredients.  So...maybe not like that recipe at all.

You need the following ingredients:

2/3 cup dried chickpeas
4 tbl olive oil
1 1/2 tbl tahini
1/4 tsp cumin
1-2 cloves garlic
juice of one lemon
6 smoked sun dried tomato halves
salt
pepper

You have some thoughts about these ingredients.  Normally I would encourage free thinking.  But please, friends, do NOT use canned chickpeas.  They taste like...can.  I assure you it is very easy to cook the chickpeas, and I'll detail that below.  Also, if you're thinking you don't need tahini...you do.  And keep in mind that the olive oil is a large portion of the flavor, so if you have some fancy olive oil, use it.  As for the sun dried tomato...I use the NOT oil-soaking ones.  You could use any kind you want, or some other flavoring ingredient, like dried chilis as the original recipe specified.

For a long time, I used to soak the chickpeas overnight and then boil them.  This worked about 60% of the time.  The other 40%, I would wander away while they were cooking, forget, boil all the water off, and scorch the pan.  There was smoke.  There were shrieks.  There were replacement pans. Then I had a revelation.  The god of cooking (Alton Brown) spoke to me in a dream (meaning, on his TV show).   He revealed the truth: you can cook the chickpeas from their dried state, in your crock pot.  Place the chickpeas, and 7 cups of water (and 1/4 tsp of baking soda, if you want them soft, like we do for this recipe).  Cook in the crock pot for 8 hours.  Usually I do this a day or two before and then stash them in the fridge.

When it's time to make the hummus:  Chop up the sun dried tomatoes.  Squeeze the lemon. Put all the ingredients in the food processor. 

Process. 

DONE!  Serve with anything.  Yes, even vegetables. But my personal favorite is pita chips.  Or toasted pita.  Or Fritos.  Below I show a picture of it improving a whole grain cracker. Quite frankly it's not a good picture, but I couldn't lollygag around taking photos because there was hummus to be eaten.

I'd like to rank this dip 6 wedges out of 6 on the cheese wheel.  A rating of 6/6 normally means "I don't even share this with my loved ones."   However, since significant other actually is in charge of making the hummus, he always KNOWS it's there, so I can't hide it in the back of the fridge and eat it all when he's not home.   I would if I could.

SKINNY POOLSIDE DIP

Ummm....how can I follow a 6 out of 6 on the cheesewheel? Let's just call Hummus the winner instead of going through the painful process of running through a non-recommended dip?
Fine.

I will proceed.

But I do this for you my fellow snackees...

It has come to my attention that on more than one instance, Pinterest "Pinners" reuse pictures. Even if they are only somewhat close to what they are making. Not cool Pinners, Not cool. What this has done as confused me into thinking I was preparing the dip I really wanted.....cheesy mexicorn dip.  Just so you all know....this WILL be coming but this is unfortunately not what I made....sad.

As I was making my grocery list I started to question the ingredients, but thought...hey....there is a bag of Fritos IN THE PICTURE with the dip.  And there is corn so it must be it....WRONG.

Ingredients
2 packages of softened cream cheese
1 red pepper diced
2 jalapenos diced (remove seeds and veins if you are a heat wimp like me)
1 can of corn
1/2 can of diced green olives
1 packet of dry ranch dressing mix

First mix together the ranch seasoning and cream cheese, then dump everything else in and mix. 

That is it.  Oh how I wish this was the best dip ever because it would be so easy.  My first bite was....very olive-y.  I actually questioned whether I read the directions wrong and should have used black olives maybe?  Unfortunately no.  I still ate it, don't get me wrong.  But the longer the dip sits....the more olive-y it tastes. I love olives, but it was too much even for me.  Fritos helped it slightly, but I found myself eating the Fritos plain and then not eating the actual dip.  Dip Fail.

We were eating this at lunch and the comment I received was...."Do you know why they call it Skinny poolside dip?  Because nobody eats it, therefore they don't end up with the extra calories" Valid point my friend.  Plus we figured this made 8 servings (if you could stomach it) and each serving was 256 calories WITHOUT Fritos. Granted that was a really big serving, but how is that skinny again? Disappointing.  The recipe also stated to eat with chips or raw veggies. Was I reading this on April Fools Day? Was it opposite day and I just didn't get the memo? Do yourself a favor if you do make this.  Skip the veggies.  It is too much.  Did you see all the veggies that are already in the dip?  Why are you torturing yourself with using veggies to eat them too? If you love green olives this is maybe a dip for you, but if you prefer your green olives having been soaked in a large bloody mary like I do....take a pass on this. Scoring is a 2 out of 6 on the cheesewheel.

I wish I had Jane's hummus.....NOW.