Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Potentially the second-easiest dip ever, behind the onion soup one

Next time you have to go to a pot luck, bring along a batch of this and people won't even notice that you're wearing women's underwear on your head. It's that good. It's also freakin' simple to make. many thanks to my older sister for introducing me to this stuff.

Get a bottle of Caesar dressing. The creamy kind. I like Cardini's or Ken's Steakhouse stuff.

Get a 2-cup package of grated (shredded? Not the powder stuff) parmesan cheese.

Get a can or jar of artichoke hearts.

Preheat your oven to 350 earth temperature units.

Pour the dressing (all of it, remember my aversion to measuring) into an oven-safe dish. Put half the cheese in there too. Drain and cut up your artichoke hearts into little tiny pieces and put them in there. Stir this all together until it looks nice and mixed. Pour the other half of the cheese over the top and slap the whole thing into the oven for about 20 minutes. The cheese should get melty and the rest of the dip should be creamy and warm. Serve with bagel chips, some of those little Italian toast slices, pita chips, your finger, whatever.

I haven't tried adding some of my generalized chicken to it yet, but I get the feeling it would be very tasty. Next time I make this stuff, it's getting the poultry power.

The only issue I've had with this recipe is that there seems to be some oil separating out of something and floating to the top. it's not anything that affects the flavor, but it's a little gross to look at. I'm going to keep experimenting with the various ingredients to see if I can figure out why. I thought the dressing might be separating, but it seems like that would be a bigger problem. My current theory is that the marinated artichoke hearts I've been using are releasing some of the oil they soaked in when they get warm, and that's traveling up to the top. Next batch will use artichoke hearts packed in water to see if the problem continues. If anyone else has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

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