"dipping" news and stories

Layered dips - whether you go for a total of five, six or seven - are fantastic complements to a big bag of tortilla chips and are always crowd pleasers. There is always at least one element that will appeal to everyone's tastes and, more often than not, it is the combination of everything that makes the dip a real winner.

There are a couple of different ways to make this dip and each results in a different number of layers. The basic version of the dip will have four layers: refried beans, salsa, guacamole and sour cream. Additional layers of any of those ingredients, as well as cheese, black olives, green onions and even cooked ground beef can be added to increase the layering, with the most popular number being seven.

The last time I was in my local up-scale, organic supermarket, I saw chocolate-dipped strawberries selling for $1.25 each. Sure, they were big, and they might have even had some white chocolate drizzled on there too, but a buck-twenty-five? That alone is enough inspiration for me to make them at home. Some would say that good fruit doesn't need any sort of help. I agree. The fruit I happened to have on hand, however, was a little less than spectacular, so I didn't feel the least bit bad about dipping it in some Valrhona Manjari (64%). I just put a handful of chocolate wafers into a double boiler (a bowl on top of a small pan of gently simmering water), let them melt, dipped my strawberries and orange sections and let them cool on some wax paper. I then slightly burned my fingers "cleaning" the warm leftover chocolate from the bowl.