Now that cookout season has kicked off, my healthy makeovers of traditional summer classics -- like creamy guacamole dip -- are in high demand.
It's true that avocados are high in fat, prompting people to call it the "butter pear." While a medium-sized avocado contains about 30 grams of fat, most of it is mono-unsaturated fat that actually helps to lower cholesterol levels. Diet experts have long steered consumers away from avocados, though the U.S. government revised its official nutrition guidelines a few years ago to encourage Americans to eat more of them.
Some people say it's impossible to mess up a guacamole recipe, but I beg to differ. In my book, there's no place for garlic. Yes, you heard right. Plum tomatoes are a must, with the seeds removed to keep from watering down the dip's velvety texture. I also think lime juice and cilantro are central to kicking up the flavor a notch, adding a nice contrast to the creamy texture of the avocados. I top the whole thing off with a pinch of heat from cayenne or other hot, ground dried chilies.
Get Jennifer's guacamole tips and Creamy Guacamole Dip recipe after the jump.
Why are finger foods so appealing? Is it because we all secretly like to eat with our hands, or does it have more to do with those tangy, flavored dipping sauces like barbecue, honey mustard or homemade chipotle mayo? I like finger foods because they come in bite-sized pieces. I can have a taste of everything without feeling stuffed and even have seconds of the things I enjoyed most.
So what's the ultimate finger food? I'd have to say chicken fingers. In my career as a professional cook, I have made hundreds -- no, thousands -- of juicy, homemade chicken fingers.
Some are coated with Parmesan bread crumbs or crushed golden butter crackers, others dipped first in thick buttermilk and Tabasco, then coated in crunchy, crushed cereals. They are perfect for kids and even better for entertaining, as I found out when my neighbors devoured them during our monthly movie get-together.
Buttermilk chicken fingers always disappear first, but I also love to convince my veggie-hating friends to dip nutrient-rich vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower into the sauce of their choice. That's why I've collected a private stash of recipes that are healthier, but just as tasty.
Get Jennifer's recipes and warm weather entertaining tips after the jump.
It's a great word, Skordalia. Sounds like a flower that grows on Venus, or a rare breed of pygmy squid. What it is in fact is a Greek dip made from pureed potatoes and garlic. Not as exotic as a Venusian dandelion, but probably much tastier. The Recipes for Health column in the New York Times has a version using nothing more than potatoes, kosher salt, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. The kind of thing you can whip up out of spare pantry ingredients and wildly impress your hungry friends. Skordalia is traditionally served with fried fish or cooked vegetables, but it's also excellent as a spread or a dip for raw veggies. Try it in a sandwich with roasted red peppers and spinach.
With potato chips, you can go in a few different directions -- thick, plain potato chips with dip; skip the dip and serve flavored potato chips; or get all kinds of flavor-crazy and serve flavored potato chips with dip!
I am fickle when it comes to potato chips, so I actually do need to have several different options available. Sometimes I love those horrible Lay's potato chips that are nothing more than pieces of potato paper, but most of the time, I love thick, hard, crunchy kettle-cooked potato chips with an obscene scoop of French Onion Dip. You can make it from scratch, but I have to confess that I have a soft spot for the French Onion Dip made from dried soup mix and sour cream.
No, I don't need to give you yet another recipe for guacamole.
Not only are there plenty of them out there, but a recipe for guacamole is like a "recipe" for a bowl of cereal or pasta salad, i.e. it doesn't really require one. It's enough to say that the basics are avocados, garlic, onion, scallions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, and sometimes, chopped tomatoes. You mash them together and adjust everything to your taste. I usually leave cilantro out because that vile stuff tastes like dirty soap to me.
Though it tastes and feels like it would be naughty because it's so creamy, guacamole can be considered a "healthy" snack. Guacamole is made of all vegetables, and though people seem to focus on the "fat" part of avocado, the truth is, the fat may be fattening (like any fat), but it's still a "good" fat.
However, I have this thing I do to guacamole that pretty much yanks guacamole off the "healthy" table and hurls it down into the deep fat fryer with things like Buffalo wings with Blue Cheese Dressing and French Onion Dip.
I add a giant -- no, make that enormous -- dollop of sour cream to my guacamole. Not that good, ripe avocados need it, but the full fat sour cream makes guacamole even creamier, and adds a different tang in addition to the lime juice.
If you have a "secret" or interesting addition to guacamole, let us know in the comments!
I have a horrible confession, Slashfood friends. One of the reasons I love the Super Bowl and other tailgate-type parties is that it gives me an excuse to make and eat all those foods that I'd never serve at any other type of party because they're not very, well, "foodie." I'm talking about things like Flamin' Hot Cheetos, national chain delivery pizza, and...
Spinach Dip.
I'm not talking about your little glazed earthenware crockpot filled with a homemade blend of cheese, artichokes, and spinach. Neither am I even going with a store-bought version of the same thing that I would at least pretend to cook by heating up and serving to guests hot. I am talking about that Spinach Dip made from frozen chopped spinach, sour cream, mayonnaise, and a package of dried vegetable soup mix that you have to make the night before so the freeze-dried vegetables have time to revive. The stuff is not only horrible for you (unless you make it healthy with lowfat sour cream and mayo!), but good grief, it's made from dried vegetable soup.
And yes, I always serve it in a hollowed out round of bread that I buy at the store, too.
I know, you're thinking, an onion dip? That's rather boring. But there has to be an onion dip of some sort at a football party, and I think this one adds a little more zip than the typical bowl. As the title says, it's not just onion, it's really onion. Hot sauce adds more kick too.
As a bonus, this is from Food Network's Sara's Secrets. I really wish Sara Moulton was on still on the channel. (Update: I got an e-mail from someone who used to work with Sara who informs me that she has a new show premiering on PBS this April titled Sara's Secrets For Weeknight Meals - thanks for the tip Lesley!)
Really now, when you think of food porn, that last thing you think of is bean dip, right? Okay, maybe a luxurious cannellini bean spread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, or perhaps even a deep, dark sultry black bean dip, but seven layer dip? That's the stuff made with brown lumpy stuff that's mashed together with pork lard then layered together into a congealed rainbow of Taco Bell flavors most often found pre-made in the grocery store refrigerated section. There is nothing sexy about Seven Layer Dip.
Unless it's the Seven Layer Bean Dip over at Simply Recipes. Unlike all those supermarket dips, Elise demands that the refried beans as the first layer be hot. I agree. Who wants to bite into a lump of cold, hard smashed beans? When the refried beans are hot, then the next layer, shredded cheese, melts itself all over it, creating quite the pornographic seven layer dip pictured above.
You'll never be able to look at Seven Layer Dip the same way again.
This cheese dip recipe has been in my family for years. My mom made it all the time when I was a kid. If I remember correctly, she got the recipe from my one of my aunts. It's really easy to make and it goes fast, so make plenty of it.
Your shopping list for chile con queso must include some kind of white melting cheese. I use two eight ounce blocks of pepper jack. I know there are better cheeses out there for melting purposes but pepper jack is what we've always used and I don't want to be one to break tradition. You'll also need one large tomato or two smaller ones, an onion (I use yellow sweet onions), one four ounce can of diced green chilies, about a quarter cup of milk and and the same for a beer of your choice. You'll also need tortilla chips for eating the cheese dip.
To make this chile con queso, dice the onions fairly small and sweat them with the diced green chilies in vegetable oil until they are tender. Add the diced up tomatoes (I like them a little chunkier) and let them cook just a little bit. Cut the cheese up into small pieces and add that on medium low heat, letting it slowly melt all the way. Traditionally, the last thing to add is a little milk to smooth everything out. However, I recently found out that adding alcohol helps homogenize cheese mixtures, so now I add a little bit of beer. The best way to eat chile con queso is to pour some over tortilla chips. Keep the cooking vessel over low heat for best continued service as it re-solidifies quickly.
Some kind of cheese dip is traditional for any Super Bowl party. You don't have to make one using any kind of cheese "product" for it to be good and easy. Chile con queso is an easy dish to make and, best of all, is made of real, unprocessed food. Hopefully your family will love it as much as mine does!
A few weeks ago, my friends and I got together after work to play board games (yes yes I know - how very, um, exciting), and a friend and I were charged with providing food. We were meeting rather late, so there was no need to go with full dinner fare. I decided on a few Mediterranean dips and a salad because really now, is there anything better than ripping a pita loaf into shreds when you're caught up in the excitement of Jenga?!?! Tzatziki is one of my favorites, and though I do believe it's used more as a sauce or condiment in Greek cuisine, I love scooping it up with pita bread. My Sarah-ized version is written out after the jump:
Keebler has been on quite a roll with their TownHouse line of crackers (the Bistro crackers are quite good). They're releasing several different flavors of their Toppers crackers, the latest being Garlic & Herb.
How are they? They're OK. The problem I have is that the garlic and herb flavors aren't quite strong enough. They have a really strong flavor of their regular buttery Toppers and then the mild garlic and herb flavor kicks in. I wish the flavor was stronger, like the garlic and herb crackers that you can get in the Ritz line and the Triscuit line and various veggie-flavored crackers.
Toppers are so named because they are a bit thicker than typical crackers and have a little curved "bowl" so you can put toppings on them without stuff fall off. According to the back of the box, you can "top 'em," "dip 'em," "serve 'em," or have them "stand alone." That last one sounds kinda odd. What, you don't eat them at all, you just let them sit there untopped and alone? Weird.
What would a collection of SuperBowl dip recipes be without a little blue cheese, considering that it is held to be the gold standard of hot wing dips - excluding hot wing sauce itself, of course. Blue cheese (or bleu cheese, if you prefer) dip is made with a pungent, creamy cheese that cuts into the spiciness of hot wings by adding a new layer of flavor and a cooling sensation that dulls the heat of the chicken. The strongly flavored cheese, in most of these dips, is often combined with sour cream, mayonnaise or cream cheese, each of which contributes to the overall texture of the dip without bumping up the flavor to the point where it overpowers the hot wing itself.
This particular dip is a pretty standard recipe that you'll probably find in several different places. It calls for sour cream and mayonnaise in addition to the cheese, so "healthy" is not something that could be applied. You can always substitute low fat or nonfat sour cream/mayonnaise; using a good quality blue cheese will make up for any loss of flavor in either of those ingredients.
I adore chipotle peppers. They may be trendy, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they are very tasty. Chipotle peppers are smoked jalapenos and are usually packed in cans in an adobo sauce. The original process was developed to preserve the peppers, but the smoky flavor and lingering heat of the chipotle long ago caused it to become popular in its own right. That heat makes a nice background to the cool, creamy avocado in this guacamole.
You can choose to make it either creamy or chunky, depending on what you want to serve it with. Chunky guacamoles tend to work best with chips and crackers, as both provide ample surface area for scooping. Creamier dips are a better choice for veggies and pretzels, or other snacks that don't make for a good scoop. For a chunky dip, simply mince everything and stir it together to blend. For an ultra-creamy dip, use the food processor to combine everything.
Now that cookout season has kicked off, my healthy makeovers of traditional summer classics -- like creamy guacamole dip -- are in high demand. 
I know, you're thinking, an onion dip? That's rather boring. But there has to be an onion dip of some sort at a football party, and I think this one adds a little more zip than the typical bowl. As the title says, it's not just onion, it's really onion. Hot sauce adds more kick too.
This cheese dip recipe has been in my family for years. My mom made it all the time when I was a kid. If I remember correctly, she got the recipe from my one of my aunts. It's really easy to make and it goes fast, so make plenty of it.
Start your year with 
Keebler has been on quite a roll with their TownHouse line of crackers (the 
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