Football Season Dip

It is officially fall and in our house, on the weekends, that means football, football, football. Not just American football, but European as well. This may be a little premature, but this weekend I tried your traditional 7 layer dip. I will definitely alter this recipe a bit when I make it for a group, but this is what I would recommend.

The base layers consist of refried beans,sour cream/cream cheese blend, and gauc. Normally, I would make the beans and guacamole from scratch, but this time, I just made the guac and bought canned refried beans.

Homemade refried beans:
As some of you know, I hate to follow a recipe, so a lot of what I do comes from trial and error. For homemade refried beans, I use black beans. Soak the beans overnight or as instructed on the bag. Once they are soft, throw a batch on a skillet (low-med heat) until they start to break apart. I use a wooden spoon to squish the beans and add water and vegetable broth to thin the mixture.The beans easily soak up all the liquid, so you may have to add more and you go. Once the consistency is as you want it (usually takes about 20 min), add salt and pepper to taste. Next time I make these, I am going to try to blend the beans in a food processor after they have broken apart in the skillet with the water and veggie broth. This may help the consistency to not be so thick.

Add the meat:
The second layer is where I usually do some ground meat. I prefer ground turkey, but you can do anything; beef, chicken, tofu... I also add some taco seasoning to flavor the meat. Adding meat is not very common in a seven layer dip, but I think it adds a better texture. This time I skipped the meat because I didn't buy or defrost anything in time.

Cream cheese/sour cream blend:
This layer is very simple. Mix cream cheese and sour cream (1:1). I hate the taste of straight sour cream, so I like to thicken it up, and tone it down with the cream cheese. I also like to add some taco seasoning to the batch just a bit so you are able to taste it, but not enough to over-power all the other layers.

Guacamole:
I LOVE guacamole. In the summer I have been known to have chips and homemade gauc for dinner. ...and lunch ...and even breakfast. I hate store bought guac because it tastes too processed and there is no taste of the avocado. In my opinion, the more it tastes like avocado, the better. When making guac, I scoop out the avocado, squish it up with a fork (the chunkier the better), add a little bit of salsa and lime juice. That's it! It's super easy and delicious!

The three base layers of seven-layer dip.

For the next next layers, I add all the veggies and cheese. This is really where you can really do whatever you want. I like to add tomatoes, olives and cheese, but my husband like jalapeno peppers, salsa, shredded lettuce and cheese. The great thing about the seven layer dip, is that it is almost impossible to mess up and it is always delicious, even if most of the ingredients are canned.

All the layers. A perfect dish to share for a football party, tailgating, movie night, etc.

Yum!

...until next time.