Cheddar, Bacon, Ranch Dip

Mom decided to have people (read: family) over for Mother's Day.

Being a good guest, I asked what I should bring.

First she started going on about this fantastic salsa she had had with roasted tomatos and black bean. So you want me to bring salsa, I asked, knowing full well I would just go to the store and buy some. I'm not roasting my own tomatos, sorry. She eventually decided I should bring a dip -- something to munch on before dinner was actually served.

Well, heck, no problem!

I decided to take the rest of the candy apple dip I had left over, so I needed to make something savory.

I went with this dip.

I didn't realize that I had actually already eaten this dip until I made it. The picture looks much different from real life; you can hardly see the green of the ranch dip in the photo. But once I started combining all the ingredients into a giatn tupperware container (because why dirty an extra bowl?), I remembered a friend had brought this on a trip to Gatlinburg.

The crack. I forgot to take my camera, so imagine is greener and that's how mine looked.

Anyway, I mixed up all the ingredients as directed. I eyeballed the amount of cheese because it was essentially half the bag. (I did buy pre-shredded cheese for this, although I much prefer the taste of cheese I grate myself.) I let it sit overnight as directed.

The recipe says you can use either veggies or chips for dipping in it. I decided to go with a bit of each since I at least like to offer the option of pretending to the healthy. I brought tortilla chips and celery. Celery is by no means my favorite vegetable, but this dip is pretty substantial and I figured a stick of celery is both rigid and curved, and thus good for dipping.

We ran out of dip. :)

Conclusion: Calling it "crack" is appropriate since it is rather addicting. Although I don't like running on out things, it's a good thing I didn't double the batch because then no one would have had room for dinner.