Dipstick (a few favorite recipes)

Shortly after getting all moved in my favorite Las Vegan was in town and I had the girls over for a little MJ Dancing and scrabble action.

Seeing as how my mom is the queen of party hosting and finger foods, I spent a good hour perusing the grocery store collecting goodies for the perfect assortment of dips for our ladies night

I decided to go with my Fruit Dip, Pizza Dip and Mediterranean Dip.

After stocking up on cream cheese at the I headed home to start preparing. These are three of my go-to dips... easy and quick to prepare and are a tad different, so if you take them to a get together you probably won't end up having 3 of the same thing! I figured I would share my recipes, with the big games coming up who doesn't want something new to serve?!

Fruit Dip (my mom's recipe)

1 brick cream cheese, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all ingredients in the mixer and then serve. It's great with bananas, apples, strawberries, grapes, whatever! It's so amazingly delicious.... don't be surprised if your guests whip out a spoon and just start eating it straight (not that I've ever done that or anything...) Tip: Place your cut up apple slices in a large Ziploc baggie and pour in a can of Sprite... obviously drain before serving. The citrus will help prevent your apples from browning

Mediterranean Dip

1 brick cream cheese, softened

2 tbsp milk

1 container of hummus

1/2 cucumber

2 roma tomatoes

~3/4 container feta cheese

black olives (optional)

bag of pita chips (we like Stacy's Pita Chips)

Combine the cream cheese & milk (I recommend using a mixer... otherwise it's hard to get it mixed completely and will be chunky). Spread along the bottom of serving dish (you can use a pie plate, an oval serving dish, an 8x8pan, a dinner plate - doesn't matter!). The next layer is the hummus - spread this evenly above the cream cheese layer. Now add diced up cucumber and tomatoes. Lastly, sprinkle feta across the top.

This is addictive, and I'd like to think it's relatively healthy hah! You can substitute flavored hummus (roasted red pepper, etc), but I prefer the regular.

Both of these recipes can be prepared ahead of time, covered in foil and left in the fridge until later.  I don't have the pizza dip recipe in front of me, so that'll have to wait until another day!