Shirtless Chef – Don’t be a dip for dip!

Local fitness enthusiast Jason Murphy remakes favorite meals of his youth into healthy dishes. See the full list of his recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.

Store bought dips…there’s a million of them.

You might be tempted to grab one for taco night, due to the convenience and different flavors to choose from, but this is another heavily processed food that is just as easy and quick to make at home. You also get to leave out the bits the food manufacturers add in that are totally unnecessary, things like modified corn starch, DATEM, Mono-and Diglycerides, artificial colors, and the mysterious “natural” flavors, which can mean a whole host of weird things they don’t have to list.

What is DATEM, you might ask? It’s a synthetic emulsifier made from the esterification of acetic acid, tartaric acid, glycerol and fatty acids. By itself, it has an off-white to light yellow waxy appearance with an acidic smell. Sounds delicious! I hope you don’t mind that my recipe leaves that off the list.

We also won’t need artificial colors. Most of those today are derived from petroleum…that’s right, crude oil. I’m never going to ask you to go to the garage to add some 5W-30 weight to your dinner, and you should expect the same from food manufacturers, yet every time you eat something with Red No.40 and Yellow No.5, that’s what they are doing. They will say it’s processed enough that there are no traces left of the original petroleum, but I’m just going to say discretion is the better part of valor and keep that out of the food I feed my family. Nature provides plenty of color in foods, I don’t need Exxon to help out in that department.

The big stumbling block for eating healthy dips is the vehicle you use to transport said dip from the bowl to your mouth. It doesn’t make sense to make a healthy dip and then use the same old fried corn chips to eat them. There are several homemade healthy “chip” recipes out there, but I’ve found Beanitos brand black bean and white bean chips have great ingredients and taste. You can find them at all the mega-marts, or order in bulk from Amazon to always have some on hand.

My healthy wraps from an earlier article can also be used as chips. Just add some cumin and chili powder to the mix, and crisp them up in a toaster oven and they work great. This dip can also go on directly on the tacos as a great condiment. The only problem you will find with this dip is that it might cause family fights when it disappears from the fridge as fast as you make it. I made a huge batch and it was gone almost immediately, double batches are a must for the next go-around.

This dip can be modified with any fresh veggies/taste profiles you prefer, and the spicy level is up to you. Create it just the way you want for taste preference, and enjoy knowing that your lawn mower can’t run on anything you are spooning onto your chip.

Homemade Healthy Dip:

Ingredients:

8 ounce grass fed cream cheese at room temp

1 jar Green Mountain Gringo salsa (mild, medium, or hot depending on preference)

1 tbsp Cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

Zest of 1 lime

Juice of 1/2 lime

2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/2 red onion, diced fine

1 avocado, chopped

Cilantro leaves, torn

Grass fed Pepper Jack cheese, shredded

Directions:

Combine cumin, chili powder, and the zest from the lime in a bowl with the cream cheese, blend with a hand blender. Add the salsa and continue blending until the mix is smooth and creamy, then transfer to a serving dish:

Seed and chop the roma tomatoes, and dice the onion. Sprinkle on top of the dip:

Dice the avocado into chunks:

Spread the avocado and cilantro over the dip, sprinkle with the sea salt, and then squeeze the juice from 1/2 a lime over the avocado to add flavor and prevent browning: