What screams Valentine’s Day? Chocolates, truffles, candied hearts, pickle dip. Pickle dip? Yes, only here at EE would be be celebrating Heart’s and Flower’s Day with a piquant and tart recipe.
I have seen some delicious looking pickle dips making the rounds recently. You can find some of them here, here, and here.
I wanted to jump on the band wagon and play around with this idea a bit. I planned to do an appetizer spread for The Hubs to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We love us some peppers so I thought an adaptation would be appropriate.
Peperoncini Pepper Dip
based on JASON ASHLEY’S DILL PICKLE DIP (Tulsa World, January 30, 2014)1 (8 oz.) pkg. 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1/4 c. pickled sliced peperoncini peppers, chopped
3 T. pickling juice (from jarred peppers)
1 dash white pepper
1 dash cayenne
1/2 t. dried dill weedMix all ingredients in a bowl with a hand-held mixer or stand mixer. Place in serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least one hour. Garnish with more peppers.
Note: For more heat, use a hotter variety of peppers. This would also be great using herbed olives in place of the peppers and throwing in some fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary. (Notice that I included a “hand-held mixer” here. I recently was made aware that a major pet peeve of some foodies was when recipes called for a stand mixer only. 🙂
Serve with crackers, veggies, or very unhealthy (but delicious) ridged potato chips. (This dip is pretty tasty with Fritos as well.) 🙂
Happy Valentine’s Day.
This Valentine’s Day card is from Happy First. I love their products. Please check them out. Buy something for your sweetie.