This kid in desperate need of a haircut is the baby of my family (He’ll be 18 in March). His name is Trey and he’s agreed to be a part of Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza. If by agreed you mean that he went along with this crazy shit because I am his mother and can make his life a living hell. I did not want him to wear that tack-ass camouflage Dollar Store sweatshirt for the pictures, but he insisted on wearing it because his Grandmother got it for him. That pretty much tells you what kind of a kid he is. He’s also the one bitching about needing a haircut (he’s obviously not a natural blonde, it’s a phase he’s going through and I’m all about waving your freak flag when you’re young and it doesn’t matter). Homeboy does not like his hair getting in his eyes. I find it funny because a lot of kids let their hair grow just to piss off their parents. Mine are ass backwards. Always. Sigh.
I’ve seen recipes all over the place for this taco dip and always wanted to try making it. Now when I say that I have seen recipes that means that I have seen it on sites like allrecipes.com, blogs, food gawker.com, etc. I’m not like that nutcase Robyn. I don’t print out recipes that I might try sometime in the next half dozen years. When I went Internet searching for the recipe I did my standard move – Go to Google, type in what you want to search for and then hit IMAGES. A shit-ton of beautiful pictures of what I want to make comes up and then I spend a good hour clicking on all of them and reading up on how the different sites made it. Then I either print out a recipe if I find one I like or I jot down the ingredients that I know I have and WING IT, always hoping for the best. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. This time it worked.
One can of refried beans. I freaking love refried beans and went through a phase where it was the only food I would eat for a good month about 10 years ago. And then I couldn’t eat them for a long, long time. We’re talking about 8 years. Everything in moderation, people. I had to learn my lesson the hard way.
I didn’t have a clear glass dish to make it all pretty so I just settled for this Fiestaware platter. It’s just as well. My OCD would have went into crisis mode trying to make the layers all even and shit if I would have been using something that you could see through.
Layer of one cup of cheddar cheese. I will not tell you how much of this cheese I ate while making this. And OMG, be thankful I just erased what I had typed here because y’all would have known way too much about me and constipation. Ha! Gotcha!
My apologies. I’ve obviously been hanging out with Trey too much.
So the next layer is Guacamole. If this was a real food blog, we would have been all up in here mashing avocados and shit. Yeah, right. Maybe you can get Robyn to do it, but I can’t be arsed.
Gross, huh?
Smear it around. This is when I lost interest in it looking pretty. Seriously. I just gave up because there was no way this was going to look good.
Take sour cream and add 1/2 envelope of taco seasoning.
This is what cooking with Trey is like. I’m pretty sure I was breaking out in hives right about now. Sloppy cooking. Do you see the pieces of cheese laying around amongst all the other clutter? My last nerve.
Added because this shit is funny. Homeboy was seriously going to hold that huge block of cheese to grate it. This is where we learned about cutting a piece off and then grating it.
The next layer is the salsa (ignore that pouch of guacamole laying there, it was an extra one that hadn’t been put away yet)
Lettuce. I love me some shredded lettuce. And obviously I love cheese!
This was Shirley’s pathetic attempt at helping out with the finished product. NOTE: this is where you could/would add black olives, chopped green onions and peppers to make it pretty. I personally think that olives are Satan’s kidney stones so I won’t go near them. My mother likes green olives so we have them here. She threw those on top to try to make it look nicer and as you can see, it didn’t help much. Heh.
Trey really liked it. In fact everyone in the house liked it except for Shirley. Homegirl hates refried beans (weirdo).
The only real bitch I have with this is the fact that it makes so much. You can’t really tell in that picture, but the platter is big (and reasonably deep). It would most definitely be a fantastic idea for a party and I think a lot of people make it for football games, tailgating, etc.
- 1 can re-fried beans
- 1-1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
- 1 7 oz. pouch of guacamole
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 envelope Taco Mix (or 2 tablespoons)
- 1 cup salsa
- 1 cup shredded lettuce
- Black olives, chopped onions, tomatoes or peppers (optional)
- Start with re-fried beans and spread them in a bowl of your choice (glass is better).
- Lay 1 cup of cheese over the beans.
- Spread guacamole over the cheese layer.
- Mix sour cream and taco mix in a bowl.
- Spread sour cream mixture over the guacamole layer.
- Spread salsa over the sour cream layer.
- Add lettuce.
- Sprinkle the remaining half cup of cheese over lettuce.
- Garnish with optional black olives, chopped onions, tomatoes or peppers.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with Tortilla chips.
I don’t know why, but I expected that it would need to be warmed up for some reason. It certainly looks easy! (You might get me to mash up some avocado for guacamole, but probably not – I swear to god, those things go bad so fast they’re worse than bananas!)
lemon juice…a little squirt on the avocado will prevent the browning
Lime juice and salt. Tsp of tequila. Or a T or 2 of a classic margarita.
I messed with avocado exactly 1 time. It was so freaking rotten that it smelled bad and I had no idea (I had just bought it at the produce store that day). That’s when I said enough was enough and went for the pre-made stuff.
Maybe you thought it needed heated because of the re-fried beans? Now you have me wondering if it would taste good heated up too! I might have to have a Super Bowl party to find out (not). 🙂
I bet it’s because when I think “Taco”, I automatically think ground beef with taco seasoning in it. Which of course this doesn’t have in it! Clearly I need to expand my horizons. 🙂
You can heat it until bubbling, but put the lettuce and chopped tomato on after. I love the combo of hot beans/cheese and cold lettuce/tomato.
I just realized we’ve been making this dip here (Los Angeles) since sometime in the 1970’s, so you know it’s got to be good.
This is my go-to take-to-a-party dish! VERY popular and VERY tasty – the only thing I do differently is add some chopped jalapenos (or chopped green chiles) to the refried beans and change up the order of the layering a bit.
I think it’s much better than the other layered dip out there that used cream cheese.
I probably would have tried cream cheese, but I didn’t want to for it to get soft. Oh, chopped jalapenos – I bet it’s good, but my stomach would be crying! 🙂
Off topic comment: Please call and tell Robyn that her site if offline. Thank you!
Robyn knows, Bella. 🙂 The server that hosts my site is hosed. They’re currently restoring it, and it’s taking forever. You can go over to Love & Hisses to read today’s post.
Thank you, I was starting to go into withdrawl!!!!!!!! I’ll make a note about Love & Hisses.
This dish is a staple here is Texas – and not just for football parties. Sometimes I do black beans instead of refried and add chopped tomatoes, just for another layer. Mostly I grab the canned refried beans and salsa and figure good enough! Black olives are a must though, and forget that lettuce – it is salmonella poisoning waiting to happen.
I have a variation that includes an oven and less ingredients.
1 packet taco seasoning
1 can refried beans
1 can diced green chili peppers (the small can)
2 cups sour cream (or one depending on how much like sour cream)
1 cup shredded cheese
handful of black olives (optional)
Mix the beans, seasoning and chilis together and then smooth in bottom of bowl (I use the small square Pyrex dish). Add layer of sour cream then cheese and sprinkle top with black olives. Bake in 400 degree oven until cheese is nice and bubbly (the rest will be warm by that time). Serve with chips and enjoy! This is the very first thing I ever learned to cook and it’s been a hit at parties ever since.
I use bean dip and mix it with the sour cream and taco seasoning. Any combination of these ingredients makes my mouth water.