I'm another one of those who often gets a craving for dips, guacamole being my favorite in the summer, but I even make it in the "off- season" with frozen tomatoes and chiles from the garden (and when avocados are on sale!). Yesterday, I made a generous amount of another dip, that I based on an old recipe I got from one of Diana Kennedy's early books - a Yucatan pumpkin seed dip, which has a grilled habanero, some tomatoes, that were just boiled, but I grill some cherry tomatoes for it, since the habanero is grilled, and some chopped cilantro and chives stirred in at the end. The original recipe calls for unhulled pumpkin seeds, toasted, ground, then sifted through a medium strainer, to remove the hard bits, and it was actually better than using hulled pumpkin seeds, though I rarely do that (except with the butternut seeds I save up, from all those squash I use!). This time, I toasted some hulled pumpkin seeds, and extended them by blending in a can of rinsed cannellini beans - mild flavor, and the pumpkin seeds and habanero were the main flavors.
I often make bean dips with chipotle, and a morita or two thrown in, and maybe some grilled garlic cloves or slices of onion, and maybe some epazote in black bean dips. Often I add a spoonful of Greek yogurt. I make them in the Vitamix, thin enough to circulate, and totally grind up the chiles, then to thicken it, I add a corn tortilla or two, burned a little on an open flame on the range, and broken up into a few pieces. I eat some of these things with tortilla chips, but I try to eat at least half of them with celery sticks and carrot sticks, to get some more veggies with the beans.
Sounds really good!
