party appetizers: reverse dip bowl...

when I dip, you dip, we dip...

No, I'm not talking about the dance craze of the late 90s, I'm talking about party dips! Whenever I'm tasked with bringing an appetizer to a party, I freeze like a deer in the headlights. Not because I can't think of a thing to make, but because I can't narrow down my options. So yesterday, I thought, why should I have to choose, why can't I enjoy them all? And the reverse dip bowl was born!

This is what your typical chip/dip server looks like: 

Dip in the center and various dipping paraphernalia around the outside. 

In my reverse dip, I flipped it. 

 I put three dips around the outside and filled the middle bowl with thin pita chips. 

I found two of the dips on Pinterest (so technically this is also a "I pinned it then did it" post) and the third is my signature cream cheese salsa dip that is a big hit at any gathering. It's so easy and such a crowd pleaser that I filled two of the bowls with it and both were gone by the end of the Super Bowl. You take a softened brick of cream cheese, combine it with 3/4 of a jar of your favorite salsa and stir it together until its fairly smooth. I love it with a sweet salsa like mango, peach or lime. But you can make it with spicy salsa as well. It's two ingredients, delicious and easy. That's why it's my signature.

You can find recipes for the other two dips here:
Cilantro Lime White Bean Hummus
Creamy Avocado Dip

Since you're not making a huge portion for each dip, the reverse dip bowl is a great way to try out smaller versions of recipes and not worry about wasting ingredients if it isn't a hit.

I'm already thinking up other reverse dip combinations:
Mexican Fiesta: Salsa, Guacamole, Signature Salsa Dip and Queso. Served with Lime Tortilla Chips.
Game Day: Beer Cheese Dip, Horseradish Dip, Reuben Dip and Rotel/Velveeta Dip. Served with Pretzel Bread Chunks.
Ladies Day: Dill Dip, Signature Salsa Dip, Hummus, Smoky Sweet Potato Dip. Served with celery and carrot sticks.

Happy dipping!

DIY beverage cart

Last post, I gave you a sneak peek at a project I had been working on and here is the big reveal.
For years I have been obsessed with transforming an old AV cart into a funky, rolling bar cart. These are some of the pictures I have had tucked away for inspiration.

Clockwise from top left: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

On a recent garage-saleing excursion, my dreams got a little closer to reality. I picked up this baby for a mere $10 and the ideas started flowing.

Since finishing our deck, I knew it would be the perfect place for this metal beauty. A couple cans of Rustoleum Painter's Touch spray paint in Glossy Apple Red later and VOILA!

It took many, many coats to cover this baby. I started with Valspar Outdoor Spray Paint. It was awful, Both cans were hard to spray and the nozzle would spit out paint, leaving little paint dots all over. So I switched to Rustoleum and it was so much better. Smoother spray, even coating and no splatter.

It has been surface-of-the-sun-hot here for the last two weeks, so unfortunately I wasn't able to use it when I had my girlfriends in town. Hopefully we can have the neighbors over soon and make full use of it as a bar. Lemonade is sweet, but a vodka lemonade on a hot summer evening is sweeter.  

Red was the hubby's idea and I have to say it adds just the right amount of pop to our neutral deck.

I love it! 

Have you used a pop of color on your patio? Tell me about it!