I piccata, you piccata

I made a lovely, probably not terribly authentic, italian meal for company tonight. Italian meats/cheese/and pickle antipasto. Chicken Piccata. Caprese salad. Chocolate pot de creme. It was yummy. The caprese salad is more or less a basic - but, I'll tell you what I did and you can copy or make something similar and claim it as your own. I bought lovely little grape tomatoes, and halved them. I cubed up some fresh mozzarella cheese. I lightly salted and peppered them and drizzled olive oil and tossed it all together and stuck it in the frig. Then, shortly before serving, I cut up basil (from my garden!!!!) and tossed it into the salad. Added a bit more olive oil, and set out on the table to take the chill off before dinner. I think it may be the perfect salad. It was savory, and it was sweet, and the basil knocked my socks off. (well, not really - since I don't wear socks - but my feet are furry/hairy enough most folks don't realize I'm not wearing socks.)

But, that isn't the cooking lesson I wanted to share with you tonight. Tonight, I want to give you the secret base for dips. Real dips -- not that powdered ranch stuff in sour cream.

I'm going to give more or less the proportions that you can expect to work - but, this is easily tampered with to your tastes, or your ingredients on hand.

Dip Base:

8 oz softened cream cheese
4 oz sour cream
1 clove garlic, minced or grated
dash of lemon juice
couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce
couple of dashes of hot sauce
salt/pepper

Mix all the ingredients together. Then, add the dip flavoring -- I like to break up 4 oz (or more) of smoked salmon. But, you can also add in a good amount of grated cucumber (drained) or even boiled/seasoned/chopped shrimp or crab meat. One of my friends whips up the base with her mixer and adds in a bit of cream to make it lighter. You can muck about with the flavorings or ratios of any of the ingredients as you like. You can use the low fat cream cheese and sour cream, but I don't know why you'd want to do something like that.