Clean Slate

I drank way too much on New Year's Eve.

I am never not drinking again.

You see, when you reunite with some of your closest sorority sisters (ahem, yep, I was one of 'em) it's easy to miscount the number of drinks one might consume in a few hours. I went from an educated 25-year-old working woman to a newbie college student at her first college party in a matter of seconds.

We started doing robot poses.

It got weird.

So the next day, after letting go of any shred of hope that I might be able to function, I rolled around in my cheetah robe and thanked God for my boyfriend and his willingness the night before to buy Jimmy John's after narrowly escaping a pick-pocketer.

Like I said.

It got weird.

I decided to lay low for a couple of days and then grabbed the leftover salmon lox in my fridge and had a brilliant idea. A new year calls for a new recipe.

Smoked Salmon Dip

You'll need....
8 oz. block of cream cheese, softened
3 oz. of smoked salmon
1 tsp. capers
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. dill
Juice from half of a lemon
Couple dashes of Tabasco

I used my Ninja for this but a food processor or even a fork will do!

Add the cream cheese to the Ninja. It will need to be softened. I grabbed mine straight out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave for 20 seconds and it worked perfectly.

Isn't the color of salmon so beautiful? I have found the best lox at Costco but of course, living in the Midwest we don't have a ton of options for this type of delicate fish!

Squeeze a half of a lemon into the mix.

Couple of dashes of Tabasco. I used 3-4 dashes. It's the cajun in me.

About one teaspoon of dried dill. Give or take. You can't go wrong with dill and salmon.

Couple of dashes of Worcestershire.

If you haven't tried capers, you have not lived! They taste like mini pickles. My little sis lives off these things. Capers also make an appearance in my dad's chicken scallipini -- so devine!

I put in about one teaspoon of capers. You may add as much as you'd like.

Let the blades work through the cream cheese mixture...

Blend until the dip looks pink in color. Wouldn't this be fun for one of those color-themed parties? I heard about these "white" parties where all the food is white and you have to dress in white. I wonder if all the people are white, too? In that case, I'm not sure how many pink people there are in the world that would come to my pink party.

I digress.

And then I digest. 

Spread these on your favorite cracker. I had buttery club crackers but tablewater crackers, veggies or your favorite bagel would be heavenly.

May you have a great start to your new year and remember: Dip. Don't drink! (Too much.)