Recipe: Hot Pizza Dip

For parties and get-togethers, I love dips.  Pretty much any and every dip I typically like.  I recently had some friends over for a game night and wanted to make a couple appetizers.  I went with two that I had made before and knew were good but I wanted to try something new as well.  The first two appetizers I planned were cold, so I wanted something warm and I wanted something a bit more savory.  After perusing the web for a couple minutes, I went to one of my favorite food websites, allrecipes.com.  There I found this recipe for Pizza Dip. I always like to check out the reviews because people often give other tips and honest opinions about whether or not it is good.  This dip had only good reviews, so I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

1 8oz. package of cream cheese, softened 

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. dried parsley

1/4 tsp. dried basil

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup pizza sauce

2 tbsp. chopped green bell pepper 

2 oz. pepperoni sausage, chopped

2 tbsp. black olive

Tortilla chips for serving

In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese with dried spices.  Here is where you can use a low-fat or reduced fat cream cheese if you want, and I just eye-balled the measurements.  

Spread the mixture on the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese on top of mixture.

Spread the pizza sauce all over the top.  Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and top with green pepper and pepperoni.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so, or until all the cheese is melted and bubbling.  

I just used regular slices of pepperoni and cut them up and I don't like olives so I didn't use them. You could really use any kind of pizza toppings you would like for this dip.  This turned out really great!  We served it with tortilla chips but you could probably serve it with some sort bread, like a baguette as well.  I liked the tortilla because it was a bit salty and crunchy with the dip. 

Everyone really liked this!  My friend even said, "this is the new Skyline Dip!" haha, so I guess that means he liked it!