Cheddar Beer Dip!

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I posted one of my own recipes, and today I was feeling adventurous. I just started exercising again today, so why not pig out and negate all of my hard work!?

Unfortunately I don't have many pictures from the actual cooking process, but hopefully my instructions will be easy to understand!

ingredients:

• 3 Tbsps all-purpose flour
• 1/2-3/4 cup beer (I only used 1/2 but whatever floats your boat will work)
• 1 tsp spicy brown mustard
• 2 8-ounce packages vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti), softened
• 1 8-ounce package Daiya shredded cheddar
• 3 Tbsps dry ranch dressing mix (most store brands are vegan but read the labels carefully anyway!)
• optional: Sriracha, to taste

instructions:

1. In a medium pot over low-medium heat, pour in the beer. Quickly whisk in the flour. It will turn into a weird beige "paste"; at this point, remove from heat (but keep heat at the ready!).
2. Whisk the spicy brown mustard into the paste, and put this back on the heat. Keep the heat on low-medium.
3. Slowly raise the heat to medium and mix in the cream cheese. Once this has begun to melt, start mixing in the Daiya shredded cheddar. I mixed a little at a time to make sure it was evenly distributed throughout the cream cheese.
4. Mix in the dry ranch dressing mix and the optional Sriracha.
5. Optional: Before eating, broil the dip in an oven-safe bowl on high for two minutes to make it extra melty and more of a golden colour!

Here's my little mise en place! The blue mason jar has my homemade dry Ranch dressing mix (which I'll talk about more in a second), and that bowl in the lower-right corner has flour in it.

I am not responsible for any of you bad little kiddies that are under 21, so none of that! But yeah, this is pretty much the East Coast's beer love. (I don't really drink much in general, especially beer, but I like Yuengling. Whoops, fulfilling that stereotype I guess!)

Please note that, despite what you may think, not all alcohol is vegan. If you're unsure about what beers are safe/if you have any questions, please visit Barnivore for more information!

Now, I got the recipe for the homemade Ranch dressing mix from this wonderful book! You can follow the lovely Lane Gold on Twitter or on Instagram! I love this book and always highly recommend it. I've loved everything I've made from it, although I tend to lower the amount of salt in my recipes just because I'd like to cut down in general.

 Here was a picture from the mixing process. Mmmmm, dip.

Eric and I had a box of soft pretzel mix in the cabinet, so we whipped those up too. I mean, nothing like beer and pretzels and cheese right!?

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe! I pretty much scarfed everything down in sight, heh. I recommend this for big parties or a night in with your friends. It's pretty easy to make AND it's delicious! Even people who don't like alcohol/beer will probably enjoy this dish.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to leave a message for me here or email me!

xo, Kate