Veggie Beats Bacon

I survived my first official round of parent-teacher conferences.  It turns out that no one wants to meet their kid's cooking teacher.  So I spent the last two days sitting in the cafeteria with all the other teachers who actually had parents at their tables... meanwhile I worked away like a mad woman and got so much done.  And now I get Friday off.  Conferences rock.

In addition to all the down time, the "social committee" put together a little contest to keep us entertained and well-fed.  Yesterday was Dip Day at our school.  All the teachers were invited to bring a dip to share and then everyone voted on their favorite.  Fun, right?

Riiiiight.  Turns out I'm uber competitive.  Who knew?

I totally obsessed over which dip I would make.  Do I go with a universal favorite (spinach dip), or branch out and do something a little exotic?  Sweet or savory?  Healthy or rich & creamy?  It even crossed my mind to add meat. 

I know.  I really wanted to win.  I'm a crazy person.

In the end I went with my instincts and put together this super amazing sounding 7-Layer Crazy Greek Dip.  My thinking was that everyone loves 7-layer dip.  And who doesn't love hummus?  And if other people brought hummus I had six other layers to kick their chickpea-lovin'-butts.

This is the picture from the blog I got the recipe from.  You know my pics don't look this good.

I was nervous when I showed up to Dip Day and was confronted by about a million different dips, half of which included bacon.  Bacon.  The ingredient that makes everything taste better.  I got super self-conscious and figured my silly vegetarian dip would never win. 

I was wrong.  My logic worked.  I totally won.  My dip rocked their socks off.  And kicked some bacon-butt. 

They made an announcement over the intercom telling everyone that "First place goes to our newest employee and cooking teacher, Jamie Gibson!" 

It was awesome.  I didn't realize how competitive I can be.  Lesson learned, you don't need bacon to be awesome. 

Write that down. 

And make this dip.