I put my hand up on a chip
When I dip, you dip, we dip
You pick up a pita chip
When you dip, I dip, we dip
Apparently October is Vegetarian Awareness Month, according to the Bureau of Randomly Assigned Issue Awareness Months, and October 1 was World Vegetarian Day.  I wouldn’t normally know this, no offense to vegetarianism, except that a group of us at my office were looking for a theme for the beginning of our semi-regular Friday potluck lunches this semester and we stumbled upon this little factoid.  We figured hey, we have a few vegetarians and vegans on staff and, after all, we are planning on celebrating Miss Piggy’s birthday with a ham-fueled pork-gy in a couple of weeks, so why not?  Veggie day was on.

I needed something to make and wanted something simple, that could feed a lot of people but without a lot of effort on my part and this recipe I had tucked away for an 8 layer Mediterranean dip did just the trick.  I got the recipe from Whole Food’s website, but ended up tweaking it a bit because I didn’t want certain layers, wanted to add others and in one case couldn’t find the ingredients for one so I mixed things up.

That’s the beauty of this recipe–it’s infinitely customizable.  And not to get all Sandra Lee on you, but it’s great for those of you who don’t want to make something from scratch because all you have to do is layer and assemble.  Layer and assemble.  And eat.

The original recipe is here, but my modifications are below:

Layered Mediterranean Dip

16oz roasted red pepper hummus
2 c. chopped baby spinach
1 jar artichoke hearts
2 diced tomatoes
1 c. lowfat Greek yogurt
4oz crumbled feta

Layer first hummus, then spinach, then artichokes and tomatoes.
Spread yogurt over the veggies and then top with feta.  Eat.  With
pita chips.

What are you doing for Vegetarian Awareness Month?