Cameron's Chicken Dip

Superbowl week! Time to post some high-fat snack ideas. Also, I'm more or less on a diet, so I'm basically determined to ruin everyone else's. (I just have a food blog. I never said I was a good person.)

You might remember that my friend Brooke introduced me to artichoke dip my freshman year in college. Cameron's chicken enchilada dip is like that SNL Elvis sketch: "just like that... 'cept diff'rent." This dip is crazy good and highly addictive. Cam brought this dip to my friend Jenny's party, and he made the mistake of getting up to get the bag of chips. When he came back, it was GONE. No joke. (It was an awkward moment, as we sat there with full mouths and teaspoons, and Cam standing there with mouth agape). By the way, the guy in the back is Cameron, called "the Wookie" fondly by his, ahem, shorter friends.

(And much love to Mrs., and the Little Wookies). Here's the original recipe from allrecipes.com, and be sure to read Cameron and my notes at the end before making:

Original Recipe (Allrecipes.Com):

Ingredients:
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (8 ounce) jar mayonnaise
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chile peppers
1 jalapeño pepper, finely diced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place chicken breast halves on a medium baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven 20 minutes, or until no longer pink. Remove from heat, cool and shred. Place shredded chicken in a medium bowl, and mix in cream cheese, mayonnaise, Cheddar cheese, green chile peppers and jalapeño pepper. Transfer the chicken mixture to a medium baking dish. Bake uncovered in the preheated oven 30 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

Cam's dip ALWAYS turned out noticeably better than mine, so I suggest you follow his alterations to the letter is you want the maximum yumminess! So here are the notes from Cam:

• "Always use either the Philly's neufchatel or the full-fat cream cheese, and usually the Hellman's canola mayo."
• "I do the chicken breasts in the crockpot for (2 hours on high, or 4-6 hours on low) with tequila and lime juice just to about cover the breasts, and Adobo spices and usually some garlic powder (or some other mexicany spice combination, I've done chili powder, paprika & cumin before, really, I think as long as there's some cumin from some source you are good to go) and just shred it with a fork in the pot."

• "I use the Mexican blend cheese in the 2.5 pound bag from Costco or shredded habañero cheddar (I think Cabot is the brand, its at Costco also). I use pickled jalapeño instead of fresh jalapeño, and tailor the amount to the spiciness I want (about 1 spoonful for mild dip (Cam's real word here: "weaksauce"), and about 4 or 5 coupled with the habañero cheddar for the mouf-burner)."

Okay, so here are my notes. Essentially, they are to dry all the chicken and diced peppers on a clean towel before adding. I've had real problems with overly wet ingredients - I'm talking DRY. I also like to add the cheeses and mayo slowly, so that it doesn't come out too wet/mayonnaise-y. However, you should taste the final mix before it goes into the oven. It may need more seasoning. I also prefer to use (despite the photo) a more oval/oblong pan, so that it bakes in a thinner layer, and you get more of the crusty top surface area, since it is the best part. And again, don't use low-fat anything.

Hope I haven't made it sound too difficult... It's actually really easy, just kinda one of those that comes out great, but you might want to play with it a little.

Miss you like crazy, Wookies!