Quick and Easy Mexican Bean Dip

Note: This recipe I created by winging it, so most of the quantities here are approximate. All brands mentioned are just the stuff I buy and I'm sure they can be replaced with any other brand.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• Old El Paso burrito seasoning mix
• 1 16 oz can of Old El Paso refried beans
• about 15 oz of Chi-Chi's Fiesta salsa
• about 4 oz of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

• Crumble beef in a large frying pan. Cook throughly and drain fat. Add seasoning liberally to the meat.
• Add entire can of beans and mix with meat.
• Add salsa.
• Add cheese and mix.
• The tricky part: if the dip is too runny, add more cheese. If it's too stringy, add more salsa.

Serve as a dip with white corn chips, or as a meal with soft tortillas. This should serve 3-4 people as a meal. Good reheated too.

Here is an equally quick and dirty bean dip. I was hungry one night, there was no food in the house, and I'm perpetually broke - so I made this. It's actually reasonably filling when eaten with some soft flour tortillas, such as those made by the Santa Fe Tortilla Company.

Ingredients:

• A decent sized can of refried beans (Old El Paso is pretty good)
• Cheddar and/or Jack cheese
• Limes (well, all you need is Lime juice, actually)
• Salsa (I like La Victoria) and/or Goya Sofrito
• Some Cholula

Instructions:

1. Heat the beans in a large saucepan on a burner, medium-high heat. Now is a good time toss some tortillas in the oven, if you're going that route.
2. Shred some cheese
3. After the beans are hot and sort of semi-liquid, put them in a big bowl (remember to turn off the stove!). Add the cheese; stir it around so it gets good and melted.
4. Now mix some salsa and/or sofrito in, and a big splash of Cholula (or if you're me, 5 or 6 big splashes).
5. Finally stir in a bunch of lime juice. You want to make sure it stays fairly solid (letting the beans cool a bit will help), but other than that, more is better in this case.

Enjoy.

Note: Pretty much all of this is optional. I haven't been paid in three weeks, and I'm finding that just beans, lime juice, and Cholula is a pretty decent meal.