Long Overdue Cowboy Caviar

I'd never heard of Cowboy Caviar until dh found a recipe and said we should try it. I was skeptical. Very very skeptical. But I made it for him, and everyone loved it, including me.

I've seen many recipes online, since, but none of them are anything like this one. Go figure.

I don't know why this wasn't the first recipe I ever posted, it's that good. But Theresa has asked for the recipe, and I'm more than happy to (finally!) get it posted:

Cowboy Caviar

Ingredients:
6 eggs
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chopped olives
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. lemon juice
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp pepper
1 bunch green onions, chopped
cherry tomatoes or a little red pepper
tortilla chips

Directions:
Hard boil the eggs and let cool
Blend softened cream cheese and sour cream and spread in a low, flat dish
Mix beans, chopped olives, garlic, lemon juice, and spices. Adjust spices to taste.
Cover sour cream with bean mixture.
Finely chop eggs and sprinkle evenly over top of bean mixture
Sprinkle green onions over egg mixture (or for artsy-fartsiness around edges)
Quarter cherry tomatoes and arrange decoratively around edges and center.
Sprinkle with red pepper flakes (or paprika) for extra spice and color.

Serve as a dip, with tortilla chips

Now I need to tell you, I am not a fan of olives. This whole recipe sounded scary to me before we tried it. But it has become a huge hit and potluck staple and is always well received.

The quantities of ingredients are very flexible, if you want it more cream cheesy, use more cream cheese - I added the sour cream to increase spreadability and dipability. If you don't like the heat of red pepper, use a little paprika for color. If you love spicy food, lay it on! The redder the flakes, the prettier it looks. If you love garlic, add a bit more. Go nuts! The above picture has some cutesy tiny red peppers that I found and cut into rings.

Let me know if you try it.

Coming later ... Yvette's enchiladas. Which I forgot to take a picture of. Phooey. But they're not so much fancy-pretty as really yummy.