Tina’s dip plants Italian flag in NW Ohio

Tina Martini with her 5-layer Italian dip and herbed Italian bread. (Photos: Shane Hughes/Sentinel-Tribune)

This week's Cook's Corner is fun because it packs a lot of flavor for not a lot of effort.
Tina Martini's 5-Layer Italian Dip seemed the perfect recipe for a beginning-of-the-year social gathering for a women's organization to which she belongs.
"It's the first time I made this," she said of the dip with pesto.
"I have a collection of stuff I use repeatedly, some of those proven recipes. I was just tired of doing the same thing over and over and reached for" a stack of cookbooks she doesn't normally turn to.
She found this dip recipe on the very first page of the "appetizers and beverages" section in The Ohio Magazine Community Cookbook, which she acquired in 2011.
"I grabbed it right away" precisely because it looked so easy.
Sure enough, the preparation time totaled less than half an hour, and that's including the 15 minutes required baking time.