Sunday, July 26, 2009

Baked Spinach & Artichoke Dip














I don't remember eating much spinach growing up, mostly collard or turnip greens. I'm not sure how that happened since I grew up right next to the self-proclaimed "Spinach Capital of the World."

I recently attended a barbeque and I'd been asked to bring chips and dip along. I thought it might be nice to make the dip instead of simply mix together something like sour cream and onion soup mix. I found a spinach dip recipe in The Best of Southern Living Cookbook. It was so easy to make (even so, I admit my boyfriend David helped due to time constraints). The recipe that follows is an adaptation:


- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees


-2 (1o oz) packages of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained very well. Try squeezing in cheesecloth or a clean lint-free towel..... I found that papertowels stick to the spinach in a very unhelpful way.

-2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, cubed

-2 cups (8 oz) of shredded Monterey Jack cheese

- 1 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

- 1 small onion, chopped

- 1 (14 oz) can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

- 2 (10 oz) cans of diced tomatoes and green chiles, undrained

- 2 teapsoons of ground cumin

- 2 teaspoons of chili powder

- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder


I tossed all the ingedients into a large bowl and mixed thoroughly with my hands (don't worry; you can use a spoon if you want). The recipe wanted me to use a 2 1/2 quart baking dish.... but I only had a 2 quart baking dish and a small Corningware dish. Both of those were greased of course. I popped both dishes into the preheated oven and left it to bake for 30 minutes. By this time, the dip was bubbly around the edges. The smell which filled my apartment was so enticing that David and I tried the dip before leaving for the party. Oh Yum!

It was a great get-together. Everyone dug into the dip with tortilla chips while we waited for the smoked ribs to finish. When everything was done, we had fabulous food all around and I got to pass my recipe on to two other people.

1 comment:

  1. I really like your recipe. It looks delicious. Your story was great I feel like I was at the party. I can't wait to make this for my friends.

    sincerely,

    Thyme2cook

    ReplyDelete