My husband has been so good for me in so many ways. For one thing, because of him, I've tried so many foods that I always thought were...well, gross. ;) The ABCs, if you will -- Asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and Cooked spinach, to name a few of the recipes I've posted here that you wouldn't have caught me eating 10 years ago. ;) I'm still not up for oysters, but at least I was willing to try spinach dip, and thus was born this little treat.
Basically, mix up some spinach dip and then bake it in little frozen pie crusts. Oh, my goodness. It's rich and decadent and tasty!
You will need:
a 12oz bag of frozen spinach
an 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 an onion
6 to 8 ounces grated cheese (i use a hot cheese, like pepperjack or jalapeno)
a little bit of cumin
minced garlic
butter
frozen pastry shells like the ones seen above
Normally, I use fresh produce, rather than frozen. But for this, frozen works just as well.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Next, if you bought the type of frozen pastry shells that I did, they need to thaw a bit before you bake them (mine said 20 minutes). So take them out of their packaging and separate them, then just leave them alone to thaw while you do everything else.
If your cream cheese has just come out of the fridge, you'll want to microwave it for 30 seconds or so to get it nice and soft. Set it aside -- we'll need it soon.
Get out your spinach, open the bag, and dump the spinach into a colander. Run some hot water over it, then go chop your half onion up. Squeeze the water out of the spinach, then run some more hot water in it and let it sit. Melt some butter in a pan, then saute your onion and garlic in the butter. Sprinkle with some cumin, but be careful -- it's a powerful spice! Don't cook this too long, as you don't want your onions to be total mush by the time the whole dish is done. Just a couple minutes ought to do it.
Grate your cheese. I really prefer a hot cheese with this, but if you don't like hot, you could use plain jack or even mozzarella.
Keep running hot water over your spinach and then squeezing it out until most of the hard lumpy bits have gone. Then squeeze out most of the remaining water and dump the spinach into a bowl. Add the onion, the cheese, and the cream cheese. Mix very well.
By this point your shells are probably thawed. Poke a couple holes in the bottom of each of them with a fork, then spoon the spinach dip into the shells. The box of shells I bought had eight in it. I only made six, but there was more than enough to make eight. I just didn't think we could eat that many, so I greased a small casserole dish and scooped the rest of the dip into that, and baked it along side my little Handheld Spinach Dips. Bake for 30 minutes or so.
You're going to want to let these cool a little before trying to take them out of their tiny pie tins, or the shells will break. I hope you did what I did with the extra dip, because I recommend using this waiting time to eat some of the spare dip on some pita chips or Italian bread.
I got the basics of the spinach dip recipe from my sister-in-law, another fantastic cook, and then kinda tweaked it to make it my own. Thanks, girl!
Modifications:
My sister-in-law's original recipe called for a can of Rotel tomatoes. So, if you like spicy, use the hot cheese and add the tomatoes. I had just never had tomatoes in my spinach dip, so I skipped them this time, until I knew the recipe a little better.
And hey, if you're worried about the calories or fat in this dish, you can always use Neufchatel cheese instead of the cream cheese. It has 1/3 less fat, and you can also use a low or nonfat mozzarella. (Personally, I say you're probably not going to eat these every day, and a little decadence now and then is what makes life worth living!)
