For those of you who are counting, I forgot to post a recipe last week! Luckily, one of my cohorts in cooking, covered my butt! Part of the reason I forgot is that I haven't really been cooking lately. We are trying a no spend month, so there has been a lot of leftovers out of the freezer, eggs, cereal and random fridge and pantry items being eaten in our house this week. Next week I will have to break down and go to the store, but for now, I am convinced I can feed us balance meals from the freezer. A while back I blogged about my monthly meal plan where almost everything gets split in two, and half gets frozen for the next month to be eaten when that menu item comes around again. That has proved to be a life saver, and I am definitely going to try to get back on track with that. It is really nice to be able to spend the money on groceries when you have it, but have a stock pile of good food in the freezer when things get tight, hectic, or both!
Ok, so enough rambling. For this week, I decided to share a dip. The holidays are coming up, which means lots of entertaining. This dip is great for a party or as an appetizer before a holiday meal. I have even used the left overs to create a pasta sauce after the holidays. You can even make a large batch of it, and freeze it in smaller portions. If you decide to freeze it, I recommend getting the disposable aluminum trays that come with lids. That way you can portion it out, pop it in the freezer, and when it comes time to serve it, just take the lid off and pop it in the oven. Just make sure you don't cook it first. Mix it all up, divide, and freeze. It might look manky when it comes out of the freezer, but once it all melts into gooey, cheesy goodness it will be just fine!
You Will Need:
2 cans Quartered Artichoke Hearts
16 ounces Non- fat Greek yogurt (can substitute sour cream)
16 ounces light Mayo
16 ounces Italian blend shredded cheese
2 block of frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
2 cans medium rotel
1 TBSP minced garlic
salt and pepper- optional
Zest of 1 lemon- optional
1 block 1/3 less fat cream cheese (sometimes I add this, sometimes I don't)
1/4 cup hot sauce- less if you don't like spicy food
Large crock pot or baking dish
cooking spray
Directions:
Thaw your spinach and drain well. Be sure to squeeze out all the excess moisture. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Add the spinach. Stir to combine. Place the mixture in a crock pot or baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Set the crock pot to low, and cook for at least 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Alternately, cook in the oven until brown and bubbly and transfer to the crock pot and set it to warm to serve. Unless you are having a really big party, I recommend dividing this into 4 portions and freezing some of it. The recipe above will make a double batch. A single batch will usually get us through a party, although that is assuming you are serving other food.
**Last night I thawed out some leftover dip, and mixed it with leftover chicken and pasta. Just boil your pasta, drain off all but a cup of the cooking water, and mix all the ingredients together. So delicious!**
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