Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A frozen spinach...thing

Is this a hot dip? A side dish? We're not sure, but it was quite tasty.

Hot Spinach with Cream Cheese

1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, partially thawed if possible
One third to half a brick of cream cheese
Butter or margarine, a couple of spoonfuls or whatever you like
Some kind of crumbs--I used whole wheat soda crackers, about a cupful
Dash of nutmeg and any other seasonings you like
Milk as needed

This is what I did: In a small covered casserole I put the spinach, all by itself, and let it warm up in the oven while I was baking something else. If the spinach is already thawed, you can probably skip that step. I took it out about fifteen minutes later, mashed the spinach around, and added the cream cheese, cut in pieces--not beaten in, just added here and there. I topped it with the crumbs, butter and nutmeg, and let it heat until the cheese was getting melty and the crumbs were toasted. At that point it also seemed to be getting dry around the edges, so I added enough milk to keep it soft (burned spinach is not nice). We ate this as a side dish along with pineapple chicken-balls and orzo: not that I'm particularly recommending that flavour combination, but it suited what we had in the cupboard and the freezer. The Apprentice in particular thought it was good enough to ask for a repeat sometime.

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