Spinach Dip (or “The Way to Get Everyone to Think You’re an Amazing Cook with Minimal Effort”)

Every time I make this for something, everyone asks me for the recipe.  And as I promised Rachel I’d get it to her before she goes off to the wilds of Honduras, here we go!

10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

16 oz sour cream

1 cup mayonnaise

1 package Knorr Vegetable recipe mix

(You can also add 8 oz of water chestnuts and 3 chopped green onions, but I never do.)

So, you mix it all together (they recommend chilling for 2 hours) and serve.

Most of the time I get home from work, hurriedly thaw the spinach in a bowl of hot water, throw it all together, and run to whatever activity/party I'm going to that evening.  Also, I serve it with Sheepherder's Bread.  I can always find it in the Smith's (Fred Meyer) bakery section.  It's a big (like 8-10") loaf of this soft white bread.  It has a softer crust than most French Bread but that same chewy inside.  I LOVE that bread. I could eat an entire loaf myself.  Anyway, I cut up the bread into cubes (usually while that darn spinach is thawing) and then everyone goes to town.

The hardest part of this recipe? Finding the Knorr Vegetable mix.  That stuff is nearly impossible to find.  I can find it at the SLC Walmart, but not at the Centerville Walmart.  I've never found it at any Smith's, but I did find it at the Centerville Target, but not the SLC Target.  It's weird.  I did end up buying about 3 packages that are now permanently in my cupboard, just in case I ever want to make it and don't have time to run all over town trying to find the stuff.

The best part? This recipe is from the back of the Knorr package, if you can't remember how much of everything, all you need is a package of that mix and you'll be set.  So, that's it, the best Spinach Dip you'll ever make!

(just for reference)

A Month Without Sugar: Day 16

What a difference a day (or 12 days) makes.  It’s funny how much less I want sugar right now.  I know just less than two weeks ago I was seriously jonesing for some sort of dessert (or 10) but today…meh.  I will admit, I cheated this weekend.  I was doing perfectly, and then my Visiting Teacher brought over peanut butter cookies that she’d made for me and it seemed so rude to just throw them away, so I ate them.  And you know what? They were alright.  They weren’t fabulous, I liked them, they were warm and chewy and sugary, but I could have not eaten them and been just fine.

I have found this whole experiment makes me look for things that I can eat.  As opposed to looking for recipes of this that are sugary I end up looking for dinner recipes so I can make something new to drool over. Like the stuffed shells I made Sunday for lunch.  (Or was it dinner? Is 4 p.m. lunch or dinner? Anyway…)  I’ve also got a soup and pizza planned for this week.  Both of which I’m looking forward to.

I’ll also admit, usually about Wednesday or Thursday I really start craving chocolate.  Like kill someone to get a piece of cake craving.  But I power on through and on the weekends I really don’t want anything.  Which is weird.  You would think that hanging out in my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night would be a prime time for me to give in and make brownies, but oddly enough I’m good.  I eat my piece of dark chocolate and that’s it.

Julia introduced me to Whole Food’s candy section last week.  That’s a dangerous place.  They have massive amount of super dark chocolate.  When you go to a normal grocery store they have maybe 2 or 3 choices for 75% or higher chocolate.  You go to Whole Foods and they have about 10 brands each with at least 5 different flavors.  It was heaven.  I got a mint bar that I haven’t even broken into yet.

Okay, that’s enough rambling.  Later this week I’ll finally get my act together and post my Spinach Dip recipe.  For now, I decided to share the recipe I found here, for Stuffed Shells.  I only made half of it and it made two really big servings.  But it’s delicious so I totally recommend it.   

Simple Stuffed Shells

10-12 jumbo pasta shells

1 cup ground beef

2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 cup + 1 cup mozzarella cheese

1 egg

1 tsp italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 cups Pasta sauce

Cook pasta shells in boiling water according to package directions, and brown ground beef in a pan until no longer pink.

In a bowl, mix together cottage cheese, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, egg, ground beef and seasonings.

Spoon the mixture into the cooled shells and place them facing up in a baking dish. Cover with pasta sauce and the remaining 1 cup of cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes. remove the foil, and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

A Month Without Sugar: Day 4

Right now, quite honestly, I would sell my mother for a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

I think if I weren’t eating fruit and my once-a-day piece of REALLY dark chocolate (75%, whew!) I’d actually be taking out people from the top of my apartment building with a rifle. Or at least I’d be eating dessert. But, the plus side is I haven’t had an afternoon headache this week (yet) and I’m managing this.

Let’s go back to the beginning and why I’m doing this, considering I LOVE chocolate (and dessert, and pastries, and this that contain sugar). I started noticing that all too often I’d get a headache in the afternoon, and that my blood sugar level was way out of whack. I’m talking about being normal, eating, having a total sugar high (and this was after eating something normal like baked chicken and a salad), then crashing about an hour later. Every day. A couple times a day. Then add in the headaches. They weren’t often, but they were often enough that it was obnoxious. I’d eat lunch then as the afternoon wore on my head would start to ache. Then it would get steadily worse until I’d go to bed by about 8:30. At which point it would keep me up until around 10.

So I started thinking about what to do about this. Then last weekend happened. I ate two pints of gelato in three days. It was delicious too and I’m not going to say I regret it, but I will say that something needed to change. I started to wonder if I really could give up sugar. Just go cold turkey and not eat any. So Monday I did a little research and found the people who cut out all sugar (natural or refined), decided they were crazy and that would kill me, and then found the people who still ate fruit and the occasional piece of very dark chocolate and kept the sugar in any processed food below 5 grams and I realized I might just be able to do that. So I stocked back up on fruit, check the food I eat on a regular basis, and bought my almost totally unsweetened dark chocolate. (Can I just say that stuff is delicious? Because it is.)

And then I added in the snacks. I’ve tried for a few years to be a person who just eats three solid meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. But I’m starving by the time lunch and dinner come around. So I thought that it may not be helping my blood sugar to go from breakfast to a low to a really big influx (lunch!) to a really low low to another big high (dinner!). This might be part of my problem with the whole headache thing. And the wanting to take a big nap every afternoon. So I started packing snacks this week. Fruit for the mornings, and usually something crunchy for the afternoon (pita chips and hummus, wheat thins and cheese, etc.).

So today is day 4 and I’m feeling pretty good. Aside from the withdrawal of course. I’ll evaluate next week and see what needs to change, but so far I’m liking this. Aside from the withdrawal. And the obsession with sugar right now. I’m serious, I think about it constantly. I’m working and my brain is thinking “Okay claim 2 depends on…mmmm chocolate…wait, claim 2 depends on claim 1. And claims 3, I can eat ice cream on June 8, that’s not so far away, crap, claim 3 depends on…” Which is why I’m writing this right now because otherwise I’m going to start thinking about how Smith’s is just down the street and I could run over and get chocolate and come back and no one would know. That’s why I’m writing this instead of proof-reading a response is because I cannot go more than 5 minutes without thinking about chocolate. And brownies. And cake. And cookies. And Grasshopper cookies. But right now it really is brownies. And white cake with that chocolate frosting Mom makes. Mom, I’ve been daydreaming about that frosting. Seriously.

Anyway, this has been ramble-ie and probably more than any of you ever wanted to know about me, but it was good for me. And it’ll explain if I go out to eat with any of you and look longingly at the dessert menu and then say “no” very sadly.