Hot Spinach & Artichoke Dip

This past weekend I made spinach and artichoke dip. It was so yummy. The recipe came out of my Katie Lee Joel--The Comfort Table cookbook.

Ingredients:

--8 oz package of cream cheese

--9 oz package frozen artichoke hearts (drained jarred or canned, cooked fresh, or frozen, but

not marinated.) I bought canned.

--1 cup steamed spinach (1 lb. raw or one 10 oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed) well

drained. I bought frozen.

--1/2 cup mayonnaise

--2 garlic cloves

--6 large fresh basil leaves (I sprinkled in dried flakes of basil. Just eyeballed it.)

--1/2 tsp. kosher salt

--1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

--1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Grease a 2 quart baking dish.

3. In a food processor, combine cream cheese, artichoke hearts, spinach, mayo, parmesan, garlic, basil, salt and pepper. I combined all the ingredients in a bowl besides the artichokes. Then put 1/2 of the mixture into my magic bullet with a few artichoke hearts. The texture wasn't what I liked. It was too smooth. So I put the rest of the artichoke hearts in the magic bullet and then combined everything together and poured it in the baking dish. This way you could still see pieces of spinach.

4. Top with the mozzarella.

5. Bake until bubbling and the top is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.

The best part of this is you can mix all the ingredients and refrigerate it until right before your guests arrive and then pop it in the oven. This way it is nice and warm!

I forgot to take pictures. Forgive me??

I did have an oops moment in the kitchen this weekend. I was trying to make chocolate cream pie. I bought these cute individual graham cracker pie crusts. (Just like my nanny uses!) I started combining my ingredients. You know 1 and a 1/4 cup sugar, 1 and a 1/4 cup flour, etc. Its supposed to be boiling in my sauce pan, instead it is lumping up and forming small pieces of dough. I thought well I guess thats what its supposed to do. I then proceeded to fill all 6 of the pie crusts with my lumpy chocolate mixture. I think I knew deep down that I had messed up, but I just kept filling them. Then I decided to read back through the recipe, convinced that this person had purposefuly messed up the recipe so that no one could make a perfect chocolate cream pie like her. Well it turns out I was only supposed to use 2 tbsp. of flour, not a cup and a 1/4!! I will buy some more pie crusts this weekend and try again! :) Oops!