Tag Archives: finger-food

Warm Spinach/Kale Dip

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I had a hankering for greens last night, but I wanted it in more of a comfort food style.  After opening the fridge to see what was in there that could satisfy this, I saw my kale (too time consuming to make kale chips), my spinach (hmmmm, creamed spinach?), my kefir and some cheeses.  ”Now, this, I can work with this!”, I thought.  Here is what I gathered:

 

  • 2 cups  shredded  cheese (I used gouda, but havarti would be nice as well)
  • 1  cup kefir or greek yogurt
  • 1/2 cup mayo
  • ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 clove garlic,  minced                                                                                                                     
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup chopped red pepper
  • 1/8 tsp black pepper
  • 1 cup chopped artichoke hearts, drained
  • 1 cup each  blanched, cooled and chopped spinach and kale

I combined everything EXCEPT the cooked greens until they were well incorporated and then I added the greens in, making sure that they were evenly dispersed throughout the spread.  I scooped the mixture into individual ramekins (so I can freeze small portions and reheat as needed), but you could use one larger oven-proof container. Pop into a 350 oven for about 15 minutes. Serve with your choice of “dipper”.  I love carrot and celery  sticks with mine, my boys like pita chips and crusty bread with theirs.

It was perfect, and totally cured my jonesing for greens!!!

Parker Power Bites

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Yikes, it’s been over a week since I posted!!  Sorry about that, folks.  Now, before you ask, I did not come up with the name of these delicious little goodies, that would be the work of my 12-year-old and 10-year-old sons.  Quite honestly, I’m surprised that the name didn’t have Nerf, Lego, or poop in it with those two claiming naming rights!

Anyway, as I was dabbling around in the kitchen during school yesterday (that way  they all 3 have easy access to me), I was trying to come up with something quick and easy to make that used minimal ingredients, was delicious, and could be thrown into a cooler as we were heading out the door (we had a swim meet last night, hello, inspiration!).  So, here are the three main ingredients:

1 cup of nut butter (this batch used Sunland’s cherry vanilla peanut butter)

3/4 cup honey (raw, if you can get it)

3 cups rolled oats (we use certified gluten free)

 

Process:

Mix nut butter and honey in a saucepan over med heat until melted together.  Be very careful during this step, as you DO NOT want the sugars in the honey to scorch on the bottom of the pan (and they will if you don’t keep an eye on the mixture!).  Dump the 3 cups of oats into a large bowl and drizzle the nut butter/honey mixture over the top of them.  Proceed to mixing the whole mess together (Remember how difficult it was to mix melted marshmallows and rice krispies together? This is a similar scenario.) Now, you can go ahead and form these into balls and place on wax/parchment paper to set, or you can do my favorite thing and add mix-ins!  We used a handful of dark chocolate chips and a handful of unsweetened shredded coconut in this batch. After adding the mix-ins, I used a small scoop to form uniform balls and put them on parchment paper to “set”.

The boys were grabbing them off of the parchment paper about 45 minutes later.  The 12-year-old packed 6 of them in his swimming cooler last night and, while the bag was empty after the meet, he only consumed 2 of them.  When we arrived home, 4 more had mysteriously disappeared sometime after we left and before my husband went to work….hmmm, wonder what happened to those?? There are currently 9 left in the “snack jar” out of the 30+ that we started with yesterday afternoon, so I think we can call this kitchen experiment a SUCCESS!!!!