I have not done a cooking post in a while. Sunday I made a spinach and artichoke dip without benefit of recipe that I thought might be worth a paragraph or two.
I had followed a recipe for spinach and artichoke dip once, I think. I don’t quite remember where I found the recipe or if I followed it exactly, but I seem to remember mozzarella cheese, mayonnaise, and it tasting pretty good. I found a couple of recipes for artichoke dips in my recipe books, but I wanted spinach and artichoke. I had purchased frozen spinach that morning at Hannaford specifically for the purpose. I decided to do my own thing.
First I set the oven to 350 degrees to preheat (it doesn’t have a preheat setting, which is just as well, because I always forget to take it off preheat and put it on bake so I burn whatever I’m cooking). I thawed the spinach in a colander by pouring boiling water over it. I let it drain, helping it along by pressing out some of the water with a fork. While it finished draining I grated some mozzarella cheese.
I drained a jar of artichoke hearts and chopped them, not too small. I put them, the cheese and the spinach into a ceramic loaf pan. I added some mayonnaise.
You may notice that I did not measure anything. The cheese looked like it might have been a cup, likewise the spinach. The artichokes were, I think a 4 oz. jar (if I still have the jar, I’ll check before I post this. It will depend on if Steven has already done this week’s recycling). A couple of big spoons of mayonnaise looked good. I added a healthy sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese for good measure.
I stirred well, put it in the oven and set the timer for 25 minutes. That was how long the recipe closest to what I did called for. I figured it only had to melt the cheese. We let it cool on a trivet for, oh, probably less than ten minutes, because we were pretty hungry by that time. I chopped up some whole wheat pitas to go with it, but I imagine crackers or chips would have been good, too.
It was a yummy dip. I guess I could call the recipe as follows: Put some stuff together that sounds good. Put it in the oven. Try not to burn your hands getting it out of the oven or your mouth getting it into your stomach. Enjoy.
(NOTE: Steven already did the recycling, but per my recipe, use whatever amount of artichoke hearts looks good to you.)
Mohawk Valley Girl 
My kind of recipe! Now to scrounge the ingredients from somewhere….
And the beauty of it is, if you can’t scrounge the ingredients I used, something else will probably work. That’s why I love cooking, lots of margin for improvisation.
Yup. In that we are sisters.