Today, success tastes like spinach & artichoke dip

At dinner the past two nights, Matt and I have enjoyed spinach and artichoke dip. It has been delicious and tastes exactly like success to me. Can you guess why? If you thought it had anything to do with being able to cook in my apartment with my own dishes again, then you would be correct! Hoorah!

Our beloved stuff finally made it to Washington and I can quit whining about eating off paper plates (remind me to hate myself for that later on). When the moving men were bringing our stuff into the apartment I was jumping around like a crazy monkey! Interestingly, our belongings arrived in more style than we did. See!

Hello big truck that is double parking all my neighbors!

This seems a bit excessive for our tiny amount of stuff but apparently,
they had several families worth of stuff.

And just for giggles here is a picture of Matt taking a picture of me from
our ground floor bedroom window!

Yes, did I ever mention that Matt and I are actually down a half flight in the building? It is very strange thing staring at people's feet as they walk by. Typically, houses in Texas don't even have basements so it is bizarre that buildings in the ground are normal even in apartment complexes here! Ah, the strange things to become accustomed to when you live up North.

Can you guess the very first room of stuff that I unpacked? The kitchen. Yes, I missed my dishes more than my books and I am not afraid to admit it. The first thing that we ate was cereal - from legitimate bowls instead of out of a cup! After that, we moved on to a real meal - homemade spinach and artichoke dip with toasty bread. 

I have copied the recipe we used below, in case you get the urge to bake yourself up a batch of this tasty dip. We adapted the recipe from a vegan cookbook of all places, because this version is definitely not vegan! There are a million recipes out there for this dip, so by no means will I promise you this one is the best. But for today, this spinach and artichoke dip tastes just like success.

Spinach & Artichoke Dip

6 servings 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup tightly packed fresh spinach

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1 cup mozzarella cheese

1.5 tsps lemon juice

16 oz canned, drained artichoke hearts (If you use marinated artichoke hearts then you may not need or want to add the spices listed below. Be sure taste test before baking to ensure good flavor!)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 tsp paprika

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor (or a blender would work), blend all the ingredients except a 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese until well mixed. Taste test for tastiness and adjust the spices and ingredients as necessary. Then spoon thick mixture into a greased 8x8in casserole dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until bubbly. Once finished, allow to cool for a few minutes before digging in (if you can stand the temptation!) with toasty bread, crackers or chips! 

And for those of you who are interested, I did a quick write up of this version on nutrition data. So if you would like to check out the nutrition facts or calorie count, you can do so here. Also, do any of you have a spinach and artichoke dip recipe you would like to share? I hear lots of recipes include cream cheese or mayonnaise.