Creative Cooking (kind of)

So this past week a lot of our food has been almost going bad, so I have been trying to find recipes to use it so we can use it up and get our money's worth. Often times I have this problem with the huge bags of spinach that we buy from Costco. I have gotten pretty creative (at least for me) with different recipes for spinach. I have made spinach omelette's and a spinach bake, and spinach and artichoke dip. The best of those is the spinach artichoke dip, and it also uses the most spinach. I actually found the recipe for it at yahooanswers.com.

Spinach Artichoke Dip:
*1 Cup chopped artichoke hearts (canned or frozen & thawed)
{I used canned}
*1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed
{For this I remove all of the stems from the spinach and fill up a big Tupperware full of the leaves. I add about a 1/4 cup of water and put it in the microwave for 6 minutes. Once it's done I just cut it up.}
*8 oz. cream cheese
*1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
*1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
{I don't put these in}
*1/4 teaspoon salt
*1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
*dash black pepper

1. Heat the cream cheese in a small bowl in the microwave set on high for 1 minute. Or, use a saucepan to heat the cheese over medium heat. Once it is melted {it doesn't get really runny, but you can just tell when it is no longer hard} combine all of the ingredients and serve with french bread, chips, crackers, carrots, whatever you want!

Another recipe that I tried this weekend was for cucumber bread. I know right, it sounds gross. Well I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out good! I made one loaf just plain, and the second loaf I added some chopped walnuts & chocolate chunks. Obviously the second loaf is better. I actually thought the bread tasted better once it had cooled, which is weird because most bread tastes best when it is straight out of the oven. If you feel daring and have extra cucumbers laying around you should try it! It is similar to zucchini bread.

ZUCCHINI BREAD (or CUCUMBER):

*3 eggs
*1 cup Mazola oil
*2 cups sugar
*1 teaspoon vanilla
*2 cups zucchini, peeled and grated
*3 cups flour
* 3 teaspoons cinnamon
*1 teaspoon salt
*1 teaspoon soda
*1/4 teaspoon baking powder
*Nuts, if desired
Bake at 325 degrees for 60 to 70 minutes. Makes 2 loaf size pans or 8 small loaves.