Cooking Post - Spinach Dip

Howdy! We have had quite an extended weekend so far...enjoyed Thanksgiving up north with Steinvic, came back in the rain and dark that night, then basically sat around like couch cushions yesterday, fiddling on the computer, watching a Seinfeld marathon and looking for adoptive puppies online. I did run out to the grocery in the evening (no traffic!) but other than that, we were pretty chill.

I'm making up for it all today. I got up early, put a turkey breast in the oven for Steinvic, and I've done two loads of laundry already.

And I made a batch of spinach dip for a nice fellow named D. We've gotten acquainted with him because he's been coming to our local for a few months. He is here from Florida - he's a liquidator - and can't go home because he doesn't get days off. On Wednesday night, he told us that he hadn't had a day off since Easter. He is living in an Econo Lodge. We told him that if we were going to be here for Thanksgiving, he'd be welcome to come to our place and he was so appreciative. But he seemed pretty happy about just being able to be off work. He said he planned to stay off his feet the entire day and sleep. Besides his family, one thing he said he missed about the Holidays was home cooking and that he had been craving spinach dip, "the kind you put in the bread bowl."

Lucky for D, I have my own little recipe for that and I told him I'd whip up a batch and bring it to our local on Saturday. And I'm going to share this recipe with you! Grab your bread bowl and get started:

You'll need:

• A cup of drained frozen spinach
• One 16 ounce container of sour cream (huge fan of Daisy Light)
• One 8 ounce container of whipped cream cheese
• A packet of Ranch Dressing Mix (I think Kroger's brand "Salad Magic" is just as lovely as Hidden Valley's at a fraction of the cost.)
• About a half cup chopped water chestnuts
• One small carrot chopped fine
• About 2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
• Garlic powder
• Dash of salt
• Crushed red pepper
• Black pepper

How to make it:

• In a big bowl, mix the sour cream and whipped cream cheese until thoroughly blended.
• Add the ranch dressing mix, dash of salt, about 15 turns of the black pepper grinder, four dashes of garlic powder, and about a half teaspoon of the crushed red pepper. Mix thoroughly.
• Add the water chestnuts, onions and carrots and mix completely.
• Add the spinach and gently mix until it looks like this:

You could add a little more or less of any of the ingredients and still be fine. This is one of those recipes where every ingredient tastes good on it's own, and putting t hem together makes them taste even better. You can't go wrong!

I'll let you know how D likes it, and if you try making it, let me know how you like it! Enjoy!