Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

My Dad's side of the family always gets together for dinner and church on Christmas Eve. I was the host for this holiday for the first time in 2011. It also happened to be the day that the Giants played the Jets and those of you that know me and my family, we are huge rabid Giants fans, so I invited everyone over earlier than we would normally get together so we could watch the game together and the Giants didn't disappoint!

Normally we don't do a lot of appetizers for Christmas Eve because we know we are going to have a big meal but this year since we were going t be getting together about 3 hours earlier than normal and were going to church before dinner, I decided to pile on the apps. With my brother David by my side, we decided to make a hot spinach artichoke dip, baked brie with apples and apple butter and baked butternut squash ravioli with homemade pasta dough and spicy vodka dipping sauce. The brie will be coming along in another post. The ravioli still need some work so I plan to try them again and once I get them right, they will make their debut too. The filling was great but the pasta wound up a little too dry. Thankfully my parents bought me the pasta attachments for my kitchen aid mixer for Christmas so I will be able to work on perfecting the ravioli along with making a myriad of other fresh pastas. I can't wait!

For the spinach artichoke dip we used a recipe by Alton Brown from foodnetwork.com as a guide and then made some changes to suit our own tastes. It came out really good. I ate the leftovers for lunch with some cut up vegetables and crackers. Yummy!

Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip
Adapted from Alton Brown

Ingredients
1 box (10 oz) chopped frozen spinach, thawed
1 box (9 oz) chopped frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
8 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 tsp red pepper flakes
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/3 tsp garlic powder
1/2 shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Boil spinach and artichokes in 1 cup of water until tender and drain. Discard liquid. Heat cream cheese in microwave for 1 minute or until hot and soft. Stir in spinach, artichoke hearts, sour cream, Parmesan, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and garlic powder and transfer to an oven safe dish. Sprinkle  top with mozzarella cheese and  bake in oven for 15 minutes until hot and bubbly. Serve hot with vegetable sticks and/or crackers.