Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Spinach Nuggets

Last week Matt found a recipe for spinach nuggets you can find HERE.

I'm going to be honest I didn't have very high expectations. There just wasn't much to them, how could they be good??

The ingredients the original recipe calls for are:
  • Baking sheet
  • Cooking spray
  • 16 oz. cooked spinach
  • 1 1/4 cups seasoned breadcrumbs
  • 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
  • 3 large eggs

  • I made the following substitutions:
    • 1 1/4 cups panko and crushed corn flakes mixed together
    • 4 egg whites
    • reduced fat cheese
    To make the nuggets start by cooking the spinach. I added in garlic and Italian seasoning while it was cooking. 

    In the mean time combine the eggs, bread crumbs and cheese. Mix well. 

    Drain the cooked spinach and add to the mixture. 

    Spray a cookie sheet (I put foil down as well) with olive oil (or whatever spray you have in the house). 

    Form the spinach mixture in to small 1 inch sized balls. Space evenly on pan. 

    I put the oven on 450 and cooked for about 35 minutes. I will caution you that you should cook them for about 20 minutes and check them and decide how 'done' you want them to be. I like mine very crispy and brown! You may want yours not quite that done. It's all about personal preference. 

    I will tell you we've had these 4 out of the last 5 days. They are super easy to make and SO good. I like to dip them in ketchup or honey mustard. In fact I had some at lunch today with ketchup :)

    I've also used this recipe to make a pizza crust. When doing that I used real eggs and left out the bread crumbs once and the other time added them in. It works both ways it's really just a preference of whether or not you want them in there. Before you make this is as a pizza crust I will tell you not to expect a crispy crunchy pizza crust like you get from dough. This will be sort of chewy and if you don't cook it for long enough or put too many toppings on it it will get VERY soggy!

    So the ratios for the pizza crust are the same. I think spread it out very thin in a pie pan that was coated with olive oil. I then cooked it at 450 for probably somewhere between 35 and 40 minutes. I kept putting it in for just 2 more minutes in order to get it really cripsy and crunchy. 

    I then added pizza sauce, a little cheese, mushrooms and turkey pepperoni. I put it back in the oven and cooked it until the cheese was melty. It is also SO good. 

    We've had pizza twice now in the past 5 days, we really are addicted!!

    1 comment:

    Alyssa said...

    Yummm!! Thanks for sharing!! :)