Copy Cat Applebee's Spinach Artichoke Dip

I ran across an awesome blog on Pintrest in search of this artichoke dip - The Budget Savvy Diva.  Her website is filled with tons of budget friendly recipes and deals.  Definitely check it out if you have the chance.  I did make minor changes to the amounts in the ingredients but the items are still all the same.

Also, before I dive into the blog post I wanted to give a quick shout out to the members of http://bloggingitforward.com/ for helping me make some changes to my blog.  So you'll probably see some changes to the website in the near future, and it will all be for a better blogging experience for you and me.  :)

Pin Rating: 4.5

This recipe was easy to make and tasted great.  However, I think there is probably a more delicious spinach dip out there.  Even though this dip was served fresh, it didn't seem as too many people were eating it.  My friends seemed to have gravitated towards other dishes that was served.  I also realized I didn't take too many pictures because it was my last dish that needed to go into the oven and the guest were already arriving.

Ingredients:

• 10oz bag of fresh spinach
• 14oz artichoke hearts drained & chopped
• 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 8-10oz alfredo sauce
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 4 oz softened cream cheese
• 1 tsp pepper
• Chips or bread for dipping ;)

Oven 350 degrees.  Bake time 30 minutes.

Game Night - Dice Cheese Blocks

The dice cheese blocks were pinspired by this pin here.  Unfortunately the pin link itself leads you to a blog round up which leads you to a dead source.  On the other hand, the pin image itself gives you the right idea just not the materials.  So here's my blog post on what I used an how I made it.

Pin Rating: 5

Ingredients:

• Frozen Grapes (I had grapes left over from the PB+Chicken salad wraps 
• Frozen grapes are easier to cut in my opinion and it also holds it's shape well.  You can also use olives but since I had left over grapes I used those instead.
• Cheese block (Or some sort of soft cheese that you can mold)
• Toothpicks 
• Crackers
• Dice (for a sample on where to place grapes if you care for accuracy)

More DIY Game Night Decor

At the beginning of the month I posted about a Game Day food table & decor and now I'm finally getting around to posting more details about the prep.  This blog post is going to be a few Fast & Simple projects put together.

Playing card box, Vase Decor & Card Cover for a Dip

What you'll need:

• Playing cards (2 decks for $1 @ Dollar Tree)  I am still using the same deck I used for the card banner.
• Cardboard box to height of your liking.  I just used an amazon cardboard box I had laying around.
• 2 short vases (Dollar Tree purchase)
• 1 pack of dice (Dollar Tree purchase)
• Hot glue & hot glue gun
• Tape

DIY Playing Cards Banner & Purple Cow Cutter Review

No decorated food table would be complete without a banner.  Or so that seems to be the trend now a days.  After looking around for some pinspiration I found a pin that had a few cool ideas.  I decided to also make a banner with playing cards but to make my own little twist.  I just got a Purple Cows paper cutter for Christmas so I was really excited to try it out.  My friend bought it to use for her wedding projects and I fell in love with it when I saw it.  I don't actually scrapbook or have any major use for the cutter so I never thought to get one for myself.  While Christmas shopping at Costco I saw the same product there for around $27 and stood there oooing and ahhing over it but didn't but it.  My boyfriend went back later without me and bought it for me.  ^_^  So here's a tutorial along with my own review of the product (I'm not in any way sponsored by Purple Cow).

• Purple Cows 12-Inch Two-In-One Scrapbook Combo Trimmer
• 3-pack Circle Hole Punches (Using the 1/8" for this project)
• String
• Deck of cards (Use an old deck with missing cards or purchase 2 for $1 at the Dollar tree)

One of the reasons I fell in love with this is because of the interchangeable blades/blade designs it comes with.  The Rotary Trimmer section snaps onto the Guillotine blade side to create one big piece which is what I preferred for storage to keep it all together.  But since the Rotary Trimmer also comes with a straight blade it's like buying 2 straight cutters in 1!

Game Night Food Table!

Today's been a long and productive day so I'm going to make today's post really short.  I spent an hour or so with my friend today clearing our Hobby Lobby's Christmas decorations (80% off) for her wedding decor in December 2013.  Congrats again on your engagement!

So back to the blog post, as I mentioned in a previous post, my boyfriend decided to have a small get together at his house on New Year's Day to play some board games.  So it's not really game night, but more like board game day. He originally wanted it to be a small get together but I decided to use the opportunity to put together some decorations and make some pinspired finger foods. In the end we had a a large group of friend over and the decorations and foods were a hit.  Here's a preview for what's to come in blog posts (no listed in any particular order).

• Playing Card banner & Purple Cow Paper cutter review
• Playing card box food stand & vase decor
• Dice Block Cheese & Crackers
• Copy Cat Applebee's Spinach Artichoke Dip
• PB+Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps
• Lasagna Bites

I also made Deviled Eggs, Honey Sauced Chicken, Skyline Chili Dip and my sister (thanks again sis!) made HotLink Corndog minis, Pigs in a Blanket, and some Spicy Cream Cheese Poppers.  And only 2 people made all of this food, can you believe it?!  Granted it took me a couple of hours the day before to prep a lot of the food, but being able to see this final display made me really happy.  And not to mention provided full tummies to our guest as well!  Individual posts to come shortly.