So tomorrow is my annual office party.  We do a  Yankee gift swap, and we each bring a dish, eat ’till we can’t move, then proceed to work a productive, full afternoon.  : )

I’m bringing a Spinach Wreath.  I had received a recipe a while back and made some modifications to it, making it more supportive, and less carby.  It’s actually to make Spinach Bars, but I wanted a more festive look, so I rigged it up to make a wreath shape (and no, I don’t have a bundt pan- hence the “rigging”).

First up, I am becoming admittedly addicted to my food processor.  It’s AWESOME.  I no longer need Kyle to help me turn it on, I am becoming adept!

I added the most minimal amount of starch possible, and figured once blended within the entirety of the recipe, the amount you actually take in is marginal.  So I did it.  I dumped 2 whole eggs and 6 tbsp. of whole-wheat flour into my food processor.  I then  mixed till it was smooth.  To that I added 2 cups of low-fat cottage cheese, 2 cups of low-fat grated cheddar cheese, ground black pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg to taste.  (Again, lovin’ that Holiday flavor!)

Next up, I chopped up some fresh spinach (though the recipe originally had 10 oz. frozen well-drained, thawed spinach, I used fresh from a bag, 10 oz., that I chopped up myself).  I food processed it all together, adding all the ingredients except the spinach; I had to add that handful by handful, as it’s so space-consuming until it’s been chopped, then add another handful, and so on.  It in the end looked like this:

Food Processing my Cheesy Spinach Wreath

 So…I don’t have a bundt pan.  Yeah.  So I took a small cake pan, put it inside a large cake pan, and well, see below.

 Upon spraying the insides of the pan with a non-stick spray, I poured the mixture into my homemade pan and baked it for 35-40 minutes, took it out of the pan very carefully (I took it out carefully with a spatula, cutting around the edges and flipping onto a plate, then back onto another plate so it would be “right side up”), then sprinkled with diced red peppers.  Tomorrow I’m going to buy some red pepper strips, packed sun-dried tomatoes, or roasted red peppers, and fashion them into the shapes of bows to decorate this “wreath” for my co-workers to enjoy.

The final product ended up like this:

Christmas-y Spinach and Cheese Wreath

Guys- awesome, delicious, highly recommended.  Stay tuned for the remaining 8 days of Christmas!