Spinach Pizza Poppers are made to please

My kids love – as in love enough to eat everyday the rest of their lives – Amy’s organic (yet still processed) spinach pizza snacks.

This fall our CSA farmer brought me such an abundance of fresh spinach that it would have been impossible for one family to consume before it began decomposing in thier fridge. I was grateful. I really was! But I didn’t want it to go to waste. And we had already eaten our share of spinach quiche for the season. Plus the fresh farm eggs were out of season by then.

So what is a gal to do with all that spinach? Make my own pizza snacks and call them Spinach Pizza Poppers.

Before my plan became clear, I started steaming the spinach in a microwave using the largest glass bowl that would fit inside the giant beast that sits on my counter. I have a love, hate, I wish I could throw you away relationship with the thing that radio-activates our food. Then again it is SO handy when you need it. And it doesn’t help that while working in restaurants in college I learned how well it works to steam veggies. So there it sits, the microwave, on my counter.

As the spinach was steaming I realized there was leftover pizza sauce, pizza cheese and feta cheese in my frridge – the exact ingredients used in Amy’s Spinach Pizza Snacks – that are, mind you, more than $4 a box for 12 of the things. And, mind you, my seven-year-old could eat a whole box during one after school snack session.

After the spinach was squeezed and squeezed and pressed with a towel until zero water was left in it, I put it, the sauce and the cheeses into a food processor. After that I portioned it out into one cup amounts and froze it in mason jars until I got the courage up to try my great crazy idea of making my own pizza snacks.

I say all this, because I don’t want folks to think I’ve gone completely nut-so going to such great lengths to roll out homemade dough, scoop dollops of spinach on each tiny square and wrap them all up by hand. But yes, that is what I did!

And it was OH SO satisfying when my seven-year-old scarfed them down saying they were delicious. This coming from probably the most picky vegetarian first grade eater alive, really, REALLY made my whole week.

I’d give you the recipe, but I don’t think this was any kind of rocket science. I cleared my fridge of the leftover spinach, marinara sauce, feta cheese and pizza cheese, put it in a food processor, froze extra portions for later, then made my regular bread recipe to stuff the spinach mixture into.

When I rolled out the dough, it was about 1/8 inch thick, cut into less than 2″x2″ squares. Then I wrapped the dough in square shapes around each dollop of spinach, placed them on a cookie sheet and baked them at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

My kids dipped them in pizza sauce. Because I’m learning that they’ll eat anything if it’s dipped in pizza sauce. And I’m a-okay with that!