Discovering new Pesto Sauces and falling in love with the results

So I love hunting for new inspiration of recipes to try and it often takes me to new places of discovery.  The other day I found myself searching through images from a website that I use called Seriouseats.com and I stopped in my tracks when I stumbled upon this incredible recipe.  It was one of those love at first sight situations and I just knew I had to make it.  The best thing about it for me was that all of the ingredients were things that I keep stocked in my pantry on a regular basis.  Which means that this is a simple dish that I can create cheaply because all of the ingredients are on hand. I altered the recipe slightly to make it a much easier dinner to throw together and I am happy to say the result had people scrapping their plates for every last drop. And personally nothing says success better then that.

Crockpot Chicken, Artichoke and Spinach that won't kill the waistline

In response to my first request from my reader Kate Jones, I challenged myself to come up with a new crockpot recipe that was healthy and cheap.  And while this one might tote the line slightly on the healthy part I am so excited to share it with you.   This truly is one of those dishes that will have people going back for more.

When Kate gave me my new challenge my first thought was to look in my pantry and freezer and see what I had on hand, to give me some inspiration.  I saw that I had some chicken and some frozen spinach in my freezer and it got me thinking about one of my favorite appetizers 'Spinach and Artichoke dip'.  So I thought 'what if I could create a version of that dip that was slightly healthier and also make it a meal instead of just a dip'.

So I set off exploring the web for inspiration.  There were a few people that had similar ideas but either the ingredients they used were too fattening or it required more work then I wanted to put into a crockpot recipe so I decided to do what every good cook does, experiment. Not all experiments work well, you can ask my husband about that one.  I have had some dishes that had us going out for a takeaway instead. But you never know until you try. So I bought a few ingredients that I thought would be nice in the dish and threw everything in and waited to discover what I had created and whether or not it would be a disaster or something worth writing about. 

I can truthfully say not only was it a success but it was one of the simplest crockpot dishes I have made in a very long time.