Crackers & Dip

A few weeks ago, I ran across a pin for 'secretly healthy' spinach dip on Pinterest.  I love cold spinach dip.  I'm talking like every time I would visit home from college, the deli-made spinach dip from our local grocery store was on the list of things I just had to have.  Naturally, I wanted to try this healthy version out.

Now, I typically eat my spinach dip with pretzels, but I do like how it looks when served in a bread bowl, and I like it on Wheat Thins as well.  So when I found a recipe for homemade Wheat Thins, I new it was meant to be - I just had to try the healthy spinach dip with these from scratch crackers!

Homemade Wheat Thins
(Originally found on this blog)

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 Tbsp Splenda sugar blend
1/2 tsp salt (& however much you would like to sprinkle on top)
1/4 tsp paprika
4 Tbsp butter (or butter substitute of your choice)
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, paprika.)  Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.  (You can use a pastry blender for this step, however two forks will also work well.)  

In a separate cup, mix together the water and vanilla.  Now pour the liquid into the crumbly, dry mixture.  Stir well until everything really comes together.  I actually ended up using my hands at this point.  

Cover a surface with parchment paper.  Split dough in half and roll it out into a very thin layer, using a pizza cutter to cut whatever shape you please.  Place the parchment paper with your rolled and cut thins onto a baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and depending on the thickness of your dough, bake for 8-12 minutes.  Rotate the pan half way through to ensure everything bakes evenly.  Repeat this with the second half of dough.  This recipe should make just over 60 thins for you to eat or store in an airtight container.

Now, I don't have a rolling pin, so I manually kneaded the dough flat with the palm of my hand.  Because of that, I believe my thins were a bit thicker.  I like my crackers crisp as well, so I ended up baking them between 12-14 minutes for a crunch factor I loved!

Secretly Healthy Spinach Dip
(original recipe can be found here)

16oz container fat free cottage cheese
10oz container frozen, chopped spinach - defrosted
8oz can water chestnuts - chopped
1 packet ranch dressing

Blend the cottage cheese with a hand blender or in a traditional blender until smooth.  Defrost your spinach.  I bought the Birds Eye block of spinach, so I microwaved per the directions and drained it.  Add the spinach to the smooth cottage cheese blend, along with the finely chopped water chestnuts and packet of ranch dressing.  Mix well and there you have it - guiltless spinach dip!