{mini spinach bread bowls}

I love the variety and quality of Trader Joe's frozen appetizers, many are a fixture on our shopping list (I'm looking at you Carmelized Onion and Gruyere Puff Pastry Bites!),but it is just so much more fun to serve guests something I have actually made.  Which means I am always on the hunt for quick and easy appetizer ideas that wont take much more effort than opening and heating of the Trader Joe's packages. A few months ago I saw this recipe for mini spinach bread bowls on Picky Palate and was intrigued that one of the ingredients was Pilsbury french loaf dough which was cut into squares.  This ingredient interested me not only because it seemed like it cut tons of time off the prep of these appetizers, but I was also curious to think of some other unconventional uses for canned Pilsbury doughs. 

 
You can see the recipe I followed here and note that this recipe uses a regular sized cupcake pan, but I also tried it with my mini cupcake pan as well.  In the end, I would say the mini cupcake pan didn't work so well since it was difficult to not use too much dough inside the tin and the bread to spinach dip filling ratio wasn't as good as it was with the ones that were baked in the regular sized pan.

I served these for a little dinner party we had last week and I was very pleased with how they turned out. Although really how can you not be pleased when half the ingredients are some form of cheese or cream?!  In the midst of all the socializing at dinner (read: drinking wine), I completely forgot to take a photo of the final product so here is a photo of how delicious they look, taken from Picky Palate: