Curbing your Cravings- Chinese Cheese Spinach

So, I'm a sucker for Chinese/ Asian style buffets. I love sushi, and stir-fry and the strange, confusing side dish always labelled as 'Cheese Spinach'

I love Cheese Spinach. It's a sickness. If I find it when I go out to eat, it is one of the dishes I will load my plate up with, and go back for more. The best part about it? You may be piling a bunch of cheese on your plate, but you're also piling a LOT of spinach on it, too.

I'd say about half the recipe is spinach, and the other half is the creamy cheesy goodness that cuts the pungent taste of cooked spinach. This recipe is especially good for kids, since they'll go for the cheese, and barely bother asking what that green stuff is!

Now, I ended up "cooking" this recipe twice so you've got two ways to cook one recipe!

Chinese Buffet 'Cheese Spinach'

Yield: 2-4 servings depending on how you use it (side dish or part of your main meal!)

8 oz. Chopped frozen spinach, thawed (squeeze out a little excess moisture, but not a ton!)
1Tbsp butter, margarine, whatever you have.
6 oz. Queso Blanco Velveeta (yes, velveeta. I grabbed a box of it while shopping since I'd been using a lot of it on my burritos recently, and figured the queso blanco might go with more foods. It has a milder I'm-not-violently-orange-and-American flavor, and it melts wonderfully)
2 Tbsp Cream cheese
1/4 cup cheddar cheese (or whatever you have. I like cheddar, if you like a kick, try pepper jack. I certainly considered it while making this!)
A sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, if you have it.
Salt
Pepper

• 'Kay. So when I made this, I popped the spinach in the microwave to defrost (and thank god for the defrost button. I use it constantly.), and started melting the butter in the skillet (10" if you please) on medium heat. After it was all melty, I lowered the heat and threw in the cream cheese. I sliceed up my Queso Blanco Velveeta and threw that in too. You're looking for melty cheesy goodness, so keep it stirring. 
• I threw in the parmesan, salt, and pepper, and gave it a good mix before tossing in my now-defrosted spinach, and giving it a good healthy mix. You're looking for a white-ish sauce that will coat the spinach, but not so much  that you no longer see the green. You want to see the spinach, honestly, you do.
• At this point I put my spinach in a 1 qt glass baking dish, topped with cheddar, and baked at 325 for about 30 minutes. BUT this didn't give me the desired end result. It ended up too loose. I ate part of it though, and realized it would be good on egg noodles- So I decided to keep that tidbit of information for my next semi-vegetarian meal. I threw some chicken in my bowl (not the dish!) at that point. Pretty good with chicken too. Perhaps my next post will be about spinach, cheese and chicken. Hm....
• If you're really looking for that classic Chinese buffet side dish: Take the spinach cheese mix and put it in a 9x13 glass baking dish, and cook for 30-45m at 325. This cooks out more moisture, and gives it the gooey, cheesy texture you'll find in your local Chinese restaurant. This is definitely the side dish I was aiming for!

Now I will say, next time I make this I'm putting in less Queso Blanco Velveeta and adding more cream cheese. I was short on cream cheese this time, but it ended up pretty awesome regardless.

I was obsessed with finding a recipe for this to make at home, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was. 

Happy Noms!