The Reuben Dip

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"Fun Fridays" at our house means that lunchtime is something special - I either make a cool new appetizer, or maybe some kind of hot dip, or something like pimiento cheese or cucumber finger sandwiches.  Unlike other days of the week, I try not to repeat Friday lunches more than once every few months, which means I'm always, always on the search for fantastic new recipes to try.

I found this one on Pinterest around St. Patrick's Day - I think people were pinning it like crazy because of the corned beef component.  At least, that's all I can imagine, because the Reuben doesn't seem particularly Irish-holiday-oriented, even if it does contain corned beef and (pickled) cabbage!

Ready for the Oven

I like that this has quite a lot of veggie component in it, since we were having it for lunch.  You don't want something too super rich in the middle of the day, even if it is a Fun Friday.

It's super easy to make - It took me all of about ten minutes to get everything into the bowl of the mixer (including shredding the cheese! Buy pre-shredded and you're down to five minutes). A little bit of beating and blending and I was spooning the thick and lovely looking mix into the casserole and sticking it into my pre-heated oven.

It came out lightly browned - more like golden, I suppose - and smelled fantastic.  I was a little worried about it possibly having an acidic smell from the sauerkraut, or the sauerkraut making the creamy cheesy mixture separate, but my fears were unfounded - it looked rich and delicious and the spicy scent was like walking into a great city deli.

Browned and Bubbly!

The recipe recommended using the sweet, tiny rye bread slices to serve this on, which would have been wonderful if we were able to find that anywhere at all close to home.  Instead, we settled for Triscuit crackers, which have enough stability to serve as an excellent platform for this fabulous dip.

And by the way, this makes a HUGE amount.  When it came out of the oven, my husband just looked at me incredulously when I told him it was lunch.  Seriously, it would be a great amount for a party of say, twenty people, on your goodies table.  Even as a main dish serving, this worked out to be enough for about three meals for us. (It also re-heats brilliantly!)

OmNomNom - Who's gonna say no to that?

As for husband approval, this got a hearty thumbs-up and a request that I start making this for entertaining.  I was told this would be especially good for guys' game nights, which I think is a fantastic idea.