I wasn’t planning for this to be the recipe that broke the blogging dry spell, but after tasting the bite of the leftovers this morning I found I’d stumbled upon something. I’ve actually been cooking quite a bit lately, out of necessity and economy, fashioning meals that could’ve come straight out of the Trader Joe’s cookbook and might have been hard to defend in recipe form, like fish-stick tacos with homemade salsa, or turkey burgers with a secret ingredient (crushed pistachios) and pesto tortellini. Last night, after dropping over a grand on new apartment furniture (everything in our apartment except the bed is sourced from either Craigslist or the street, including a barely-used Ikea kitchen block, a cheerfully painted blue bookshelf that a nearby elementary school threw out, and two bar schools discarded by the Shake Shack downstairs), we had a cheap date that mostly consisted of spending five hours in the Museum of Natural History across the street and watching a terrible Robin Williams movie on Netflix Instant. In between, I made some nachos for dinner, bound by the constraints of the ingredients already in the fridge: a bag of frozen chopped spinach, a can of refried beans, an onion, a tomato, tortilla chips and good olive oil. 

The vegetable mixture that came out of this under-$5 experiment is good enough to serve for entertaining, the beans giving it a creaminess reminiscent of those vaguely-disgusting vaguely-delicious dairy-based dips that tempt and horrify me. 

Vegan spinach dip:

• 1 cup frozen chopped spinach
• 2 tbsp good extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 can refried beans
• 3/4 cup diced yellow onion
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the onion in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, stirring frequently.
2. Meanwhile, defrost the spinach with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a small covered saucepan. Once cooked through, add refried beans and stir until mixed well.
3. When onions are golden and translucent, add to bean mixture and stir well. If you like, melt a little cheddar on top. Serve with tortilla chips.