Today we celebrated the winter solstice with my mom and step dad at our house. After the laziest morning ever (read: I didn’t get in any exercise) I make a quick trip to Wegmans like a complete fool. I needed a few things for our little party and ended up fighting my way through what can only be described as the the biggest, craziest crowd of the year. The phrase “what the hell was I thinking” comes to mind.

A while ago I received a coupon in the mail from Foodbuzz to review the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastries. It was my choice to opt in for this product review and although this isn’t something I would typically buy, I figured I’d go ahead this time knowing I’d probably use it for a party – and that’s exactly what I did.

The pastry sheets are simple sheets of dough that you can use for good or for evil… I mean, sweet or savory. I opted for the savory route today. I had no motivation to come up with any sort of original recipe and I therefore need to give major props to the recipe on the back of the box for helping me out today.

Spinach-Cheese Swirls? I’m fairly sure that’s my middle name.

I set the pastry sheets out to thaw for about 40 minutes, as directed.

I shredded some pepper jack cheese and mixed with a little parm, kosher salt and garlic salt.

When my sheets had thawed I brushed them with raw egg. (That’s a fun sentence to take out of context. Try it.)

I sprinkled the pastry sheet with the cheese mixture, topped the cheese with fresh spinach and then things really got rolling.

By the time I got to the second sheet I was feeling warmed up and ready to strike out on my own. I left the recipe on the back of the box behind and scrounged the fridge for ideas.

I smeared some spicy vegetarian re-fried beans on the second pastry sheet, topped it with a little pepper jack cheese and finally, some of the Pace Picante salsa that showed up earlier in the week also for our review.

Product placement at it’s finest.

I’ll be honest that I’m not crazy about the ingredient list of the pastry sheets – but for an occasional meal I’m not going to sweat enriched flour, monoglycerides, palm oil and high fructose corn syrup. No big deal here for a once and a while thing.

Now please note that the recipe said to cut the rolls into slices and bake them that way, but for a variety of reasons I decided to throw caution to the wind and cook them whole. Due to the fact that I used fresh spinach instead of thawed frozen spinach, I was afraid the fresh spinach leaves would get dragged out by the knife as I sliced through the uncooked roll.

I brushed the tops of the rolls with more egg and into the oven they went at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Pretty, no?

Well don’t get too excited because they weren’t cooked in the middle. I guess those people who wrote that recipe actually knew what they were talking about.

But never fear, I sliced them up and put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes and they puffed right up like they were supposed to. Crisis averted.

These turned out great – both the spinach and bean versions were awesome and we couldn’t decide which ones we liked better. We made a spinach roll and bean roll play tic tac toe to determine a winner but it was a Cats game so we still don’t know which roll was victorious.

The little health inspectors did their duties when my parents arrived with more snacks, plus dessert too.

We only made them ask 15 times if we could open presents before we finally caved.

American Girl dolls for Ava and Maxine. Huge hits. Huge.

Gotta love gifts for foodies. A Mandolin! Oh man, it’s gonna be a veggie blood bath here tomorrow – just you wait and see!

And a new salad plate too.

Plus gifts for new home owners – given I fried my last cordless drill with my mad picture hanging skillz.

The rule here is that you’ve got to have messy hair and a crazy look in your eye when you hold a drill. I’m taking my new drill with me to Wegmans next time I go – I’ll fit right in.