Christmas Tree Spinach Breadsticks

This recipe is another tree-shaped mess straight out of the Pinterest front page. Of course it's delicious, because it's made with a tube of store-bought pizza crust and superfluous amounts of garlic. Oh well, it's Christmas Eve and nobody wants to do any baking, so this will suffice. Plus it's got spinach in it, which I've heard is a vegetable.

Tree-Shaped Spinach Breadsticks

Ingredients

• 12oz chopped spinach. if frozen, thaw and squeeze dry
• 6 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese (plus more for sprinkling)
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1 tube refrigerated thin crust pizza crust
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400º
2. In a bowl, beat together the spinach and cream cheese
3. Add garlic, salt, onion powder, pepper, chili powder and beat to combine
4. Add parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, and mozzarella cheese and beat again to combine
5. To shape the tree, Unroll the pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper. Using a pizza cutter cut the crust into a tree shape as shown in the image above. This gives you one large triangle and two smaller ones.
6. Transfer the smaller triangles to a second piece of parchment paper, placing the long side edges together, to make another large triangle. The dough will stretch out a little as you move it around, just gently tug it into the shape you want, pressing the two halves together in the middle. This will be the base of the breadsticks.
7. Spread the spinach dip over the base.
8. Sprinkle on the remaining cheese, and then top with the first triangle of dough. Make sure it completely covers the base triangle.
9. Using a pizza cutter, cut slices from the middle to each edge about every inch down the triangle as shown below. Don’t slice all the way across; leave about an inch down the middle of the tree intact.
10. Grab each branch and twist it to form a tree shape. For the top slice that’s very short you’ll just give it a half twist. As you go further down the tree and hit longer slices you’ll give them two or three full twists.
11. Sprinkle less than 1/4 cup cheddar cheese on top to add texture.
12. Bake at 400 degrees for about 22 minutes until the bottom is completely cooked through. The top is going to get nice and browned, but make sure to check that the bottom is cooked through.
13. Melt butter and stir in garlic salt, brush over breadsticks. Serve warm