Maybe It’s Supposed to Look Like Troll Snot? 🤢

There are few constants in my family, but one that has appeared every single holiday season since I started dating my now-husband is spinach soufflé. It is delicious. It is decadent. It is a savory, creamy, highly-requested family favorite.

We also affectionately refer to it as “Troll Snot.” Because before it hits the oven, it looks like a lumpy, sludgy, dark green mess.

After baking, it transforms into a golden, puffy dish that is well worth the wait and the effort involved. The gap between the process and the product is pretty big.

mixing up the 'troll snot'

ready for the oven

browned and yummy!

Lately, this decadent dish has become a powerful metaphor for my life - and maybe yours, too. Because sometimes, the process of creating something worthwhile is inherently messy, chaotic, and riddled with frustrating do-overs.

If you're looking for a tasty addition to your holiday spread this week, this is it! I've included the recipe at the end of this message. You'll thank me (and really, my mother-in-law Kathy) later.

👉 Three key lessons we can all learn from "troll snot"

This year, my soufflé situation hit new levels of frustration and messiness. The issues I faced mirror challenges I've experienced in many other parts of my life, too.

📐 Lesson 1: We Never Measure Up

My family has never, in the history of soufflé-ing, made a single batch recipe. At minimum, we always double it, and around the holidays we usually go for a 4x "party size" batch. The year everything shut down during COVID, I think we made a sextuple size banquet bundle. There was a LOT of troll snot in the house.

And yet... despite having what I would classify as a "mathy" brain, I cannot for the life of me buy the right amount of ingredients when I go shopping. As I'm hunting for the best deal on things (because somehow, it's worth saving a total of $4 for a mega-batch dish during the holidays), I wind up forgetting I have to multiply some of the ingredients. And then I worry I've over-calculated something, because there's only so much room in our fridge & freezer.

At Thanksgiving this year, I goofed on the spinach. When I made a quad batch before a recent school event, and I missed the mark on the cottage cheese. Both times, I had to send my husband back to the store, mid-prep, to save the day. Thankfully, the hero came through. 🕺

💡 Key Learning: When you are scaling up a big project - whether it's a business expansion, an event, or simply a family tradition - at some point you will miscalculate the resources required, and you will be under-prepared. It feels like a failure, but it’s just the cost of ambition. The fix isn't abandoning the project, it’s making the necessary adjustments (i.e. an emergency store run). And, perhaps focusing more on the math next time - and less on the BOGO sales.

🧑‍🍳 Lesson 2: Even the Experts Forget Key Steps

I've made this dish enough times that I should be classified as an "expert" in it. Yet, I ALWAYS forget some step along the way, probably in part because I'm still mad about whatever I forgot to buy (see Lesson #1). In the first batch I made this year, it was the salt - a personal travesty for me, a self-proclaimed salt-lover! For the school event batch, I forgot the flour. The flour! This was particularly insulting because I had spent the entire previous evening trading texts about whether or not we needed to pick up gluten-free flour. Oh, the travesty.

I only realized both of these errors after I had already poured a full bowl of lumpy green goop into my baking dish and was about to stick it in the oven. 🤦 Both times, I had to scrape the whole mixture back into the bowl to stir in the missing ingredient, quickly scrub down the baking dish, and then re-grease it and pour in the snot again.

💡 Key Learning: Even when you know how to do something inside and out, sometimes you will still forget a key, fundamental step. Experience doesn't eliminate error; it just makes you better at backtracking. When it does, you have to put the snot back in the bowl, fix the mistake, and proceed. Say it with me: do-over. 🔄

⏰ Lesson 3: Past Failures Can Improve Future Performance

In past years, our soufflé has been the sad source of lateness to many gatherings. The process of making it always takes longer than I think it will. Between prep-work, assembly, and a longer baking time than just about anything else I usually pop in the oven... the combination always adds up to more than my overly optimistic schedule has room for.

But this year... I learned from my lateness! I scheduled extra, dedicated time to make and cook the dish, building in a generous buffer. I was so slay!

💡 Key Learning: If a critical project has burned you on time before, respect the heat. One of the messiest parts of the process is going overtime. Learning to allocate sufficient buffer for the unexpected (a scramble for spinach, fixing the flour) is a sign of growth and prevents your beautiful creation from causing unnecessary friction in your life. 🧘

👉 Embracing the Mess

Mishaps like these are infuriating and disappointing in the moment. They make you feel inept, rushed, and messy.

But, if you want that delectable, golden, puffy soufflé (or whatever deliciousness it is that you desire), they are also necessary steps. The process looks messy because it involves creation, adjustments, scale, and the inevitable imperfection of human effort.

So, the next time your life, your project, or your goals feel a bit like troll snot - lumpy, chaotic, and far from the beautiful finished product you envision - remember that it might just be a sign that you are deep in the work. Embrace the mess, grab the spatula, and don't forget the salt! 🧂🧂🧂

I’m also happy to report, despite all of our soufflé shakedowns this year, everything turned out even yummier than we hoped. We even learned a new trick - almond flour leads to an even creamier and dreamier end product!

Wishing you kind thoughts in your next recipe, whatever it may be.

Happy Holidays!

💥 Break Out!

👉 How to Make Spinach Soufflé (aka "Troll Snot")

Thanks to my mother-in-law Kathy for sharing the love, and letting me pass this along!

In hopes of avoiding Lesson #1 next year, I have pre-calculated multi-batch ingredient lists 😁

Single batch

3 eggs, beaten

2 cups cottage cheese

2 10oz packs chopped, frozen spinach, thawed & drained

1 ½ cups grated cheddar

¼ cup melted butter

¼ cup flour

1 tsp salt

2x batch

6 eggs, beaten

4 cups cottage cheese

4 10oz packs chopped, frozen spinach, thawed & drained

3 cups grated cheddar

½ cup melted butter

¼ cup flour

2 tsp salt

4x batch

12 eggs, beaten

8 cups cottage cheese

8 10oz packs chopped, frozen spinach, thawed & drained

4 ½ cups grated cheddar

1 cup melted butter

½ cup flour

1 Tbsp salt

Prepping the spinach is the most time intensive part of this recipe. Begin by thawing it overnight (or longer) in the refrigerator. I recommend you place the frozen spinach packs in a plastic bag while you do this, as the packaging tends to leak as the ice in it melts. Making a small green pond in your fridge is not part of the recipe.

In the morning (or whenever you start soufflé-ing), grab a colander, stick it in the sink, and handful by handful, squeeze out all the water from the spinach over the colander. Once you've squeezed out as much as you can from each bunch, place the drier handfuls of spinach in a large mixing bowl. If you realize there is still ice in the spinach as you're working with it, defrost it in the microwave for a bit, and then resume squeezing out the water.​ Pro tip: I recommend you avoid the need to de-ice by letting the spinach thaw in the fridge for 2 nights. The mid-squeeze microwave method introduces extreme hot and cold sensations simultaneously in your hands that are not particularly pleasant (ouch!) - but you do you...

Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease pan(s) so they're ready. Sizes that work:

• Single batch: 8" x 8" or 9 inch round casserole

• Double batch: 9" x 13" casserole

• Quad batch: 2 large casseroles (one for you, one for a friend!)

Once the spinach is fully drained, mix all the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl and pour your lovable lump of green sludge into the greased casserole dish(es). Bake for 1 hour, until the top is golden brown.

Bonus tip: We tried the recipe this year with almond flour rather than all-purpose, and found it made a creamier casserole. It was a surprise learning this year - yum! 🎉