Take a large bag of spinach ...
February 22, 2007 at 4:28 PM
by Ashleigh
Add a family of four...
This is a story about the adventures of a humungous bag of spinach that I bought on Monday.
I was 'accompanying parent' on a trip to the library for Seb's class and had an hour to kill so I did some shopping. My shopping included a 'family sized' bag of washed spinach. So, spinach we had.
First we had it with baby potatoes and bacon in a sort of hollandse aardappelschotel (dutch potato dish).
You can buy these frozen potatoes, onion and bacon mixes in the supermarket here made by Aviko and called 'hollandse aardappelschotel' so that's what we call our (much nicer) version.
It goes like this:
- Take 450g baby potatoes, cover with cold water and bring to the boil then remove from the heat.
- Saute one large shallot (or two if you like), sliced, with 125g 'spekjes' (chopped bacon bits), until nicely browned.
- Remove potatoes from the hot water, dry, slice in half and add to the pan with a little olive oil. Saute until browned.
- Add two or three large handfuls of spinach, a spinkle of nutmeg and a bit of salt and pepper and cover with a lid to wilt the spinach. Remove the lid to allow some of the spinach liquid to evaporate.
- When it's to your liking remove from the heat and serve.
Then we had spinach, mushroom and chorizo pasta sauce with spaghetti, which went like this:
- Slice a shallot finely, add half a punnet of mushrooms roughly sliced, and one red pepper, thinly sliced, to one 250g chorizo, cut into half moon shapes.
- Saute the whole lot together until it's all nicely browned. No need to add oil as the chorizo has quite a lot in it.
- Add about three large handfuls of spinach leaves to the pan, cover with a lid and allow them to wilt.
- Finally, add half a jar of your favourite tomato pasta sauce (I like Bertolli roasted pepper and courgette) and a spoonful of sugar if you think the sauce is a little bitter.
- Allow to simmer for a little while then add your cooked pasta and stir. Serve with grated parmesan.
Finally we used the last bit in a fish pie. I tried a crumble topping inspired by a recipe in Good Food and it was just horrible, but the filling was nice. Choose your own topping, but in my opinion fish pie needs mashed potatoes! The filling went like this:
- Take 500g cod fillet or other white fish. Cut into chunks and place in pie dish.
- Saute two sliced shallots in a little olive oil until opaque.
- Add half a punnet of sliced mushrooms, and continue cooking until the whole lot is browned.
- Add about three large handfuls of spinach, allow to wilt under a lid and then remove the lid. Keep the pan over a medium heat to allow some of the water to evaporate.
- Add the mixture to the fish chunks and mix together.
- Cover with a bechamel sauce with a couple of tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley added..
- Put your chosen topping on top of the whole lot. It's nice to add some cheese to the topping for contrast.
- Bake for about 35 minutes at 200C.
And finally, the bag of spinach was all used up and it didn't even get to the eggs florentine!
I wonder if I can concoct such a story for the poor kohlrabi that I have, sitting, unloved, in my vegetable drawer.
Comments
Great post about the many uses for spinach! As for kohlrabi the only thing to do with it is eat it raw. You could spice it up with an aoili or hummous. Really it is a most uninspiring vegetable!
Ash: I was hoping someone had a good use for the kohlrabi. It has multiplied and now I have four of them! I think I might give them to my neighbour :0
Hi, I'm a mom too and like to cook and sew. Your spinach recipe is great. The pictures are nice. Put on your page something of cross stitch please...I like it too much. If you need chilean recipies to cook different, tell me and I will send you a lot of them. See you soon on my mail...Anamaria from Chile
Oh, man, I'd eat that kohlrabi right now. Cold, nothing on it. Yum. Heck, I'd eat all four!
I also fell prey to the family-size bag of spinach. Good heavens, that's a lot of leafy green stuff, isn't it?! I made a spinach lasagna, and even Nicky (who refuses to eat green things unless they come out of his nose) LOVED it.
Looks really good. do you have spinach in your moestuin too?
I don't know that many recipes with kohlrabi- If you find three I would love to read them. I always eat it raw.
Ash: I don't like it so I can't even eat it raw! I now have four of them - I got two more today. That's two more too much!
February 22, 2007 5:13 PM