Before our new kitchen was up and running, BF’s friends took pity on us and invited us over for dinner one night last week. On the menu? Caesar salad to start (it was the saltiest, yummiest salad I’ve ever had), Grilled chicken, stuffing, and sautéed spinach. Everything was really, really good. I was most impressed by the spinach, however. I’d eaten frozen spinach and spinach salads but never fresh sautéed spinach. It was delicious (seasoned with lemon pepper) and appeared easy to make.
This past weekend after setting up the grill (one of our cooking mainstays) on our back patio and after a trip to our local Costco to buy some filet mignon; we were ready to resume our love of cooking. While BF grilled us up some steaks, I attempted to saute spinach.
While I was de-tailing the spinach I asked BF how much Spinach he thought we should use. I was about half-way through the bag and he told me to stop. I had mounded the spinach onto a plate as I was de-tailing it, and the mound was pretty big.
I used butter in the bottom of the pan because I’m pretty sure that’s what BF’s friends used in their recipe, and I picked up some lemon pepper seasoning at the store, which I used in the dish.
After I divvied up the spinach onto both our plates we each had about two bites of spinach to go with our steak. Lesson learned. Fresh spinach shrinks a lot!
This is what happened…
Having never done this before, I needed a recipe. I turned to simplyrecipes.com to find a basic recipe.
From that basic recipe, I made my own and it went like this:
ingredients.
- 1 9-oz bag of fresh spinach (for every two people or if you really like spinach, one 9-oz bag per person)
- olive oil, extra virgin, butter, or bacon grease
- your favorite seasoning
- salt to taste
directions.
- Cut off the thick stems of the spinach and discard. Clean the spinach if you did not buy pre-washed spinach. To clean the spinach: filling up a large Tupperware container (or your sink!) with water. Soak the spinach to loosen dirt. Drain the spinach and then repeat soaking and draining until spinach is clean. Use a salad spinner to remove any excess moisture.
- Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil, butter or bacon grease in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add seasoning.
- Add the spinach to the pan, packing it down a bit if to make sure it all fits in the pan. Use a spatula to lift and move the spinach in the pan. Make sure you continue to coat the spinach with the olive oil and seasoning as you go. Do this a couple of times. The spinach will shrink almost immediately in the pan and will be done within one to two minutes.
- Remove from heat. Drain any excess moisture from the pan. Add a little more olive oil (if desired), sprinkle with salt to taste. Serve immediately.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 