Spinach got a bad rap when I was a kid. Perhaps it’s because the only way I ever had it back then was as an over cooked brown and green mush. It certainly didn’t look like the delightful food that Popeye raved about as he poured out his can of spinach into his mouth. He made it look so good and yet it never seemed to live up to my expectations as a kid.
But as the scriptures say, "when I was a child, I thought like a child, but when I became a man, I put childish things away." Now that I am an adult and have more experience with spinach, I have found it to be a wonderfully versatile vegetable.
If you are tired of eating salads to get your leafy green vegetables in, there are many spinach recipes you can substitute. Spinach pesto is one of my favorites because I can eat it as a veggie dip, serve it over whole wheat pasta or make vegetable lasagna with it. Additionally, I make spinach soup and vegan spinach quiche or soufflé. All of these recipes are delicious and easy to make. And of course, if you feel like salad, you can make a quick and easy spinach salad sans the bacon of course for you vegans.
Regarding preparing and storing spinach, it tends to be a fragile vegetable. Therefore if you buy it in bulk be prepared to use it with in a few days of purchase. If you buy the baby spinach already rinsed and sealed in plastic it will keep longer. Also, rinse as you go. Again, this is because the leaves break down easily, so only rinse and prepare as much as you are going to use in one recipe.
Here’s a spinach recipe preparation tip I learned the hard way. If you do cook with spinach, don’t use aluminum. The spinach will pick up an acidic taste and also turn gray.
Finally, Spinach has lots of nutrition. It is a good source of vitamin A, B, and C. Additionally it has important minerals like iron and potassium as well as those cancer fighting agents called antioxidants. So, hopefully, if you, like me, have been soured against spinach you will give it another try. We hope to have provided you with some helpful information on this versatile bright green leafy vegetable. So eat up!
Enjoy a great spinach pesto recipe...
