Spinach was on sale this week! I pretty much bought out the place, and I’ve been integrating it into random dishes- eggs, pizza, stew, soup- as well as salads and…. Creamed spinach!! I have no idea how you are supposed to make creamed spinach, but this is what I did and it. was. awesome. I also did a chromatography experiment today with spinach. I’ll share both recipes with you…
Screamed spinach
-1/2 pint of heavy cream
-1 ½ handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese
-1 tablespoon basil pesto
-1/2 onion, diced
-2 T olive oil
-4-5 handfuls of fresh spinach, ripped up
-salt and pepper, to taste
Oil sauce pan on medium- high heat. Sweat onions and stir in pesto. Pour in heavy cream, turn heat to high and let boil. Before the cream boils over, lift the pot off of the heat and drop in cheese. Return to medium heat and add salt and pepper. Pile on the spinach and let wilt by mixing in. Adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Serve hot!Spinach chromatography
Rip up one spinach leaf and place in small jar with lid. Cover leaf with rubbing alcohol. Put jar in a hot water bath for a half hour, changing out the hot water when necessary. The pigment in the spinach leaves will transfer to the alcohol. Cut a strip of coffee filter and put one end in the alcohol and the other sticking up out of the jar. The pigment will move up the coffee filter and the colors will separate according to size (largest will move the least). Let separate for 30-90 minutes; the longer the separation, the better. Measure and record the distances between the bottom of the strip and each band. Now try with Swiss chard!
I actually didn’t have any rubbing alcohol, so I used Madeira wine. It didn’t work quite as well, but I added some honey, spicy brown mustard, some olive oil, and some salt and pepper and it made a nice dressing for my spinach salad. Now THAT’S a salad that will warm you on a cold day!
