Way over on my other blog, someone special commented on my recent endeavor. (Holy Cow Look At That Linky Love. Ha!) With a sack of baby spinach in my fridge, I thought Hey, you know what? I'll just whack up a mess of creamed spinach and impart my great and wonderful OZ knowledge about the A to Z cooking of this dish. hah! I've never made Creamed Spinach, first of all, but how hard could it be? I looked at a few recipes. Hmmm. Make a roux and a bechamel and add the green stuff.
He came in the kitchen in the early stages. "Whatcha makin'?" Food is high on his list of what matters.
Creamed Spinach! I announced.
Bleck, he responded.
Hey, I know the feeling. We are both of the age when this shit came out of a can when our moms were uninspired. But I was going to undo this - determined to undo this bleck - with my fresh inspired recipe that I could hand down to generations of people who may or may not admire my cooking.
So may we begin?
Baby spinach, sorted and washed.
Milk, chicken stock, butter, flour, minced shallot, and garlic.
Secret ingredient: dry mustard.
Saute shallots and garlic in butter in medium saucepan. Add flour and dry mustard. Cook. Ta Da! Roux.
Heat milk and stock in microwave until hot. Add to roux. Stir and heat in
til thicken.
Bechamel Sauce - ta da.
Add spinach, all at once. Stir, stir, stir.
Taste. OMG! It's all garlic. Like cough. choke. spit.
Plus it looks pretty gross.
I had an Oh My Gawd moment realizing I just made the yuckiest creamed spinach that has ever existed AND I knew I had to post it. I guess it's official ** I am a blogger.** Butterfly kisses to you all. I love you. I love blogging.
Well -What to do?
Add cooked potatoes thinly sliced.
Quick! Add cheese to sauce!
Add cooked potatoes thinly sliced.Layer with sauce.
Add Panko bread crumbs to the top and Parmesan finely grated. And cook for an hour.
Scalloped Potatoes Florentine.
Twas good too.
Great improvisation, and a fun blog entry too! I'm excited that my kitchen adventures inspired you. :) My bad creamed spinach had too much flour in the cream I think...made me want to barf. Was thinking I could add more of everything else...but still not sure. I like the scalloped potatoes idea! I froze the whole thing because I didn't want to waste the ingredients...I will update you if I'm able to fix it!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I LOVE canned spinach. (But that's not what I used for the creamed stuff I was trying.)
THat looks really yummy. You know, I've done it with frozen spinach and a can of cream of mushroom soup but even that was not the best.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, canned spinach gives spinach a bad rep. Caed loves it in Artichoke dip but I think he would really love it in potatoes too! I'll have to try that.
Oh, and I need to post your recipe blog on my two because I keep forgetting to check.
I make healthier creamed spinach with rice milk - forget the roux and the bechamel! Just caramelize some onions in a bit of oil, add the spinach & cook on low til wilted, pour in some rice milk, dash of nutmeg, and voila! it tastes like candy. You could thicken the juice into a "cream" with flour or tapioca if desired; I don't. I add toasted pinenuts and sometimes sundried tomatoes.
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