CREAMED SPINACH
Gluten and Lactose-Free
Serves 2 to 4
Peter loves creamed spinach! I don’t really make it as often as I should. I had just bought a 10 oz. clam shell of baby spinach. I had also recently read that spinach can be bitter if not used as soon as possible after purchasing. From now on I will be making this dish at least a few times a month.
Having just made chicken fingers I thought that creamed spinach and baked potato will be great to go with it. As I was taking things out of the refrigerator to make the spinach, I saw the jar of coconut milk (you are thinking, I've never seen coconut milk in a jar! Neither have I. I had used a 1/3 c of coconut milk in some recipe and saved the rest in a pint jar.) that was next to the spinach and thought to use the coconut milk instead of cow milk thickened into a slurry with a starch; corn starch, tapioca starch, arrowroot or potato starch.
Indeed, it worked great. Peter loved the creamed spinach and wanted me to make it again the next night but alas, I was out of spinach.
I made this dish with fresh baby spinach and kept the leaves intact rather than chopping them up. Sometimes I freeze the spinach in the bag or the clam shell it came in. Once the spinach is frozen, I crush the brittle leaves, by hand, a meat mallet or a rolling pin. I found out that this method makes a dry cooked spinach rather than the soggy mess that needs to be squeezed out before using when purchasing frozen spinach.
I could have used the immersion blender to puree the cooked spinach but this time, I left the leaves intact and that was fine.
What you need:
Measure out everything you need and set aside.
Onion – sliced very thin, 1 c
Garlic – sliced paper thin, 1 T or minced
Coconut oil - 2 to 3 T (option, any mild flavored oil)
Spinach – 10 oz baby spinach (fresh or frozen my way)
Coconut milk – ½ c (or 6 T c coconut milk and 2 T water)
Arrowroot – 3 to 4 T (option, corn starch, tapioca starch or potato starch
Sherry – 2 t (option lemon juice)
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Let's get cooking:
Heat the coconut oil in large deep skillet (a wok works well) and sauté the onion sprinkled with a pinch of kosher salt. Cook stirring until the onion begins to turn golden. Add the sliced garlic and cook stirring for about 30 seconds more.
Pile on the cleaned spinach into the skillet, (do this in batches if your skillet is not large enough to hold all the raw spinach and let wilt slightly before adding more spinach), stir and cover. While the spinach is wilting down, make a slurry of the starch and water, add to the coconut milk and stir.
When the spinach is more than ½ wilted, add the coconut milk slurry to the skillet and stir. Cover and cook until all the spinach is wilted, and the coconut milk has thickened. Taste, adjust seasoning, add the sherry or lemon juice stir to mix well and you are ready to serve your creamed spinach.
Serve as a side for any meat dish or top a bowl of rice with this. It is rather addictive. Peter and I ate the entire 10 oz of spinach.!
Something else you can do with creamed spinach is to spread out the spinach evenly in the skillet, make “holes” in the spinach, drop an egg into each hole, cover and cook until the eggs are done. Now you have Eggs Florentine. Serve with toast for brunch or lunch.
Enjoy!