I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
Apr. 30th, 2012 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schemingreader posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
cookingforpeoplewhodontI have many ideas for blogging about half-homemade dishes--premade foods mixed into or as the backbone of, my homemade food. The only problem with this one for me is that I'm not sure what counts as a premade food. Thinking about pre-done cooking tasks, though, I think my favorite convenience food these days is spinach. I have come to believe that adding spinach to dishes is an easy way to make them awesome. I also like other greens—but spinach is the best.
Prewashed fresh greens
When I was a kid, we ate reconstituted frozen spinach at home—the canned stuff in the 1970s was not even close to green. (It might be better now—I don't know.) We'd only get spinach salad in a restaurant, because it was a big task to wash the fresh stuff. It was always very sandy.
When I first started cooking in the 1980s, I used to buy fresh spinach in plastic bags or in bunches, and fill the bowl of my salad spinner with water several times to try to get all the grit off. What a pain. I also washed spinach in the utility sink in my college food co-operative. It was a big job. Sometimes I still have to get out the salad spinner to prepare arugula, cilantro or parsley. I admit, it's much cheaper to buy the greens unwashed, and it's certainly not as environmentally hostile to get bunches that don't come in a big plastic clamshell box. On the other hand, it's a deterrent to cooking with greens, knowing that you're going to have to clear a space in the sink to wash them, that they might be gritty, and so on. (Also, we now have curbside recycling where I live for the boxes!)
Prewashed baby spinach is definitely a modern convenience food, therefore, and I think qualifies in the half-homemade category. Even if it doesn't, I don't care, because I think it is the bomb. The leaves are so small that for most dishes, you don't even have to chop them.
They can be salad—put them in a bowl with other salad things, or with fruit, and then put some vinegar and oil or bottled dressing on that. (Strawberries are in season in my part of the world now, and they are very nice in a spinach salad.)
Spinach is wonderful in morning eggs. You could make a fancy omelette if you want to learn to do that, but it's pretty easy to just throw leaves of spinach into your scramble—then it's all yellow and green, and spinach and eggs taste so good together. You don't wash, you don't chop—you open the box and take out a handful and add it to the pan. The spinach just needs to wilt down; it doesn't need to cook very long to add taste.
On nights when all I've managed to make for dinner was plain brown or white rice, I put the baby spinach on the plate first and ladle hot rice on top for spinach rice. There is a dish called a vegan bowl that is basically a grain, a bean, a vegetable and some exciting sauce--you can do it with brown rice, canned chickpeas, baby washed spinach leaves, and bottled Thai peanut sauce. Enticing, right?
Our classic use for these babies is to boil a few servings of egg noodles in salty water and throw the spinach into the water right as the noodles finish cooking. Then when we drain the water, the noodles and cooked spinach are mixed together. A little margarine, butter or sesame oil and some salt, and it's dinner.
Frozen, chopped spinach
Frozen chopped spinach is in some ways even better than the fresh prewashed stuff, because it's often less expensive per pound. You can use it a little at a time and it will stay unspoiled in the freezer. A box of fresh spinach must be eaten in a week or so, but frozen chopped spinach can be thrown by the pinchful or handful into your hot food when you feel like it. Like nearly all frozen veggies, it was precooked before it was frozen, so you don't have to cook it very much in any case. Added at the end of a batch of soup, it floats sweet and green. If all you're up to cooking-wise so far is reheating or reconstituting canned or instant soup, you can throw a little frozen chopped spinach into that at the last minute, when it's hot enough to thaw and warm the leaves. It will look nice and make you feel cared for.
I like the way spinach tastes, I like the color, and I like the way it gives people super strength. I feel blessed to live in a period when it's also possible to present it as a convenience food, a good candidate to be part of a series of posts about food that's only half homemade. Even if you think it doesn't qualify, I hope you'll still try eating more spinach.
Prewashed fresh greens
When I was a kid, we ate reconstituted frozen spinach at home—the canned stuff in the 1970s was not even close to green. (It might be better now—I don't know.) We'd only get spinach salad in a restaurant, because it was a big task to wash the fresh stuff. It was always very sandy.
When I first started cooking in the 1980s, I used to buy fresh spinach in plastic bags or in bunches, and fill the bowl of my salad spinner with water several times to try to get all the grit off. What a pain. I also washed spinach in the utility sink in my college food co-operative. It was a big job. Sometimes I still have to get out the salad spinner to prepare arugula, cilantro or parsley. I admit, it's much cheaper to buy the greens unwashed, and it's certainly not as environmentally hostile to get bunches that don't come in a big plastic clamshell box. On the other hand, it's a deterrent to cooking with greens, knowing that you're going to have to clear a space in the sink to wash them, that they might be gritty, and so on. (Also, we now have curbside recycling where I live for the boxes!)
Prewashed baby spinach is definitely a modern convenience food, therefore, and I think qualifies in the half-homemade category. Even if it doesn't, I don't care, because I think it is the bomb. The leaves are so small that for most dishes, you don't even have to chop them.
They can be salad—put them in a bowl with other salad things, or with fruit, and then put some vinegar and oil or bottled dressing on that. (Strawberries are in season in my part of the world now, and they are very nice in a spinach salad.)
Spinach is wonderful in morning eggs. You could make a fancy omelette if you want to learn to do that, but it's pretty easy to just throw leaves of spinach into your scramble—then it's all yellow and green, and spinach and eggs taste so good together. You don't wash, you don't chop—you open the box and take out a handful and add it to the pan. The spinach just needs to wilt down; it doesn't need to cook very long to add taste.
On nights when all I've managed to make for dinner was plain brown or white rice, I put the baby spinach on the plate first and ladle hot rice on top for spinach rice. There is a dish called a vegan bowl that is basically a grain, a bean, a vegetable and some exciting sauce--you can do it with brown rice, canned chickpeas, baby washed spinach leaves, and bottled Thai peanut sauce. Enticing, right?
Our classic use for these babies is to boil a few servings of egg noodles in salty water and throw the spinach into the water right as the noodles finish cooking. Then when we drain the water, the noodles and cooked spinach are mixed together. A little margarine, butter or sesame oil and some salt, and it's dinner.
Frozen, chopped spinach
Frozen chopped spinach is in some ways even better than the fresh prewashed stuff, because it's often less expensive per pound. You can use it a little at a time and it will stay unspoiled in the freezer. A box of fresh spinach must be eaten in a week or so, but frozen chopped spinach can be thrown by the pinchful or handful into your hot food when you feel like it. Like nearly all frozen veggies, it was precooked before it was frozen, so you don't have to cook it very much in any case. Added at the end of a batch of soup, it floats sweet and green. If all you're up to cooking-wise so far is reheating or reconstituting canned or instant soup, you can throw a little frozen chopped spinach into that at the last minute, when it's hot enough to thaw and warm the leaves. It will look nice and make you feel cared for.
I like the way spinach tastes, I like the color, and I like the way it gives people super strength. I feel blessed to live in a period when it's also possible to present it as a convenience food, a good candidate to be part of a series of posts about food that's only half homemade. Even if you think it doesn't qualify, I hope you'll still try eating more spinach.
