Help! Need spinach ideas!
 

Making pork chops tonight for dinner. Only vegetable (besides salad ingred.) I have here is spinach, which my husband doesn't really care for unless I douse it with worcestershire which I don't like. My car is in the shop so I can't go shopping. Help! Need your recipes! :^:

This is what I have in the vegetable drawer:

spinach
lettuce
1/2 red bell pepper
1 pkg mushroom
1/2 red onion
1 whole yellow onion

Have tons of spices, condiments, vinegar, oil, etc.

Any ideas??!! :?:

Do you have eggs or egg substitute? You could make a nice egg dish, maybe a frittata, with the spinach, mushrooms, bell pepper, and onions.

Or, dice the bell pepper and onion and saute them with the mushrooms. Then chop the spinach finely and mix it in. You could stir in a little olive oil or light butter and seasonings (salt and pepper at a minimum) and eat the veggie mixture by itself. Another idea would be to stir the veggie mixture into cooked rice or pasta, or serve it over cooked polenta. If using rice, add in some seasoning or lemon juice, if you have lemons. If using pasta, you could use a vinaigrette dressing to season it and maybe a little cheese if you have any. If using polenta, add a little light butter and/or cheese. If the spinach is chopped small, it will probably be barely noticeable among the other veggies.

You could make it all into a salad including the spinach. Then if he wants to douse his salad with worcestershire, he can go for it. :D

You can lay raw spinach on the plate, set the pork chops on top and let the heat of the meat wilt the spinach. It's a little different than either raw or cooked spinach.

Saute the spinach with garlic and remove just as it gets wilted and changes color.

You could skewer the mushrooms, red pepper (cut up) and wedges of red pepper and grill them or broil them.

Probably don't have enough volume to cut everything up except the lettuce and roast them (cut up, toss in olive oil, cook in a roasting pan at high heat such as 425, tossing every ten minutes til they're starting to turn a little brown)

Wrap onion in foil and bake in the oven as you would a baked potato.

Slice the mushrooms, saute in olive oil (add a little butter for flavor if you eat butter), perhaps add a touch of white wine for flavor. Serve over (or without) the spinch - raw or wilted in the pan when the mushrooms are done.

Cut up and stir fry all the vegetables with garlic & ginger & soy sauce.

Oooh, thank you both!

Yes I have eggs Barbara, and that actually sounds like something he'd eat! No pasta for me though (I'm low carb) I might cook up a little for him.

Webrover, thank you also for the ideas, I'm going to try the saute w/garlic idea some day when I have stuff here he'll eat if he doesn't like it.

*Sigh* Between my power steering going out day before yesterday and leaving me carless, and the earthquake last night leaving me hot water-less, I think I was already in high anxiety mode and just about completely panicked when I looked at what I had to choose from to serve him for dinner. :lol: Supposed to have my car back tomorrow but who knows when the water company will get my busted pipe repaired/replaced.

I love frittatas. I haven't had one since I moved to London... use to get them with only egg whites at my favorite breakfast place back home, Jinkies.

Made spinach frittata with mushroom, bell pepper, onion, italian spices and parmesan cheese.

Husband didn't rave (he really doesn't care much for spinach) but he did eat an entire serving with his 2 lean pork chops. Knowing how he feels about spinach I consider it a huge success :p. I, on the other hand, ate 2 servings with my single lean pork chop and felt guilt free. Calculated up the ingredients and it was 3 net grams of carbs per serving....and it was SPINACH!

I love spinach, I think it's one of the best foods available to eat. My husband knows this mentally he just doesn't like the taste.

Getting my car back about 4 this afternoon and going grocery shopping :woohoo: .

Thank you all again for the help in my panicky state.

PS: My hot water is fixed now too. :)

Snapless, maybe you should try a different leafy green. My SO hates spinach--absolutely will not eat it. But he'll eat swiss chard and even likes it. I think swiss chard tastes just as good, if not better, than spinach. And nutritionally it is pretty close to spinach. Another leafy green to try as a sub for spinach is kale. My SO doesn't like kale quite as much as chard, but he will eat it, which is more than he'll do with spinach.

Thanks Barbara.

I've never had swiss chard before (that I know of), so will have to try it out...if I can find it over here.

Kale on the other hand I don't like, so that's probably not going to be an option.

I'm glad you found something he ate.

And the car's fixed
And the you have hot water.
Wow - all at once. :carrot:

I have got to look for swiss chard next time I'm at the grocery store - gotta go put it on the shopping list. It always shows up on lists of good veggies to eat and people always really like it. I'm not sure I've ever even seen it in real life, but it must be there. And we really like spinach - even from the frozen block just heated up in the microwave - so we're highly likely to like swiss chard.

Blue - does it require as much washing as fresh spinach used to?

I love spinich and have all the ingredients Barbara recommended for the fritatta - but I've never made a fritatta (or eaten one as far as I know). before I go googling recipes dos anyone have a healthy one they can recommend?

Hmmm, I've not see Swiss Chard in the store very often, but often it's at a farmer's market. We grown our own, and I like it a lot. Also if you're a gardener, it doesn't bolt as quickly as spinach (which I also like, and grow). You can do anything with swiss chard that you do with spinach, though I like spinach better in a salad.

I know it's too late for dinner, Snapless, but you can steam the spinach, and serve it - then let DH put worcestershire sauce on it.... I like mine with steaned with rice vinegar on it.

I googled the one I used, but basically it was what Barb typed up (just gave me exact amounts).

Vladadog--A frittata is really just eggs, egg whites, or a combo of the two and whatever other ingredients you want to add. You start it on the stovetop, sort of like making scrambled eggs, then finish it in the oven so that it browns on top. Here are the basic steps:

1. Saute veggies and/or meats in an oven-proof skillet.
2. Whisk eggs together with salt, pepper, and any other seasoning you want to add. You probably want about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of eggs per serving. One egg generally equals 1/4 cup, so that's one to two eggs per serving.
3. Add eggs to skillet (make sure skillet is at about medium heat or the eggs will burn on the bottom). Let them cook until almost but not quite done in the center. Don't stir them a lot (you aren't actually making scrambled eggs), but you will probably want to scrape the done parts towards the center of the plan a couple of times and occasionally lift of the done parts and tilt the pan so the uncooked egg on top flows to the bottom.
4. Stick the skillet in the oven at 350 to 400 degrees (be careful that the oven isn't too hot for your skillet) for 5-10 min, until the eggs are done and slightly brown on top. Some recipes call for broiling the frittata, but you probably need a cast-iron skillet for this (most standard non-stick skillets can't take heat above 350 to 450 degrees, depending on the brand).

To make the frittata healthy:

• Use healthy ingredients (veggies, lean meats) in step one and don't use a lot of oil.
• Use a mixture of eggs and egg whites (or egg beaters) or all egg whites/beaters instead of all eggs in step two. If you want to stretch the eggs a bit, add 1/2 tbsp nonfat yogurt, cottage cheese, or skim milk per egg.

Another Option: Crustless Quiche
I'm also a big fan of crustless quiches--which are similar to frittatas except that they are cooked entirely in the oven and require milk or some other dairy product. They're basically a quiche without the crust.

Here is my favorite basic crustless quiche recipe:
4 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated skim milk
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
whatever herbs and spices you like
whatever combination of veggies, lean meats, and/or cheeses you like

Cook veggies and meat if necessary.
Layer veggies, meat, and cheeses in 9-in square or round casserole dish.
Whisk together eggs, milk, mustard, salt, herbs, and spices. Pour over veggies, etc. in casserole dish.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 min, until set.

This makes 4 servings. The basic quiche ingredients, not including the filling (veggies, meats, and cheese), is about 100 calories per serving. This gives you a fair amount of room to add cheese and other ingredients and still have a pretty low calorie meal.

For the filling, I find that 1/2 oz cheese per serving (2 oz total cheese), 2 oz meat per serving (8 oz total meat), and 2 oz veggies per serving (8 oz total), is about right. I try to use a fairly strong cheese like chevre, parmesan, or feta, so that I don't need a lot of it.

Yeah, you're going to want wash chard well if you can't get it pre-washed. I tear the leaves into pieces and swish them around in a big bowl of water (I usually use the base of my salad spinner--that's one less dish to wash), then run them through my salad spinner. I wash the stems the same way I do celery (just run them under cold water and scrub with a veggie brush if necessary).

I know I've seen pre-washed and bagged greens (collard greens, mustard, etc.) at my grocery store and Trader Joe's, so you might check to see if they offer chard this way. I've definitely seen pre-washed mixed greens that include chard at Trader Joe's. Most of the chard I use is from my own garden--we get a ton of it, so I rarely ever want to buy any because just eating what we grow gives me my fill of chard (I like it, but not enough to eat an unlimited quantity of it)--so I haven't been paying attention to whether or not they sell it pre-washed at the grocery store.

BTW, I saw this joke in Dear Abby recently: If I put a leafy green on the grill, will it be chard? :lol:

Barbara,

thanks for the recipes. I made a spinish fritatta and loved it. I used to make crustless quiches a lot and got away from them. I think I'll make some soon though because I like them cold so they are handy to make for "grab and go".

thanks!