A very exciting day as the 2015 Summer CSA has begun at Springdell! Sarah and I look forward to picking up our first summer share box on Friday, in the meantime, we’ll continue to “Tell” about the pre-season sharebox that we’re enjoying as we patiently await the end of the week!
Spinach. It’s a versatile veggie available throughout most of the season. It’s great raw or cooked, has a solid amount of protein, calcium, and vitamin C. Popeye totally knew the score.
Tonight I decided to try a simple cream of spinach soup. In a saucepan, I started with warming 4 cups of homemade veggie broth from my chest freezer. As it worked to a light boil, I put about 4 tablespoons of Amish Roll Butter into another saucepan before adding a chopped onion and 3 cloves of minced garlic.
After stirring the onion for a few until it began to soften, I added in roughly 2 tablespoons of flour. As I was quickly stirring things up, I began to slowly and carefully whisk in the broth to the onion/flour pan (aka making a roux.)
Next, in went my spinach!
After about 15 minutes of simmering the spinach in the roux, I took things off the heat and added a healthy squeeze (about 2 teaspoons) of fresh lemon juice. A quick and careful trip through the blender (an immersion blender would work, too- careful as the soup is obviously hot) and the soup was ready for a bit of heavy cream, salt and pepper to taste.
I put a few thin shavings of the West River Creamery Londonderry Cheese on top and watched it melt in. This went great with a grilled cheese.
As an appetizer I whipped up some tiny stuffed mushrooms. After cleaning the mushrooms, I removed and chopped the stems and then sautéd them in a pat of butter. I also added a few handfuls of chopped spinach, a clove of minced garlic, a small onion and a dash of worcestershire sauce (this is optional, many of the available worcestershire sauces contain anchovies and hence aren’t vegetarian, so read those labels!)
After removing the pan from the heat, I mixed in some crumbled feta, which melted slightly against the warm veggie sauté. The feta acted as a binder, holding the mixture in the mushrooms as I stuffed them. These babies are ready for the oven!
375 for about 20 minutes and they were ready to enjoy! They are not much to look at, but they are tasty!
My fellow Springdellians, what do you do with your mushrooms and spinach? We’d love to hear from you!