Spinach Supreme

I’m really enjoying sharing this new series, Cooking Through Stacy’s Stash, with you guys. It lets me look through all my cookbooks and pretend like it’s work. “Well gosh – I guess I’m just going to have to spend part of the day reading my cookbooks…again. Sigh. This is such a hard job. Please pass the chocolate.”

But reading cookbooks seriously makes me hungry. Same goes with Pinterest. When I look at Pinterest, I have to have a snack. Does that happen to anyone else? Like right now I’m just thinking about Pinterest and I need a snack. Blast that Pinterest.

But anyway, I chose this recipe for spinach because I don’t have many side dish recipes on this website – so I decided to remedy that. Because really, what’s a hamburger steak without a side dish? I’ll tell you – lonely and naked. And we just can’t have that, now can we? No one wants to be lonely and naked…and now I’ll shut up before I say something dumb.

This week we’re cooking Taste of Home…again. And no, this isn’t the last you’ve seen of that. Those Berry Cream Muffins were kickin’. This “cookbook” is more like a really thick magazine. But it has lots of pretty pictures and I like that.

Meet 5 Ingredient Recipes. I’ll admit – this cookbook isn’t very whole foods friendly…it calls for stuff like Velveeta (what IS that stuff anyway?), cream-of something-something, and cake mix. Soooo, this book takes lots of creativity to make it a whole foods companion.

One homeschool mom said she taught her children to cook whole foods by letting them learn to convert conventional recipes. GENIUS! So, this would be an excellent cookbook for that.

I love cooked spinach. I don’t care for raw spinach – I feel like I’m eating grass. I know, I know. I’m WEIRD. That’s okay.

Creamed spinach is sooooo good and that’s basically what this recipe was, under a different name. But it called for a TON of cheese, cream of potato soup, and more cheese…and well, if I’m going to eat a vegetable, I at least want there to be SOME VEGETABLE in there. This was mostly just Cheese Supreme. And while that sounds utterly delicious, we do need our vegetables.

I decreased the amount of cheese and used cheddar instead of Monterey Jack…I keep cheddar on hand, but not Monterey Jack. I also took out the cream of potato soup and used heavy cream instead. Heavy cream and I, we’re tight yo.

You need to thaw and drain the spinach really well for this recipe. When I need to do that, I just let my spinach thaw in my colander over a bowl. Then when it gets totally thawed, I press down on it to get more water out. Works well.

Verdict? This stuff was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!! I wanted to eat the whole bowl…and I did lick the bowl…and the spoon. I think Barry was watching, but I don’t care. Marriage makes you hang loose with those types of things.