Spinach, Mushrooms and Onion

OOPS

The past week has been one of those terrible horrible no-good weeks that hit the checking account hard. I won’t list all of the things that stopped working but one thing hurt the most.

The side by side refrigerator/freezer died. I think this appliance was over 30 years old. it functioned as our second unit, a place to keep drinks cold and to stock up on frozen foods to prepare for the future food shortages and higher costs. Buying mass quantities of frozen vegetables as a hedging strategy against higher prices works well until your freezer dies.

I managed to STUFF a large number of frozen bags into our primary freezer. But I have to cook and eat a large number of these frozen bags of goodness to make room. So I started with a bag of spinach.

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 large sweet onions sliced thin
• 8 oz white button mushrooms sliced thick
• 2-3 garlic cloves minced
• 12 oz frozen cut leaf spinach
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon butter

1. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick frying pan over medium high heat.
2. Add mushrooms and saute for five minutes. When browned…
3. Add onions. Reduce heat to medium. Saute for five minutes. When browned…
4. Add garlic. Saute for one minute.
5. Add frozen spinach (no need to defrost). Saute for 15-20 minutes. You want the spinach to be drier but not too dry.
6. Add butter, salt and pepper to taste.
7. You are done. Now decide what you’re going to do with this stuff.

What to do?

• Quesadillas
• Omelette
• side dish
• mix with ricotta and Parmesan cheeses for stuffed shells
• or lasagna
• melt some cheddar for a quick sandwich/tortilla filling
• toss with pasta for a quick meal
• open a can of white beans, drain/rinse and mix with broth for a quick soup

Welcome to my world.