What Would Popeye Do?
I think about the crusty cartoon character each time I swoop into a bowl of Creamed Spinach. Remember Popeye? The muscular ol’ sailor could squeeze open a can of spinach with his bare hands and chug the leafy green vegetable all the while he was smoking a pipe.
Every kid knew his theme song: “I’m strong to the finish cuz I eats me spinach, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man!”
When I recently had the urge to use up some of the items languishing in my refrig, I came upon a bag of spinach. I could put some in a salad or turn it into creamed spinach. I chose the cooked version for a change.
I used red onions for the color and removed the spinach stems, because I like the look of the dish better that way.
A Classic Side Dish
The old steakhouse side dish turned out to be far easier to make than I thought. There’s one pan for making the sauce of flour, butter, spices, and milk, or cream; (some add cream cheese) as well. The other pan is for boiling the spinach.
You can find a copycat version of Morton’s Steakhouse Creamed Spinach here.
Both Fresh or Frozen Work
Kitchen maven, Marcella Hazan said to use only as much water as will cling to the leaves. I was afraid to go that far, but kept the amount small. Be sure to use plenty of spinach, because it shrinks by a lot. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of boiling the spinach, just use frozen and squeeze out the water.
Any leftovers can become a sauce for pasta.
Popeye Nostalgia
Did you know that Popeye didn’t always get his strength from spinach? He originally gained luck from rubbing the head of a whiffle hen named Bernice. But when spinach became favored for it’s iron content (though it’s no greater than any other vegetable), the sailorman switched to spinach for his unique powers.
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