Cooking With Spinach

For more flavor, sauté spinach in bacon fat, along with a dash of salt and pepper.

TIPical Mary Ellen host Mary Ellen Pinkham cooks up the following tips for cleaning and preparing spinach:

Spinach will last longer if it is cleaned and washed immediately after being brought home from the grocery store. Simply cut off the stems or bottoms, separate the leaves and soak the greens in room-temperature water. Stir the leaves to remove dirt and dry the spinach.
Soaking spinach in water relaxes the leaves and makes it easy to rinse off sand and other contaminants. Give the spinach a final rinse in a colander, then crisp the leaves by soaking them in cold water.
Use a large, clean terrycloth towel to dry a lot of spinach. Make sure the towel has not been washed or dried with a fabric softener, and pat the spinach dry.
Layered paper towels are also good for drying spinach. Wrap the leaves gently in paper towels and place in a tightly sealed plastic bag for storage. Spinach should always be thoroughly dried before storing.
Steaming is the best way to cook spinach. Use a collapsible steamer, and when the spinach is done, fold the sections of the steamer shut to squeeze out excess water.
Another way to drain spinach is to place it between two dinner plates and squeeze the excess water out.
Add a pat of butter to steamed spinach, along with salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg.
Mix olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice for a great dressing for spinach salad.

Also in this Episode

TIPical Mary Ellen : Episode TIP-437
•	Hazardous Materials
•	Cooking With Spinach
•	Ethnic Markets
•	Tip of the Day

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