You will not believe what I made for dinner last night, especially if you are my mom and dad. The past week or so I've been really focused on using up everything I buy and not going to the grocery store to pick up anything. I've also been thinking that I need to force myself to cook something totally out of my comfort zone once every other week or so. So when I had a whole bunch of baby spinach sitting in my fridge, and not enough stuff to make a good salad...I turned to google in the search of recipes to use up this spinach. I discarded several findings because they either had something not currently living in my fridge or they were just a little too weird. I finally found a pretty simple recipe that assaulted all my senses...and I had all the ingredients at home: baked eggs with spinach and mushrooms. I told Tim, and his first reaction was "eww" but he said to go ahead and try it. "Maybe it will surprise us!" Well, surprise us it did.
When I got home from work, I went for a short bike ride down and up the hill to get my blood pumping. Then Pam came over to see the new apartment (pictures are on their way! I promise!) and we went on a walk with the dog. We chatted up a storm, touching just about every topic there is, and I asked if she wanted to stay for dinner. I warned her that it was going to be nasty cooked spinach, but she accepted the offer. Like Tim and I, she doesn't even like cooked spinach.
I boiled water in my dutch oven, and wilted the spinach. I wilted while watching the spinach wilt. My nose wrinkled at the smell. I've always hated wilted greens. My dad used to make a cheesy risotto with some sort of nasty wilted green in it (perhaps chard?) and I would moan and groan my way through dinner. I would pick out every last remnant of the nasty green stuff, and to my great chagrin, this recipe popped up far more often than I would have liked. After the spinach was fully cooked, I drained it in a colander and ran cool water on it. I gently squished out all the liquid, and chopped up the nasty spinach pile.
Then I threw onions and butter into the dutch oven, and softened the onions on the stove. The mushrooms were then thrown in, and cooked until they were soft. Have I told you how much I hate mushrooms? Tim loves them. I always buy them to put in his salads, but god forbid I ever cook with them. The mushrooms were followed by a little bit of heavy cream, salt, pepper, freshly grated nutmeg (which always smells so amazing compared to pre-ground nutmeg), and the chopped spinach. This mixture was brought to a simmer, and started to smell...well...not awful, I suppose. I made three indentations to the mixture, and into each of these I broke an egg! Then I baked the whole concoction, uncovered, in the oven for 8 minutes until the egg whites were set, but the yolks were still a little runny.
When the dutch oven came out of the oven, I wrinkled my nose, and told everyone that I had a backup plan in case it was inedible. I portioned out the recipe onto three plates, and handed them to Pam and Tim, with more warnings that it was OK if it tasted nasty. I almost put a pot on the stove with water to boil for quick execution of plan B. Then I took a bite, and decided it wasn't necessary; it wasn't just barely edible, it was good. Really good. The small amount of freshly grated nutmeg added such a good flavor. The sauce as a whole was delicious. The spinach didn't taste nasty. The mushroom weren't terrible and slimy. The flavors were terrific. And the egg managed to really pull the whole thing together. May I have some more?
When I got home from work, I went for a short bike ride down and up the hill to get my blood pumping. Then Pam came over to see the new apartment (pictures are on their way! I promise!) and we went on a walk with the dog. We chatted up a storm, touching just about every topic there is, and I asked if she wanted to stay for dinner. I warned her that it was going to be nasty cooked spinach, but she accepted the offer. Like Tim and I, she doesn't even like cooked spinach.
I boiled water in my dutch oven, and wilted the spinach. I wilted while watching the spinach wilt. My nose wrinkled at the smell. I've always hated wilted greens. My dad used to make a cheesy risotto with some sort of nasty wilted green in it (perhaps chard?) and I would moan and groan my way through dinner. I would pick out every last remnant of the nasty green stuff, and to my great chagrin, this recipe popped up far more often than I would have liked. After the spinach was fully cooked, I drained it in a colander and ran cool water on it. I gently squished out all the liquid, and chopped up the nasty spinach pile.
Then I threw onions and butter into the dutch oven, and softened the onions on the stove. The mushrooms were then thrown in, and cooked until they were soft. Have I told you how much I hate mushrooms? Tim loves them. I always buy them to put in his salads, but god forbid I ever cook with them. The mushrooms were followed by a little bit of heavy cream, salt, pepper, freshly grated nutmeg (which always smells so amazing compared to pre-ground nutmeg), and the chopped spinach. This mixture was brought to a simmer, and started to smell...well...not awful, I suppose. I made three indentations to the mixture, and into each of these I broke an egg! Then I baked the whole concoction, uncovered, in the oven for 8 minutes until the egg whites were set, but the yolks were still a little runny.
When the dutch oven came out of the oven, I wrinkled my nose, and told everyone that I had a backup plan in case it was inedible. I portioned out the recipe onto three plates, and handed them to Pam and Tim, with more warnings that it was OK if it tasted nasty. I almost put a pot on the stove with water to boil for quick execution of plan B. Then I took a bite, and decided it wasn't necessary; it wasn't just barely edible, it was good. Really good. The small amount of freshly grated nutmeg added such a good flavor. The sauce as a whole was delicious. The spinach didn't taste nasty. The mushroom weren't terrible and slimy. The flavors were terrific. And the egg managed to really pull the whole thing together. May I have some more?
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