Choy Love Club: Dinner Diaries #4
Three VERY green things to cook this week
A whole bunch of spinach (or greens) as the foundation of a meal is one of my midweek go-tos. To me, this is a whole genre of cooking. The recipes I make with a bunch of spinach are usually very quick, and use minimal ingredients. These meals also make me feel like a very good mother, because yes, even I still need to work on maximizing veggie intake for my kids.
I say a ‘bunch of spinach’ because remember what that is? I was talking to my editor at The New York Times Cooking the other week, and she was lamenting about how people rarely experience the grassy, sweet earthiness of spinach anymore because most people tend to choose baby spinach (guilty here!) which has a much milder taste. I have to admit, I do love the pre-washed ease of baby spinach, but I like the plastic clamshell less. So more and more, I find myself reaching for the bunch of spinach which, to be honest, is barely much more work to prepare. A tip - if you’re looking for the good stuff, I mean the bunches of spinach with the pinkish roots attached, you’ll often find them at the Asian grocery store! I got a gorgeous bunch at H-Mart last week - it was labelled ‘Chinese spinach’ but it looked and tasted like regular spinach. The roots can be cooked along with the leaves and they provide a nice textural contrast to the silky leaves.
By the way, I have a whole Spinach chapter in Tenderheart! There’s a Thai curry soup, a ruffled milk pie, a soba noodle salad, an enchilada-style bake, chana saag and more. I love this chapter.
Why do I love cooking with a bunch of spinach? It’s the way my brain is wired - I see a bunch of spinach and I immediately think sauce, soup or curry. My mind starts conjuring a velvety green liquid, lavishly draped around pasta, or as a verdant bath for legumes. And other reason is nutrition - cooking with a bunch of spinach means I feel less pressure to add a heap of other vegetables. When the vegetable is the sauce, there are few complaints, just happy eaters. And let’s face it, feeding happy eaters is what we all aspire to.
Before we move on to the recipes, a quick reminder that my TENDERHEART US pre-order bonus is now available. So once you pre-order, fill in your receipt details here, and you will be emailed by bonus ebook, with 3 mini chapters and 13 new recipes.
You can pre-order ANYWHERE but some suggestions:
Now Serving LA / Book Larder / Books Are Magic / Bold Fork Books / Community Bookstore / Kitchen, Arts and Letters / Omnivore Books / Barnes and Noble / Amazon / Bookshop / Indiebound / Other stores / Canada / UK
Claim Tenderheart Bonus ebook here
