Feeding Friendship: Spinach

This round it was my turn to pick our featured ingredient. You may want to be sitting down for this if you know me well...because I picked spinach.

It's the leafy green that I tolerate the best, mostly thanks to the good people of Italy and their insistence on putting it in delicious ravioli. I had seen some at the farmer's market recently, and decided to go for it. I thought about making said ravioli on my pasta machine (and I will, someday) but I ran across a recipe for Creamy Spinach Enchiladas on the Real Simple magazine Pinterest and my gut reaction was "yum!" so I decided to try them out. Their recipe calls for frozen chopped spinach, but I bought fresh (isn't fresh always better??) so I'm not sure I really had the correct amount of spinach they call for, but it worked out in the end. Also, their ingredient list includes items for a red cabbage salad that I (shockingly) didn't make, so if you decide to make this, don't just buy the whole list without realizing you'd be getting a salad too.

I started out by washing my spinach...and then washing it some more. Man, this stuff was gritty. Next, I chopped up all the leaves, removing all the large stems. Then I put in on my kitchen scale, hoping to reach the 10 oz the recipe calls for in the frozen bag, but my entire bunch was less than 6 oz when chopped, but still looked to me like a whole lot of spinach, so I just decided to go with what I had.

chopping the leaves

I put most of the spinach in a medium bowl and started adding the other ingredients: 1 cup of formerly frozen corn, 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, and 1/2 a can of green chilis. Because I am a  wimp when it comes to spicy food and because it just seemed like a lot, I reduced the amount of canned chilis by half, using half in the filling and half a can on top of the enchiladas. I thought this worked out fine and kept them from overwhelming the dish. 

colorful filling ingredients

My favorite grocery store, Wegman's, has a new campaign touting the benefits of "eating the rainbow" to get all your daily fruits and veggies. I'm usually terribly about this and eat a lot of beige, so I was happy to have some colorful ingredients in my bowl. Next I gave them a good stir and started on the creamy sauce. Instead of a cup of heavy cream, I used light cream, and I'm sure you could use half & half too. Then you just add salt & pepper to taste. 

cream sauce

 Next, it's time to load up your tortillas. Now, the optimal tortilla size for this is 6-inch, as the recipe states, but I didn't pay attention to that and had 8-inchers. I therefore ended up making fewer, but bigger enchiladas than if I had smaller tortillas. No matter.

fill 'er up!

I Pam'd the Pyrex pan and then arranged them all seam side down so they wouldn't pop open. Last, I  poured the sauce over all the rolled tortillas, then added the final 1/2 cup of cheese and 1/2 can of chilis. 

ready for the oven 

You cook these the first 15-20 minutes with the pan covered with foil, then remove it for the last 10-15. About half an hour later, I pulled them from the oven. 

done!

I waited for them to cool for a few minutes and them plated them with some Goya Arroz Amarillo (my favorite). George put salsa on his, but I am a purist. 

doesn't look like the home of spinach, does it? 

Even though I thought these would be good, I was secretly afraid they would be too spinachy or that they wouldn't be filling enough as a meal. I was actually wrong and enjoyed these. George even said they were "a good dish," which is doing pretty well for something that's both green and vegetarian (ok maybe the tortillas were made with lard and are not technically vegetarian; I don't happen to care). These were quick and easy- even easier with frozen spinach- and would be a quick weeknight meal for anyone, which is why, I'm sure, that Real Simple published the recipe. I might throw some beans or rice in them next time or use a white Mexican cheese instead, but overall I was pretty pleased with how these worked out.