Begin with 24 ounces of baby spinach. I love the stuff in the bags—it’s all washed and ready—and I use four 6-ounce bags. That's… uh …24 ounces.
You’ll need one smallish yellow onion.
Cut it in half, then halve one of the halves. I’m dizzy now.
First make vertical slices very close together…
Then rotate it and cut the other way to dice it.
You’ll need garlic, too.
Very finely mince about three cloves if you can HANDLE the garlic.
On that note, I watched A Few Good Men over the weekend, and it only made my propensity for throwing around that line worse.
I can’t HANDLE A Few Good Men!
I can’t.
Did you know Demi Moore gave birth exactly one month before filming began on that movie? It’s true. I think.
“Because they stand on a wall. And they say ‘Nothin’s gonna hurt you tonight. Not on my watch’.”
Sorry.
You’ll need two pots: one for the cream sauce, one for the spinach.
Throw 1 stick of butter into one of the pans over medium to medium-low heat, depending on how hot your stove is. My stove is hot, and these cast iron enameled pans get VERY hot. So I’m on medium-low here.
Melt the butter, then sprinkle in 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour.
Immediately begin whisking.
Cook this mixture, stirring frequently, for about five minutes.
Slowly, the roux will start to turn golden brown.
At this point, throw in the onions and garlic.
Stir together to combine and cook for another minute.
Then slowly pour in 2 cups of milk, whisking constantly.
Now just cook the sauce for about five minutes, stirring occasionally. It’ll gradually begin to thicken.
Meantime, you need to sauté the spinach. If you have a kid, make him or her whisk the sauce while you do the spinach. That’s why we gave birth to these numskulls, isn’t it?
Throw a few tablespoons of butter into a separate pot and let it melt.
Throw in as much of the spinach as you can. It might not all fit, but believe me, what’s in the pot will quickly begin to wilt and shrink. I added the total amount of spinach over three different additions. As soon as the level of spinach shrank a bit, I’d dump in more.
Man, do I love spinach. It’s just so…so…
If I said “green” would you hate me?
Slowly cook the spinach. It’ll move slowly at first, but once it starts to wilt it really picks up speed. Stir gently as it cooks, flipping it to get it to cook evenly.
You want to stop cooking the spinach when it’s completely wilted but NOT mushy and overcooked. Grab a leaf from the pan. It should be cooked and wilted, but still have a tiny bit of crunch to it. Hard to explain. You’ll understand when you experience it.
Back to the white sauce, it’s very, very thick right now, and almost resembles white gravy.
Add salt and plenty of finely ground black pepper. You can also add a couple of pinches of ground nutmeg, which I love.
Guess who took this shot? My nine-year-old daughter. I think it might have been an accident…but what an in-focus accident it was!
Now just spoon the spinach into the cream sauce.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yum. Big time.
Stir it gently, slowly incorporating the spinach and cream sauce, taking bites along the way because you absolutely can’t wait. Like, no one could PAY you to wait.
You always want to taste it before the very end anyway, adding more seasonings as needed. A little cayenne never hurt anyone, either.
Oh, baby.
Come to mama.
Now, let me point out that you can add more sautéed spinach to the mix if you like things a little less creamy. But I’ll just tell you that as cream-laden as this looks, the balance really is perfect. Keep in mind that spinach does have quite a bit of flavor and texture, so the cream really does balance it out. Experiment, though, and find your perfect ratio.
Serve this with a steak. Serve it with grilled shrimp. Serve it by itself and pretend you’re Popeye.
Just serve it. Please? You won’t be sorry.
