Spinach

Hey friends! How are things going? I’m going a little crazy here. But I am also feeling very grateful for the opportunities this quarantine business has provided. For example, I always kind of liked the idea of homeschooling. But we decided not to go that route, and I was satisfied with that choice, but I have sometimes wondered. Well, I’m not saying that I am rocking it or anything, but we are making it work. And it turns out, I like public school. 🙂 And my daughter does too, which is great because for a while there she was begging to do home school. There are a lot of great things about having school at home, though.

We are getting a ton done in the yard! We normally spend a lot of time in the yard anyway but the past few springs I have really wished I could pull Avery out of school so she can spend the beautiful days outside with us, and now she can! I have to say, I think getting done with school by the middle of May is going to ruin me for next year though. Although by the time August comes around I will probably be begging for school to start. Maybe.

It seems like we are not the only ones that have been spending more time in our garden this year. I have talked to a lot of people who are trying to garden either for the first time, or just more than they have before. I love it! I hope you all get hooked like I have. I just think it is so rewarding.

There are a few things you can plant as soon as the snow melts and spinach is one of those things. In fact in years past we have planted it in the fall and it survived the winter under a layer of leaves, then took off as soon as it was warm enough. Spinach is very frost resistant. In fact, it really does well in the cold.

This year we forgot to plant in the fall what with me being pregnant and all. We planted our spinach like the middle of March and it is now really starting to explode. We are having to harvest it like crazy. It is one of those plants that the more you cut it the more it grows, so I feel like I should keep cutting it. And it just keeps growing! Last week we picked three gallon sized ziplock bags full and you would not have known we cut anything off, that’s how full the rows still were. We are going to have to really pick a ton more tomorrow and my fridge is still full of it.

Why did we plant so much you might ask? I don’t know, two rows just didn’t seem like too much when we were planting it. Although we went through the same thing last year and the year before. We end up giving a lot of it away. Maybe I should try selling it… we’ll see. It just makes us happy when things start growing and spinach does well here, apparently.

Spinach is also really easy to harvest. You just break off the leaves. You can use scissors or just your hand. Then you have to wash the leaves before you can eat them. I like to fill my sink up with water and just let them soak for a while. The water keeps the nice and crisp. Soaking them helps get all the dirt and bugs off. Then I just go through each one and cut of any long stems or parts that are yucky. Then I run it through my salad spinner to get most of the water off. After that I like to store it in a gallon sized ziploc bag, in the refrigerator. Then if I cant eat it soon enough I just throw the whole bag into the freezer.

Last year we had just bought our freeze dryer so we freeze dried a lot of it as well. Which is really nice because then it doesn’t fill up our freezer. And I don’t have to worry about it getting freezer burned. Plus then it is shelf stable for like 20 years! I’ve been able to powder the freeze dried stuff and sneak it into other recipes. Although I did get a little carried away once and it ended up affecting the flavor, so I got busted. I haven’t been as bold since then. Because a cup of fresh spinach is like a 1/4 cup of powdered spinach, so you have to be kind of careful.

But it’s still really cool to have spinach always available. It can be put in so many things. Obviously, this time of year I love eating fresh spinach salads. Especially if I can get strawberries, yum. With a little chopped up turkey and some raspberry vinaigrette, maybe some cheese, crasins and a few chopped almonds. That my friends is the taste of spring.

Unfortunately, fresh spinach only lasts so long. But the nice thing about spinach is that as soon as you think it might be nearing its expiration, you can stick it in the freezer. Then you still have a ton of options, such as, smoothies or soups or lasagna. All kinds of stuff. Stuff I haven’t even tried yet! Let me know if you have suggestions. I’ll even let you have some spinach to try them yourself if you want.