Our CSA - Excess Spinach

At the risk or turning my blog into a recipe blog, here's another way of dealing with excess CSA spinach, recipe courtesy of SimplyRecipes.com (we altered it slightly, but kep to the gist of this:

Potato Spinach Sausage Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra to grease the baking dish
  
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil
  
• 8 oz fresh spinach, washed, dried, and stemmed
  
• 1/2 lb of Italian sausage (we like 1/2 sweet and 1/2 hot Italian sausage), broken out of casing into small pieces
  
• 1 large red onion (about 3/4 lb), peeled and sliced thin
  
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
  
• 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes (about 3 medium sized potatoes), peeled and cut into 1-inch chuncks
  
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
  
• 2 Tablespoons chicken broth
  
• 1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
  
• Dash of nutmeg
  
• 3/8 teaspoon of salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  
• 1 cup of shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 6x9 or 8x8 inch baking dish.
   
   
2. Heat one of the teaspoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add spinach and cook, stirring often, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Transfer spinach to strainer and drain. When cool, squeeze out liquid and roughly chop the spinach.
   
   
3. Wipe skillet clean. Add sausage to skillet and cook over medium-high heat until browned, 5 to 6 minutes. Use slotted spoon to transfer sausage to bowl. Wipe skillet clean. Heat remaining oil in skillet and add onions, cooking until golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Scrape mixture into bowl with sausage.
   
   
4. Meanwhile, place potatoes in a large pot and add enough water to cover by 1 inch. Bring potatoes to boil over high heat, then lower heat to a simmer. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Drain potatoes, wipe pot dry, put potatoes back into the pot, and mash with butter, cream, broth, vinegar, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Stir in spinach and 1/2 cup of the cheese.
   
   
5. Transfer potato-spinach mixture to prepared baking dish. Top with sausage-onion mixture and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. Bake until potatoes are very hot and cheese is golden and bubbly, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 4.

It's Garlic Scape season again.

Yep, last year when we got Garlic Scapes in our vegetable box, we were stumped as to what they were. Then we sautéed them in with some other veg and chicken, and they were tasty. This year I found a few recipes for Garlic Scape Pesto.

Following is a recipe altered to fit what I actually did with the ingredients (slight mod's on several of the recipes I read). I made the pesto, then sautéed some chicken and longer pieces of garlic scape, and mixed it all up with some angel hair.

Mmmm mmmm.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes), top flowery part removed, cut into 1-inch slices
• 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
• ¾ cup olive oil
• ½ - 3/4 cup grated parmigiano
• ½ teaspoon salt
• black pepper to taste
  

Method:
Place scapes and pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until well combined and somewhat smooth. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until integrated. With a rubber spatula, scoop pesto out of bowl and into a mixing bowl. Add parmigiano to taste; add salt and pepper. Makes about 6 ounces of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

For ½ pound short pasta such as penne, add about 2 tablespoons of pesto to cooked pasta and stir until pasta is well coated.