D-Feast Friday - Wilted Spinach with Artichokes

When Elizabeth, Lorraine and I were organizing the first D-Feast Friday we debated if it should be a weekly / monthly / quarterly event.  In the end, we decided to just focus on getting the first one going and worry about the rest later.  I've been thrilled to see so many bloggers continuing to share recipes on Fridays!  It looks like we’re almost up to 150 recipes and I’m just so excited the see the list continue to grow.  So I guess it’s high time I posted another recipe myself.



I’m pretty picky when it comes to vegetables.  Okay, I’m pretty picky in general, but today lets just talk about vegetables.  There are A LOT of them I don’t like.  But I do love spinach.  And I recently discovered that I really love artichokes.  A few months ago I was at Bertucci’s and noticed Spinach & Artichokes listed under their side dishes.  “A delightful combination, gently sautéed with roasted garlic butter sauce and sprinkled with cheese.”  The description had me sold and I ordered it.  And it was so good that I’ve made it at home over and over again.  Here’s how:

In a large pan, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat.  Chop up a bunch of garlic (I use about four or five cloves, but you can use as many or as few as you like) and sauté it for a minute or so.  Don’t let the pan get too hot or the garlic cook for too long or it will burn and burnt garlic is nasty!!

Open one can of quartered artichoke hearts and drain them.  I usually rinse them with cold water too.  Once the garlic starts to soften, dump the drained artichokes into the pan.



Sometimes I add a pat of butter too - if I feel like splurging.  This dish is still good without the butter, so I’ll leave that up to you.



At this point, I usually season it with some sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  A few red pepper flakes would be fabulous too.  The last step is to dump in a whole bag of baby spinach and stir together as it wilts down.  This will only take about a minute or so - you’ll want to be all set to eat before you add the spinach.  Once it’s all wilty, plate it up and sprinkle some Parmigiana cheese on top.



In my house this makes just two servings, as Pete and I really love it and eat huge portions.  I don’t need to bolus for vegetables, so this is a free side-dish for me.  If you count the carbs in your veggies, simply tally them up from your artichoke can and spinach bag.

Click here to download this recipe in .pdf form.