My Favorite Vegetable!

Okay, my mom and my best friend are laughing uncontrolably at this already  [You guys can stop now!!] because to say I love veggies isn't exactly true.

I eat vegetables. Some. I have a few that I prefer over others. I have some I'll only eat cooked and some I'll only eat raw and some I won't even get within the same zip code.

Then there's creamed spinach. This is my absolute favorite vegetable and it has been ever since I was a child. Although I realize for some people it doesn't qualify as a vegetable since it has been changed into something almost unrecognizable from it's original form. However, I will go so far as to continue to call it a veggie since a) the noun here is 'spinach' and b) I'm the one making the rules.

So, growing up we always ate Seabrook Creamed Spinach which by most people's account and my own, again - I make the rules here - is some of the best Creamed Spinach around. In fact, I remember reading an article in the New Yorker to this account, too, so I'm not the only one who thought this. Others just didn't match it - some were more like souffles, or had more butter or were just plain gross.

Then I grew up and moved away from home and my new grocery store didn't carry Seabrook Creamed Spinach so I thought I'd try to cook it for myself. I scoured cookbooks and tried different options and all of them tasted like crap. Well, some of them didn't even make it to the tasting round. Some of them went straight to the trash.

Then Boston Market came to town and I found their creamed spinach and even with the incredible amount of garlic they included I decided it was better than nothing so I learned to like it and about the time that I found I wanted Boston Market's Creamed Spinach more than anything else, the chain of restaurants disappeared from the area.

And then I was back to the beginning, looking for creamed spinach recipes occasionally and testing them out, never with very high hopes until one day I took a chance on a recipe from Jenn at Frugal Upstate and let me just say - Yumm.

So, here's what I did with her recipe... I didn't use cream of celery soup. Why? Because I didn't have any. Because I don't buy any. Because I don't understand why you would want to 'cream celery'. Maybe I'll try it next time. Maybe I'll just make an extra thick white sauce instead.

I did have cream of chicken soup and the thickness of the creamed spinach was absolutely perfect. The taste was great except when I'd find a wee bit of chicken;) Not gross, just unexpected.

As for the amount of garlic... well, if you think your kids are going to eat it this is probably a great amout, however if you're just making it for adults you might think about doubling it.

And let me just say that this is so yummy that I almost ate it all for myself scalding hot right off the stove instead of serving it to my family for dinner. I'm pretty sure this will become a staple of yumminess in our dinner rotation from now on and I can see the creamed spinach also becoming a yummy filling for enchiladas, too, and maybe a filling in wonton wrappers. You see, the spinach is already making me smarter!! Or was that stronger? Maybe it's both but it's definitely a Cool Idea!