For holiday entertaining, creamed spinach is a great side dish.  I like it for special occasions because it’s rich and creamy and pleases diners that might not be huge spinach fans.  It adds color to your plate, mixes nicely with other veggies, and you can make it earlier in the day.  Simply reheat before serving.  A note of caution though: You’ll feel like you’re using a lot of spinach but it cooks down so much.  If anything, I would use more spinach, but I don’t like mine to be too creamy.

When I made this over Thanksgiving, there were nine of us and it didn’t make a huge amount for everyone.  This was fine because we had so many other components to the meal.  I thought the creamed spinach went really nicely with the turkey.  I borrowed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which is a wonderful cooking website.  One of my favorites!

Creamed Spinach (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

• 2 ½ pounds baby spinach or 3 pounds fresh spinach
• 1 ¾ cups heavy cream or milk, or a mix (I used 2% milk and cream and it turned out great)
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 Tablespoons flour (I used white rice flour)
• Pinch of nutmeg

Wash spinach well and don’t worry about spinning or drying the spinach leaves.  This is good for the cooking process.  Place spinach in a large pot over high heat.  Cook, covered.  (You don’t need to add extra water.)  Stir occasionally until wilted, about 4 minutes.

Press or squeeze excess liquid.  This can be quite a process.  I used my hands and a spatula.  Smitten Kitchen recommends wringing it out with a cheesecloth.  It’s at this point that you’ll realize how much the spinach diminishes in size when it cooks.  No wonder Popeye was so strong!  After wringing out as much water as possible, chop the spinach.

Heat milk or crème in small saucepan on low-medium heat, stirring until warm.  Keep warm.  Cook onion and garlic and butter in large pot that you used to cook the spinach, over medium-low heat until onions soften, about 5-6 minutes.  Whisk in rice flour and cook, making a roux, whisking, for about 3 minutes.   Add warm milk/crème in a slow stream, whisking the large pot as you pour in the milk.  Simmer, whisking, until thickened, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add nutmeg, spinach, salt and pepper, and cook, stirring until heated through.

I made this about an hour before dinner and it was totally fine sitting on the stove.  It was delicious, but a little runny on the plate.  It didn’t matter since all of the food on my plate tasted yummy mixed together.  Enjoy!

Check out this video presented by Georgia Organics.  It raises a lot of great questions and thoughts about the benefits of buying locally and creating a sustainable, local food economy.  We’ve gotten so used to buying cheap food, but is it good food?  Is it nutritious?  We don’t think twice about spending money on clothes, cars and home decorating.  Why not spend more on what we’re putting into our bodies?

The video features Ron Eyester, the chef/owner of Rosebud, one of my favorite local restaurants, discussing why he buys local.  Judith Winfrey and Joe Reynolds, from Love is Love Farm, share their thoughts about how we, as a community, can benefit from supporting local farms.  Check it out:

Local Food Economics: Georgia Organics

Eating locally fits easily into a healthy, gluten-free diet.  Fresh produce is definitely gluten-free and tastes so good!  Do you know what’s in season right now in your area?  What are some of the meals you make with fresh, seasonal produce?  If you live in Atlanta, here are some photos of local produce you can find right now at your farmer’s market.  Roasted sweet potatoes, homemade applesauce, butternut squash risotto.  Doesn’t it sound delicious?  Beautiful, local, AND gluten-free!

Craving pasta?  Great news!  Figo Pasta now offers gluten-free pasta at all of their locations.  Not only do they serve gluten-free pasta, but their new menu indicates everything on the menu that’s gluten-free by putting “GF” next to it.  All of Figo’s 18 pasta sauces are gluten-free so you have lots delicious of choices, ranging from cream based sauces to pesto.

I tried Figo recently and found the gluten-free fusilli pasta to be tasty, with good texture.  It was cooked just right and went well with my pollo sauce, a tomato based sauce with peppers and chicken.  My friend, Colleen, chose the pesto sauce, which was also delicious.  The noodles didn’t turn to mush like some gluten-free pastas.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Figo, it’s a perfect place for a casual and inexpensive dinner.  You order when you walk in and they deliver your food to the table.  It only costs $9.00 for a nice pasta meal.  All of Figo’s wines by the glass are between $4.75 and $7.50.  Figo is definitely a restaurant, not fast food, but with affordable prices.  I went to the Peachtree-Dunwoody location and all of the staff was super friendly and very attentive.

I don’t cook pasta all that much at home so I’ll definitely be going back to Figo when I get a pasta craving.  Maybe eventually they’ll serve gluten-free bread too!  Let me know what sauce you enjoy at Figo.