An old-old fashioned side dish that deserves a rebirth, and I have given it one. I have healthy-fied it and boosted its nutrition and made it more delicious than ever! With so many of us heading back into the garden these days, this is a really good way to use up an abundance of leafy greens in a way that will have the young, and the young at heart, coming back for seconds.
Ingredients
30g pine nuts
30g cashews
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 brown onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
I/2 stick celery, sliced
1 cup baby spinach leaves, fairly firmly packed, or grown up spinach leaves, shredded
Pinch celery seed
Juice of half a lemon
Soak the pine nuts and cashews in a cup of boiling water for an hour (I was running late this morning so they only got ten minutes, worked fine), then purée in a high speed blender, I use my NutriBullet because it gets them very smooth.
In a small pot sauté the onion, celery and garlic in the olive oil until fragrant and the onion is translucent, do not brown, this will cause bitterness which will overwhelm this very delicate dish. Add the spinach and the cashew cream, rinse out the blender with a tiny bit more water and add that too so you don’t leave half of it in the bowl. Simmer until it begins to thicken and the spinach collapses, stirring often, refresh with the lemon juice and the pinch of celery seed (which we are using here as a healthy salt substitute), keep simmering until you reach the desired thickness (see the photo).
Serve on toast drizzled with olive oil as a delicious vegan breakfast, or as a nutritious side to whatever you are making.
I used it with a poached egg on my savoury pumpkin cottage bread for brekkie, want to see?
MMMMMM! What a wonderful way to eat more veg!
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