Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I picked two BIG grocery bags of spinach (rainbow spinach and Swiss chard) from my vege garden today, plus some potatoes. I really stuffed that spinach in those bags — they were overflowing with spinach.

Then I chopped it all up and microwaved it in batches for three minutes at a time until it was all wilted. Next, I put it spinach into sandwich-size zip loc bags ready for freezing — and ended up with five not-even-full zip loc bags of cooked spinach. I can’t get over how much spinach collapses and shrinks in the cooking process.

Want to know why I’m freezing spinach? The vege garden at the house we moved into in February started producing spinach a couple of months ago. It’s not rampant but it’s growing really well and there’s WAY too much for us to eat even if we were eating a lot of it every day. I’m OK with spinach but I’m not a huge fan, so small doses in moderation are sufficient for me. At the moment, it’s prolific and it’s only going to die off and rot if I don’t do something with it.

I searched on the internet and found I could freeze it after cooking it lightly. So that’s what I’m doing. Even if it can’t be served as a vegetable after it’s been frozen, I can always add it to stir fries, casseroles, bolognaise, pasta etc.