Spring Greens - What to Do With Them....

Spinach is in season RIGHT NOW and over here at the Recca House, we eat a ton of spinach as it's so easy to grow here in North Carolina.

You can only eat so many spinach salads, so what do you do with all that spinach?

An easy recipe that is as healthy as it is delicious - spaghetti with spinach. And the variations - are endless!

What You Need:

Spaghetti (I prefer to use whole grain spaghetti as it lends itself nicely to this type of dish)

At least 4 cups of fresh (baby) spinach

1 Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Garlic Cloves (as few or as many as you like) Crushed

Fresh Grated Parmesan Cheese

And here's where the fun starts. This recipe is so versatile. You can add any, all or none of the following ingredients depending on your taste:

1-3 (depending on your taste) tablespoons of capers

1-3 tablespoons of pine nuts (my favorite)

2 or 3 sliced dried red chillies or a teaspoon of red pepper flakes

1/4 Cup of Feta Cheese (this is really good)

Some crumbled bacon (I don't use Bacon Bits, I like to use fresh, cooked bacon)

1/2 Cup of sliced up chicken breast

1/2 Cup of sliced mushrooms

Really, list goes on and on. Use your imagination.

Directions:

Boil your pasta al dente. Do NOT overcook whatever you do.

Drain and Rinse

In a nice sized skillet, heat up olive oil, throw in garlic and cook it until it starts to turn light brown. When the skillet and garlic are nice and hot, throw in your chicken if you are going to use it. Let it get nice and hot. Then it's time to throw in the pasta and toss around for a few minutes - you don't want to brown the pasta but again, you want it to get nice and hot.

Then it's time to toss in whatever else you are adding - capers, peppers, etc.

and toss that around for a minute - not much more.

Finally, throw in your spinach - and toss until it wilts.

Put it in a pretty bowl (I love to use a nice white pasta bowl) and sprinkle with Parmesan. NOTE: if you use Feta cheese, I put that in BEFORE I take it out of the pan so it has a chance to soften up just a wee bit.

Time this takes to prepare - once the spaghetti is cooked - about 5 minutes. It's a beautiful and impressive dish sure to please the most discriminating palette. Great for a light dinner or a fancy lunch.

I like to serve this with some fresh semolina bread and a glass of red wine. Yumm!

Bon appetit!

P.S. I also make this exact same dish but instead of spinach, we use broccoli rabe - I like that even more. It's absolutely delicious - and oh so healthy!