I cut this recipe out of the Virginian Pilot which is, as one would imagine by now, the only physical newspaper I receive! It sounded good as written, but I made a few modifications. I am capable of following directions, just unwilling to do so!

First, I reduced the oil to approximately ½ a teaspoon. The article that accompanied this may have indicated you can just use zero calorie cooking spray as well. Next time I might do that to limit the fat and calories. It would be important to heat the pan first. I have burned plenty of garlic in my life trying to get the pan hot after putting the garlic in!

I used a cherry red pepper that was diced more than thinly sliced. I did remove all of the seeds of the pepper. I also used a tablespoon of pre-chopped garlic. Hungry two year olds do not wait for fresh chopped garlic! I added both to the hot pan. Once I could smell them cooking I added a bag of spinach, after rinsing it off. It cooked up in a couple of minutes like the recipe said, stirring continuously. If you don’t some will wilt and some will not, so the dish will look funny. It should also be noted that a bag of spinach wilts into two adult servings so if you are cooking for a crew, you need to make more!

Once I took it off the stove, I added some salt and garnished with a lemon (see photo). Once we sat down to dinner, I discovered two things:

1.      Dicing the pepper instead of thinly slicing keeps the spice form permeating the spinach. In my case, this was ideal since my two year old doesn’t care for spicy things yet.

2.      The lemon makes the dish. Adding it offsets the spice a bit and goes great with the spinach. This should be the first ingredient in the recipe!

My two year old ate the spinach without the pepper (and most of a lemon wedge, kids are funny). I squeezed the lemon over the leftovers and ate them the next day and the flavor was intact. Another one for the keeper file!