Easter Feast with Seduction Spinach Gratin

Holy Week is making me long for family and spring blooms. This is a mashup of past pics of my godmother's home, an avid SHF reader, and Eric's sweet family Easter meal from a few years ago. 

Dogwoods have the most beautiful Easter story.

Redbuds always make me think of my sweet Momma. We would drive and she yells in a hello sort of whistle, "Redbud, redbud."

Jeano is the best cook. She roasted lamb a few years ago for our Easter feast, but my favorite memory was of her crab meat stuffed Rockfish. No lasting photos of that sucker sadly.

I look forward to this coming Stone Hill spring. 

We've got a few more weeks for these bright green leaves.

One of my favorite treats is creamed spinach. McCall nicknamed my mother's creamed spinach recipe "Seduction Spinach". It's bizarre I haven't posted the recipe here. I guess because it is so easy that I have it memorized. 

Seduction Spinach, KTPunks Mommy

(1) huge box of fresh baby spinach or (4) frozen boxes of chopped spinach

You can also mix a few boxes of the frozen with a few large handfuls of fresh. The stuff wilts like crazy.

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon butter

Light dusting of flour to make a roux

2 tablespoons chopped horseradish

salt and nutmeg to taste

lemon squeeze

If you are using frozen spinach, cook in a sauce pan with just the frozen blocks of spinach. Let them melt the ice and cook down the water as much as possible. Pour off water if there is too much. If you defrost the spinach box beforehand squeeze as much water out of the box by cutting a little hole in the corner. The less water the better. 

Once spinach is wilted and cooked down, remove any big stems. Add butter. Melt and mix spinach and butter. I sometimes add shallots if I have them but not necessary. Push spinach to side and add flour. Cook flour and butter mixture and add cream to make a roux. Once the roux thickens mix the spinach back in. Add horseradish and seasoning. I love nutmeg in this but you can leave it out. It should be spicy so if two tablespoons isn't enough, put in another heap and you are golden.

Ina's Spinach Gratin

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
4 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups milk
About 3 pounds frozen chopped spinach, defrosted (5 10-ounce packages)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the flour and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes. Add the cream and milk and cook until thickened.

Squeeze as much liquid as possible from the spinach and add the spinach to the sauce. Add 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese and mix well. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.

Transfer the spinach to a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan and the Gruyère on top. Bake for 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbly. Serve immediately. 

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Follow Ina's recipes to the fraction of the ounce. She tests and retests her recipes so that they are foolproof. I truly don't know of any other cookbooks that are so well tested. I added WAY too much cheese in this recipe and it turned greasy (see last photo). I'm a glutton for Gruyere and it was a hot mess of oil. Bad Nellie. In Ina We Trust. 

In this recipe she suggests making the roux first. You know your roux is ready when you can drag a spoon through it.

Then she adds the squeezed out spinach.

I added horseradish to make it "a la seduction" spinach.

Just use the 1/2 cup of Gruyere.

This was the problem. I added at least a full cup on the top.

It was still delicious but the half cup would have been less oily and more crispy. Yum. Crispy Seduction Spinach Gratin.

Family meals at the Somerville's are always wonderful. Kim makes her famous potato salad and Aunt Barbara usually makes her 4 cheese mac and cheese. 

Good memories from a few years ago.

Sending good Easter Feast vibes your way as you plan your menus this week.

Barefoot Contessa Chocolate Chunk Cookies

After missing the Christmas cookie season I got a wild hair and whipped up Ina's Chocolate Chunk cookies. I usually just use the Toll House recipe on the back of the bag. They were sold out of the regular sized morsels so I grabbed the chocolate chunks. Who knew? I'd been reading the Barefoot Contessa Parties cookbook and saw this recipe and just happened to already have the chunky chunks in my pantry. Score on so many fronts.  

Ina's recipes are flawless in my opinion. I've never ever had an issue. If I add extra cheese to the spinach gratin, it turns out greasy. Trust me and TRUST our dear and beloved Ina. The girl has tested her recipes. 

I used a huge ass ice cream scoop vs the danty 1 3/4 inch one she suggests. I knew they looked huge but put them in the oven anyway.

I checked them at about 4 minutes and knew they were all wrong. I salvaged the second sheet but the first one was a goner. Some mistakes turn out to be blessings in disguise. I cut the melty cookies in half, pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment paper, and started over, making smaller melted mounds. It had a swirly, marbled effect on these little babies. No harm. No foul.

You only cook these cookies for 15 minutes at 350. Do as she says, exactly. This was the "perfect" batch.

Down to cooking them on the sheet for a few extra minutes outside of the oven and then moving them to the cooling racks. 

The bottoms of the cookies were just perfection. Can you hear my enthusiasm Ina? I love you! Thank you for the tireless hours you spend on these recipes. 

I have been craving sugar like MAD crazy after my surgery. The medicine has curbed my appetite and by the end of the day I'm starving and pound a coca-cola. I never drink Coke's anymore and have had one a day for the last two weeks. I haven't had caffeine or wine/beer/alcohol but lots of hot chocolate and sugary stuff. When I don't have it, I get headaches. I realized this week, "Holy f-bomb, I'm addicted to sugar, and bad." So I hopped on the Twitter highway and reconnected with Sarah Stanley, a fantastic health coach and inspiration to get back on track. I happened to jump on her #wellnesschat this past Thursday night at 8:00 pm eastern and even won something! More on that soon. E took the cookies to work. Another blessing in disguise.