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= YUMMY!There really isn't anything bad that I can say about the Trader Joe's Les Salades du Midi Baby Spinach, except for the fact that I don't really understand the connection to the fancy French. It's really cheap ($1.99) and very tasty and keeps in the fridge for almost two weeks which is usally one week longer than any other lettuce I've ever had.
I think the greated thing about the baby spinach is its versatility. I can use it as the base of a salad, I can add some arugula to it (I've been doing that lately), I can eat it all by itself with just dressing (which happens more often than not since I never seem to have fresh vegis around to toss in a salad but I'm usually in the mood for a salad), I can saute it in a little olive oil and add some cooked corn or tomatoes. It's really become one of my staples, because a little spinach is a great healthy snack and it never seems to go bad in my fridge. Which is kind of creepy but maybe it's also a sign that Paul and I are actually eating lots and lots of spinach like we should be doing.
My current favorite Baby Spinach "recipe" is Baby Spinach, Thousand Island Dressing and Goat Cheese crumbles. A little cheese really does make all the difference in salad, especially when it is delicious and good for you, like goat cheese.
And in case you are wondering, recipe is in quotation marks because I don't think it really technically counts as a recipe if all you are doing is telling people to put things together. But since that is going to be the extent of the cooking advice on this blog, I thought that I need to have an official sounding word like recipe.
Cost:
- $1.99 for 12oz of Baby Spinach
- $1.99 for 4oz of Crumbled Goat Cheese
- $1.69 for 8fl oz of Thousand Island Dressing (I need to double check on that one, seems too good to be true)
Nutrition:
The serving below is enough for two people so the total calories is about 100 per serving.
- 20 calories for 4 cups of Baby Spinach (2 g of dietary fiber)
- 80 calories for 1 oz of Goat Cheese (5g of fat, 3g of protein)
- 110 calories for 2 Tbsp of Thousand Island Dressing (11 g of fat, lordie that's why it tastes so good)
On the back:
Sadly none of the three items has anything funny or cute or interesting on the back, unless of course you cound the "Nothing added, no preservatives, pre-washed, final rinse recommended" on the back of the Baby Spinach.
Although that pre-washed thing is really important to note, actually. See most of the time, I get annoyed by lettuce because you have to rinse it and then you have to spin it in one of those salad spinners which really just means you get green water all over the place and then all you really have is soggy lettuce. With the pre-washed Baby Spinach, I really just toss it in a strainer, splash some water on it and it's all good to go. And if we are being completely honest here, sometimes I don't even do the final rinse (but of course if you've been reading this blog you know that about me already).
Store Location:
The Baby Spinach and the Thousand Island dressing are both in the fresh vegetable section, while the cheese is in the cheese section which is usually pretty close to the fresh vegetable section.
Categories: Dairy_, Heating Up™ Recipes_, Sauces, Dressings and Dips_, Snacks_, Vegetables_
3 comments:
of course it's a recipe! just knowing what to combine makes it important enough to let everyone know. Every recipe is just telling people what to combine, ok sometimes there are a few more instructions and trickier stuff to do, but essentially they are all the same. Example: Recipe for caramel apples: melt Kraft caramels, put sticks in apples, dunk apples. I mean really, and your recipe combines the goodness of baby spinach with the amazing goodness of goat cheese crumble. Now of course I wouldn't be caught dead with thousand island dressing, but hey, can't win 'em all. Love ya! Aunt Marlene
I am going to have to agree with Aunt Marlene here. From the New Oxford English Dictionary:
recipe:
a set of instructions for preparing a particular dish, including a list of the ingredients required
But let's talk about the fact that I had completely forgotten that I hate when you say "fresh veggies" and when I was reading this post I had this horrible flashback to some time when we were talking about eating or a picnic or something and you said we would just have some yummy fresh veggies and I almost vommitted. Vegetables are gross and yucky and the only reason anybody should ever eat them is to lose weight.
I do eat a lot of spinach though, and I was noticing the other day on my bag o' spinach how it told me that spinach is a "magic" food because it provides you so many good things. Now, I kind of think the people at Chiquita should be annoyed because they produce, "quite possibly the world's most perfect food." Perhaps we can arrange a battle of banana vs. spinach and see who comes out on top.
And let's be honest here - you have never once done the recommended final rinse. You totally go straight from bag to plate. But I think that is fine since this stuff is already washed. I applaud your rebel non-washing ways.
Aunt Marlene/Kartik: Okay you both proved that it's a recipe. I especially liked the OED reference.
But I guess the point that I was trying to make is that it's a recipe for people who hate following recipes and just want to throw things together that taste yummy with little or no effort.
It's all very anti-establishment. Just like my refusal to do that final rinse.
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