Scalloped Spinach

* 2 lbs. spinach
* 2 cups milk
* 4 tblsp. butter
* salt
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 2 cups bread crumbs
* ½ cup chopped bacon
* pepper

Wash spinach thoroughly. Drain and cook with a little water in covered pot, over moderate heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and chop the spinach. Add milk, the beaten eggs, 1½ cups of the bread crumbs, melted butter, salt and pepper then mix well. Sprinkle the remaining ½ cup bread crumbs and the chopped bacon, on the top. Bake in moderate oven (350-f) 35 minutes.

Spinach Recipes: Choosing and Preparing

Spinach requires dose examination and picking, as insects are frequently found among it and it is often gritty. Wash it through three or four waters. Then drain it and put it in boiling water. Fifteen to twenty minutes is generally sufficient time to boil spinach. Be careful to remove the scum. When it is quite tender, take it up, and drain and squeeze it well. Chop it fine, and put it into a saucepan with a piece of butter and a little pepper and salt. Set it on the fire and let it stew five minutes, stirring it all the while.

It should be cooked so as to retain its bright green color and not sent to table, as it so often is, of a dull brown or olive color; to retain its fresh appearance, do not cover the vessel while it is cooking.

Cream of Spinach Soup

Although cream-of-spinach soup is not especially attractive in appearance, most persons enjoy its flavor, and the soup serves as another way of adding an iron-containing food to the diet. Children may often be induced to take the soup when they would refuse the spinach as a vegetable.

(Sufficient to Serve Four)

1 pt. milk
2 Tb. flour
2 Tb. butter
1/2 c. spinach purée
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Make white sauce of the milk, flour, and butter. Add the spinach purée, made by forcing freshly cooked or canned spinach through a sieve. Season with the salt and pepper, heat thoroughly, and serve.

Cream of Spinach

Pick, wash and boil enough spinach to measure a pint, when cooked, chopped and pounded into a soft paste. Put it into a stewpan with four ounces of fresh butter, a little grated nutmeg, a teaspoonful of salt. Cook and stir it about ten minutes. Add to this two quarts of strong stock; let boil up, then rub it through a strainer. Set it over the fire again, and, when on the point of boiling, mix with it a tablespoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of granulated sugar.

Spinach Recipes: Italian Spinach Side-Dish (Spinaci per contorno)

After cooking the spinach in boiling water and chopping them fine, the spinach can be cooked in different ways:

1. With butter, salt and pepper, adding a little brown stock, if you have it, or a few tablespoonfuls of broth, or milk.

2. With onion sauce (onion chopped very fine) and butter.

3. With butter salt and pepper, adding a very small pinch of grated cheese.

4. With butter, a drop of olive oil and tomato sauce or tomato paste diluted with soup stock or water.

Baked Spinach

Use one-half peck of spinach. Pick over the leaves carefully, remove all wilted ones and roots, wash thoroughly and put in boiling water to which a pinch of soda has been added to keep the color. When very tender, drain, chop fine, and put into a baking dish. Put into a saucepan with a cup of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, one small teaspoonful of salt, a dash of cayenne pepper and a very little grated nutmeg. Let this come to a boil, stir into the spinach, add two well beaten eggs and bake ten minutes in a hot oven.

Spinach and Bacon

Line a pudding dish with thin slices of raw bacon. Take boiled spinach, ready for the table, season with butter, salt and pepper. Take also some boiled carrots, turnips and onions. Whip up the yolk of an egg with pepper and salt, and stir into the carrots and turnips. Arrange the vegetables alternately in the dish and partially fill with boiling water. Steam for an hour. Turn out on a flat dish, and serve with a rich brown gravy.

Spinach Balls

Put a slightly heaping tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of cream, and half a teaspoonful of sugar into a saucepan on the stove, mix well, and when it boils add a heaping tablespoonful of flour--as much as will stay on the spoon--let it come to a boil, and then add three-quarters of a cup of cooked and finely chopped spinach, beat well and remove from the fire. When cold add two eggs, one at a time, season with salt and pepper to taste and half a saltspoonful of powdered mace. Have a saucepan of boiling water, slightly salted, on the stove; dip a tablespoon in cold water, and then take up enough of the spinach mixture to make an oblong cake, in shape like an egg cut in half lengthwise, then dip the spoon in the boiling water and let the cake float off. Use all the mixture in this way. The balls will cook in four or five minutes, and they must not boil too fast or they will break.

Let them drain in a colander while making a cream sauce, and when the sauce is made put the balls into it and let them come to a boil, turn out on a platter and garnish with parsley.

Spinach Souffle

* 2 Tb. butter
* 1/2 c. hot milk
* 2 Tb. flour
* 1 c. spinach purée
* 1 tsp. salt
* 2 egg whites
* Dash of pepper

Melt the butter, add the flour, salt, pepper, and hot milk, and stir in the spinach purée. Beat the egg whites stiff and fold them into the mixture. Grease individual baking dishes or a large baking dish and fill two-thirds full with the mixture. Place in a pan of hot water and bake in a slow oven until firm, or for about 20 or 30 minutes.

Spinach Royal

* 1/2 pk. spinach
* 1/3 c. water
* 1-1/2 tsp. salt
* 3 Tb. bacon fat or butter
* 3 Tb. flour
* 1/8 tsp. pepper
* Triangular pieces of toast
* 2 hard-cooked eggs
* 1 lemon

Look the spinach over carefully and remove all roots and dead leaves. Cut the stalks apart and wash them thoroughly several times in fresh, clean water to remove the sand and dirt, lifting the spinach out of the water each time instead of pouring the water off. Put the spinach into a saucepan with the water. Stir frequently until the spinach is wilted and there is sufficient water to boil it. Add 1 teaspoonful of the salt and cook until the leaves are very tender, or for about 15 or 20 minutes. Drain off all but about 1/2 cupful of the liquid. Melt the fat in a frying pan, stir the flour into it, brown to a golden brown, and then add the spinach, pepper, and remaining salt. Stir and cook until the flour has thickened and mixed well with the spinach. Turn out in a mound on a platter and place the pieces of toast around the spinach as shown. Slice the hard-cooked eggs, cut the lemon into any desirable shape, and use these to garnish the platter. In serving this dish, put a spoonful of spinach on a piece of toast and serve a slice or two of egg and lemon with each portion.