Sauteed Spinach And Garlic

I brought home a bag of spinach from the farmer's market on Saturday. For a long time, I have been looking for a good but easy recipe for sauteed spinach and garlic. It always sounded so easy to make, yet I regularly had less than satisfactory results. Too bitter, too blah, to something... The other night I prepared a variation on Ina Garten's Garlic Sauteed Spinach. You can find the original recipe here.

The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 lbs baby spinach. Well, my farmer's market purchase was a gallon-size zip-loc bag stuffed full of full-sized spinach. I have no idea what it's weight was. Once it cooked down, it served the three of us just about perfectly (as a side dish). I roughly approximated (really roughly) the rest of the ingredients. But the original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons kosher salt and I think this may be too much. I didn't use anywhere near that (because of the smaller amount of spinach I used), but it still was a bit too salty for our tastes. Also, I didn't measure the black pepper at all. I sprinkled it liberally over the spinach in the pot, stirred and repeated. I think it would have benefited from a little more. I love garlic and used the full amount called for. If you are using a strong garlic, that might be overkill. But the stuff I was using was fine.

Sauteed Spinach And Garlic

1 full gallon bag of spinach
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon Real or sea salt (adjust to taste)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (my best guess)
dollop of butter
lemon juice
sprinkle of sea salt

1. Rinse spinach well and dry.
2. In pot or large pan, heat olive oil and saute garlic over medium heat 1 minute.
3. Add all spinach, salt, and pepper. Toss to combine.
4. Cover and cook 2 minutes.
5. Uncover and turn heat to high. Cook 1 minute, stirring, until all spinach is wilted.
6. Remove from heat. Transfer spinach to serving bowl.
7. Top with butter, lemon, sprinkle of salt and serve.