2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The long-awaited spring has come, when all living things wake up. Trees and bushes are trying on spring outfits, green grass appears on the surface of the earth. And at this great time, it's time to think about preparations for the winter from the first useful goodies. Today I will tell you how not to miss this opportunity and collect invaluable vitamin material
In the month of May, you can already stock up on young spinach leaves, which are rich in unthinkable amounts of nutrients.
The benefits of spinach
Spinach is an early ripening crop that surpasses many other vegetables in protein, iron and vitamins. The leaves of this culture contain a lot of carotene, mineral salts, malic and ascorbic acid. As a valuable food product, spinach is used in baby and diet food. The body perfectly assimilates spinach, while improving the activity of the salivary and pancreas.
Sometimes spinach is confused with sorrel, but take a closer look and you can easily spot the difference. Spinach has dark, rounded leaves, while sorrel leaves are light and pungent. The two cultures also taste different, spinach is very delicate, with a subtle bitter taste, and sorrel is sour.
When there are no other fresh vegetables in the garden on the beds in the open field, spinach is already ready to delight you with young greens. If you plant spinach seeds in August, you can get your first crop in early spring. After the snow melts, after 15 to 20 days the spinach develops 5 to 6 leaves and is ready to eat.
The use of spinach in cooking
In cooking, only spinach leaves are used, despite the apparent juiciness of the stems. Tear off the leaves in dry weather, after rain they break easily. Fresh leaves are stored at zero temperature and 90% humidity for no more than a week.
Eating fresh spinach will be most beneficial, adding leaves to all kinds of salads. Some foodies combine spinach leaves with cheese and eggs to create a sandwich-like feel. Spinach is cooked in different ways: boiled, stewed, fried. Often using spinach, cream soups are brewed, where the plant is mashed and added to the dish. Spinach is also added to the second courses - it can be a side dish for meat, sauté, spinach puree. Ready-made spinach dishes are not stored for a long time and are not reheated, otherwise nitric acid is formed, which is dangerous for digestion.
Canning spinach
For blanks, only young spinach leaves are used, in which oxalic acid has not yet formed. For canning, the leaves are cut in the morning and quickly processed so that the canned food has a good green color and excellent taste.
Green spinach puree
Spinach, as well as sorrel, is mainly mashed. The leaves are washed with running water, blanched in a metal colander, in boiling water, for 4 - 5 minutes. The resulting leaves are rubbed into a mushy mass. Next, the mixture is boiled in an enamel bowl over low heat, stirring constantly for 10 minutes. It should be cooked in salted water. The puree should be boiled until thick. Hot mashed potatoes are poured into sterilized jars. Some gardeners do not sterilize jars, but simply close them with nylon lids and send them to the refrigerator.
Frozen spinach
For winter borscht, frozen spinach is a great addition. We wash the leaves, cut into strips and blanch for two minutes. After cooling down, put the mass in plastic containers and put it in the freezer.
To shorten the time, enterprising housewives place greens in a plastic bag in the microwave for a minute, setting the power to 600 watts. After this procedure, the volume of the leaves is reduced by three times, but the juice is not washed out. We transfer the spinach leaves to a bag or any other storage container, cool and send them to the freezer.
Salted spinach
The leaves are washed, allowed to drain, placed in glass jars, sprinkling each layer with salt, and oppression is placed on top. When the leaves have settled, add a new batch of fresh leaves. Tamped cans are closed with a lid and stored in the refrigerator.
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