I’ll be the first to admit that our kids are a little strange. When you consider the fact that they love spinach, I think you’ll agree with me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we introduced them to Popeye and the power of spinach early on. Or maybe it’s because it’s been a regular part of their diets since they started eating solid foods.
Whatever the reason, I choose to not examine it too much and just enjoy it while it lasts. Spinach gets added to a ton of our meals but when it comes to serving it as a side dish, I usually rely on my Creamed Spinach recipe and that’s it. While that’s delicious and fine for an occasional side, I’ve been trying to lighten our meals up a bit (more on that below). So I decided a new go-to spinach side dish was in order and that’s how this dish was born.
The balsamic flavor, with just a touch of dijon mustard, it a great compliment to the spinach and the water chestnuts add a great crunch. It’s not creamed spinach, that’s for sure, but it’s still delicious!
Balsamic Spinach & Water Chestnuts
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 Vidalia onion, diced
- 1 16 oz bag frozen spinach (or about 1 1/2-2 pounds fresh spinach)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 can sliced water chestnuts
- 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp each salt, pepper, garlic powder
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add spinach and water chestnuts; season to taste with salt and pepper, and cook an additional 5 minutes.
- While the spinach cooks, whisk together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour into the skillet and cook for 1 minute. Enjoy!
Now, as I mentioned above, I have been working to lighten things up a bit because 2012 is the year when I finally lose some weight and get fit! Since I started in early January, I’ve lost 15 pounds and have about 20-25 more to go. This will only minimally affect the content here because there are 6 other people in this house that have to eat and none of them are trying to lose 40 pounds. (Plus honestly, they’ve all come to expect eating a certain way and I’m all for that!)
But, if you’d like to follow along on my weight loss journey, I’m blogging all about it for HealthyWage. You can check out my first post here if you’d like. Anyone else working on losing weight this year?