TOMATO SPINACH

This is one of our favourite City-Smallholder recipes, due to its simplicity, great taste and health benefits. We cook this all year around, almost every week, using spinach from our garden (fresh in the summer, frozen in the winter). In the winter months, especially, when our consumption of fresh vegetables is more limited, this recipe gives us just the vitamin-boost we need.

Ingredients:

• 500 g of fresh or frozen spinach
• 1 onion
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (or 4 large-sized tomatoes, chopped)
• 1 cube of vegetable stock
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parsley (optional)

Process:

1. Chop the onion and fry it in oil for a few minutes.
2. Add 1 cube of vegetable stock and stir.
3. Add the spinach leaves and stir until they have gone soft and started to release water. If using fresh spinach, you may need to add the leaves gradually, as they will fill the saucepan initially but quickly shrink down.
4. Cook the spinach for 5-10 minutes.
5. Add the tin of chopped tomatoes and cook gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add salt and pepper according to taste. Adding a little parsley is optional.
7. Taste the food to check that the spinach leaves have the correct degree of softness and are seasoned to your taste.
8. When it’s ready, remove from the hob and let it rest for a few minutes before serving. You can serve this as a side-dish or as a meal in itself, together with a few chicken wings (as in our picture), sausages or fried eggs.

Note: Fresh spinach will cook much faster than frozen spinach, therefore tasting the food while you cook it is essential in order to avoid over/undercooking it.

Tomato Spinach - a simple, quick, all year round recipe