“I’m strong to the finich, ‘cause I eats me spinach. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.” Do these lyrics resonate with a sense of nostalgia when you think of spinach? They do for me.

I was never a big fan of it until a few years ago when a military spouse invited my husband and me over for dinner.  Her husband cooked an amazing meal featuring sautéed spinach as a delicious side dish. Ever since that dinner, I have used spinach whenever possible in my recipes.

As soon as we decided that there would be an InDependent food challenge featuring this wonderful leafy green, I jumped right on it. Here are a few of my favorite dishes featuring spinach. I hope you enjoy the recipes for this week’s #IDFoodChallenge.

Spinach, Tomato, and Goat Cheese Quiche in a Potato Crust

InDependent Original

I love cooking this or making ahead of time and freezing to have on hand for the weekends. As always I love it not only because it is delicious, but colorful.

Ingredients:

Crust

• 2 medium or 1 large potato, peeled and grated

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• Dash of salt and pepper

Filling

• 5 medium eggs

• 1/4 cup milk (you can also use water)

• 1 bag or package of spinach (feel free to use less if you are easing into the taste of spinach)

• 1 medium tomato, diced (remove seeds so there isn’t a lot of liquid in the quiche)

• ½ medium red onion

• 1 small package of goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 F. In a large bowl, grater the potatoes almost making them look like hash browns. Once you have enough to cover a pie plate, mix in the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Line the pie plate with the hash brown mixture like you would normally do with a pie shell. Bake the hash brown pie shell in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown, and then remove to cool for 5 minutes.  Decrease oven temperature to 350 F.

Next, sauté the spinach and onion in a medium pan until the spinach leaves start sweating and then remove immediately. Place the tomatoes in the bottom of the pie crust then place the spinach and onions on top of that. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the veggies. Then crumble the goat cheese on top. Bake the quiche for 40-45 minutes at 350 F, or until the quiche is firm to touch and is golden brown on top. Once completely cooked, remove and let stand for 5-10 minutes.

Mallorca Spinach Salad with Honey Lemon Dressing

InDependent Original

My husband and I travelled to Mallorca with Johanna and her family where we stumbled upon a great restaurant serving this salad. After returning home I wanted to recreate the delicious dish and have used this salad recipe since.

Ingredients:

Salad

• 1 bag/package of spinach

• ½ red onion, diced

• 1 cup of almonds or walnuts

• Dried cranberries (optional)

Dressing

• 1/3 cup of honey

• Lemon juice from one lemon

• 1 tbsp olive oil

Place all salad ingredients into a bowl starting first with the spinach, then red onion, followed by the nuts, and finally the cranberries. In a small bowl, mix together the honey, lemon juice, and olive oil until you come to a consistency similar to salad dressing. For thicker dressing add more honey, for a more liquid dressing, add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil.

Spinach and Portabella Lasagna Roll-Ups

via OhMyVeggies.com

• These took a little more time and work than most of the dishes I enjoy preparing, but it is well worth it. The lasagna rolls are delicious and I will definitely make them again. It helps to have your spouse or a responsible child help make either the sauce or filling.

• I used fresh mozzarella instead of shredded and it tasted wonderful. I used 1 ½ mozzarella balls in the filling and used the remaining ½ of a mozzarella ball for the topping.