Canopies are more than a shade structure.

Canapes aux Epinards -- Spinach and Cheese Canapes

First, the photo doesn't do this dish justice - it is now my favorite way to eat spinach! Second, I have no idea how to pronounce the French name of this but I'm guessing it shouldn't rhyme with "canopy." I loved the taste and texture of this combination of toasted bread, spinach, cheese, and breadcrumbs. Definitely not something you can just pop in the microwave but it was worth the effort. The only regret was that I didn't make more of these!

I actually made two different spinach dishes at the same time because everything except the final step was the same but I'll write about the other one (Epinards Gratines au Fromage) in a separate post. I suppose I may actually have a second regret -- I made this after I'd finished mowing the lawn. Spinach doesn't actually look much like grass but once I got well into the preparation of it (braised, chopped, and simmered) the appearance truly began to look like the wet grass that gets stuck to the bottom of the lawn mower. Hmmmmm, not very appetizing sounding but it's a pretty accurate description.

This recipe sounded pretty quick and easy -- just put some spinach and cheese on top of pieces of bread. Oh Julia, you are so sneaky. I know that Julia likes to use a "master recipe" and then add variations to it but this one set a new record -- 4 recipes to get to the final dish in the following order:

1. Epinards Blanchis

2. Puree D'Epinards Simple

3. Epinards au Jus

4. Canapes au Epinards

First the spinach was blanched, then it was chopped, then it was braised in beef stock, then the Canapes were ready to be made. I may have also set a new record for the dishwasher (thanks sous chefs for doing my dishes!!):

- 6 pots and pans

- 1 colander

- 3 mixing bowls

- 2 sides of a a cutting board

- 1 stirring spoon

- 1 spatula

- 1 mandolin

Ahhhh, but it was soooooooo worth it. In spite of my two near disasters...

I really enjoy blanching spinach. The transformation is amazing. The spinach leaves go from being a light olive green (Why isn't it called spinach green? Go figure.) to a dark green almost immediately after it hits the boiling water. My last spinach dish surprised me with how much the volume of spinach reduced as it was cooked and I ended up with only a small soup bowl of finished product. To make sure that didn't happen tonight I started out with 3 12 pounds of spinach. Yep, I had plenty.

Blanching the spinach starts with the largest pot of water possible. Julia taught me the good reason behind that. The water gets nice and hot as it is boiling and then when the cold vegetables are added they lower the water temperature and the boiling stops. Its important to keep the water boiling as much as possible when blanching the vegetables so the trick is to have as much water as possible -- the larger the volume of boiling water the less effect the cold vegetables will have. Keeping that in mind, I had that giant pot of mine as full as I could get it, about 2 inches from the top...before I added the raw spinach. I figured that would be safe because since I knew the spinach would shrink down when it hit the boiling water, which it did. I also though it would be safe since those big old boiling bubbles had two inches before they could jump out of the pot. Any guesses where this is headed?

I was watching that pot of boiling water, filled with spinach boiling away. It was boiling happily away with all the spinach added and didn't even seem to be thinking of boiling over. Besides, I only needed it to boil for about 2 minutes. About a minute and a half into it, everything still boiling happily away, I decided I could quickly scoop up the empty bags and container the spinach had been in and toss them into the trash. Lesson #1 for tonight - spinach is like the ocean, you should never turn your back on it! As soon as I turned around I began hearing splashing and sizzling sounds as a sea of green frothy bubbles were jumping out of the pot and diving for the stove. Lesson #2 -- if you're a green frothy bubble you should dive onto a hot burner on the stove, your life expectancy on the stovetop is very very short. At least I was smart enough to use a pot holder when I pulled the pot off of the burner to stop the attack of the bubbles. No injury this time!

Note to Elizabeth: I hope you realize that I haven't gotten any burns since purchasing my candy thermometer.

After the spinach was done boiling (blanching) it was quickly drained and rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking process. This much spinach had a lot of heat so it took a lot of rinsing and a final draining. Do you like to play with your food? Well, this preparation will give you your chance. After being blanched and rinsed it is important to remove as much moisture from the spinach as possible to prevent everything being prepared from being juicy and soupy (unless, of course, you are making spinach soup...). According to Julia, the best way to do that is to take handfuls of drained spinach and squeeze it to remove the water. After that was done, the spinach was then put into a skillet with a little butter, salt, and pepper and cooked to remove the moisture (or as Julia would say, "humidity") from the spinach.

For this particular recipe, the spinach was then braised in beef broth for a little bit and then grated swiss cheese (yep, I used my mandolin and still didn't remove any skin from my fingertips) was all stirred together. This wasn't the final step but it was sure tasting pretty good at this point (remember, a good chef always tastes their food!). Julia said to use white bread but with this being Pennsylvania I decided to use some fresh potato bread. The crust was cut off and then the bread was cut into 2" wide strips which were quickly sauteed in a skillet to lightly brown them. The spinach mixture was then spooned on top of the bread and a mixture of grated cheese and bread crumbs was sprinkled on top.

Lesson #3 came during the final step. Broilers are realllllllllllly hot. Julia said to place the canapes into the oven under the broiler to "heat through and brown lightly." I'd managed to lightly brown my strips of bread, they were really beautiful! I managed to construct my canapes beautifully! Then I popped them into the oven and checked them after about 1 minute. Aaaaccck! I was on the verge of turning them into smoking charcoal cinders!!! Luckily I checked them and disaster was narrowly averted but in another minute everything would have been toast. Literally! Next time I'll put them in that broiler for only about 30 seconds.

As it turned out though, these were really really tasty. As a matter of fact, my sous chef Kathryn attempted to hide the plate of them after taking her first bite. I think that's a good sign that I wasn't the only one thinking these things were tasty. Another one that goes onto my make again list and definitely one I'll make when company comes over for dinner.

Bon appetit!