Wilted Spinach Lemon Salad with peppers
This dish was inspired by a recent trip to the Wild Mango Restaurant where I had a wilted spinach carmalized with pine nuts recipe. I wanted to duplicate it but haven't done anything like this before. I had spinach and pine nuts so why not try. I first did some research on wilted spinach recipes and came up with entries like this one. I then decided to add some yellow peppers in and had to make some gametime adjustments because I felt the recipe didn't yield enough mixture. Here was my final recipe.
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
6 cups (5-ounces) fresh spinach leaves, washed, dried, and chilled
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 yellow bell pepper
To toast pine nuts: The nuts can burn quickly, so keep eye on the pan. Place nuts in dry skillet and toast them over very low dry skillet and toast them over very low heat, stirring or shaking the pan as needed until they're golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes.
Remove stems and veins from spinach and tear into bite-sized pieces; place spinach in large bowl..
In small frying pan saute chopped yellow pepper with a little olive oil. When done move aside.
In a small frying pan over medium heat, heat oil. Add garlic, salt, pepper, and sugar; saute for 2 to 3 minutes or until garlic is slightly softened. Add lemon juice, stirring to cominbe.
Pour warm vinaigrette over spinach, add in the peppers, and toss gentley to wilt (when properly wilted, the leaf edges soften slightly, but the spinach retains some crunch). Toss in pine nuts. Serve immediately on individual serving plates.