Preserving: Freezing and Drying Spinach

I planted my garden this spring in late March. I included quite a bit of spinach. We like to eat it fresh in salads, and creamed. But even in a small garden, you can get a little too much produce coming in all at once. The recent warm weather made all of my spinach start to bolt. Rather than lose it, I decided to pull all the plants and preserve what was left by freezing and drying.

I picked and trimmed the spinach out in the garden. All of the roots, stems and damaged leaves went into my compost pile. One bag was saved fresh for salads.

I always say the Economy Shop thrift store has what I need, when I need it. Can you believe it, the day I was going to preserve my spinach, I found a steamer to fit over a large pot. It was perfect for blanching.

For the spinach I planned to freeze, I blanched it using steam for two minutes. For the spinach I wanted to dry, I blanched it for only one minute.

I used the smaller leaves for freezing. As you know, spinach cooks down quite a bit, even with brief blanching. Out of two big bags of leaves, I got two containers to freeze. They will be perfect later for creamed spinach. One container will easily serve both of us.

The larger leaves I used for drying. I've never dried spinach before. One recipe said to blanch it for one minute first. Another said to dry it fresh. I went with the blanching method. I put my electric oven on the lowest temperature, 150 degrees. I used a spatula to turn the leaves several times to prevent sticking. In about three hours the leaves were completely dry and crisp. They became very thin, crumbling in the pan. That should be OK. I want to use them crumbled in soups anyway. I think next time I will try it without blanching.

Have you ever dried spinach? Which method did you use? -- Margy