Hello friend! Amanda and Nicole here.
Have you ever been responsible for storing three totes full of abnormally large spinach? Because we have! And we have written a step-by-step guide just for you based off of our very own experience at the Fresh Roots’ Norquay office. So, if you ever find yourself in this situation, do not fret. Follow this guide, and you will achieve three-tote-mega-spinach-storing success!
You will need:
- Three totes of abnormally large spinach
- A sink
- A strainer
- 12 ziplock bags
- A refrigerator
- A freezer (stored in a location that does not have an outlet)
- A funny smelling cleaner
- Two spoons
- A large pot
- A standing desk in need of assembling
Step 1: Give your spinach a rinse and stuff them into ziplock bags!
The spinach arrived at our office this morning a little dirty. We filled up the sink to about a quarter of the way full of cold water, gave them a wash, shook off the excess, and stuffed them into ziplock bags. We ended up with twelve entire bags full of spinach!
Step 2: Realize that twelve bags of spinach cannot fit in your freezer.
We love our fridge’s freezer here at Fresh Roots. We freeze a lot of things! So much so, that when it came time to try to fit twelve bags of spinach into the freezer – well… that didn’t work out too well. Thankfully, Ros remembered that we had another freezer stored away in the office’s storage space.
Step 3: Clean the other freezer.
Ros went quickly to work, grabbed a funny smelling cleaner, and started cleaning away. The freezer was nice and clean afterwards, and definitely ready to house twelve bags of spinach. All we had to do was plug it in…
Step 4: (Try to) Plug in the freezer… and realize there is no outlet to plug it into.
Upon realizing that, Nicole, Ros and I had to decide between two courses of action. Either, we had to:
- clear out space in our office’s closet, carry the freezer from the storage room into said closet, plug the freezer into an extension cord and plug the extension cord into the outlet under the office’s standing desk OR
- blanch the spinach!
We chose to blanch the spinach.
Step 5: Stuff the spinach into the available crevasses of the fridge for a few hours while you go out and solicit donations.
Nicole and I had other things to do to prepare for this summer’s SOYL Program, so we let the spinach cool in ice out in the fridge to cool for a few hours. While it was cooling, we went on a trip around East Vancouver trying to get donations to support Community Eats!
Step 6: Google “how to blanch spinach”
Ros found this one:
https://www.wikihow.com/Blanch-Spinach
To summarize, all we had to do was boil the spinach for a few moments (until it turned bright green) strain it, flash-freeze by soaking it in an icebath, and squeeze out all of the excess water. What happens next? The spinach shrinks down to about one-tenth of its size, making it way easier to store!
Step 7: Begin to boil some water and realize that you have no ice to make an ice bath
Not a problem – just go out and find ice! It’s everywhere, neighbours, gas stations, and of course the grocery store. Just make sure you get A LOT!
Step 8: Prepare an ice bath.
It worked like a charm!
Step 9: Blanch the spinach by cooking it in boiled water for 60 seconds, straining it, dipping it in the ice bath
Then you can squeeze it into little spinach balls!
Step 10 (Optional): Master the art of spinach blanching and assemble a standing desk
After blanching so much spinach, you will have reached spinach blanching nirvana. You can now move on to doing other things while your spinach is being blanched – like building a standing desk!
Step 11: Voila! You have reduced 12 bags of spinach down to 2!
We were able to store the spinach in the freezer with no trouble at all. Overall, we’d have to say that our spinach-storing journey was a success. 10/10. Would blanch again.
Well, congratulations! You now know how to blanch spinach! Now you can sleep peacefully at night knowing that if three totes of spinach ever arrive at your doorstep, you’ll know exactly what to do with it.
You’re welcome.
-Amanda and Nicole